Day II

Day II,

I think as the days past, and the novelty of a new place wears off, I am starting to really settle in to living here.... while I've only been here for almost a week, I already am starting to become a bit more comfortable in my surroundings. My 'traveler' mentality is starting to fade....and I hope to get into some sort of routine (or else my MRP will NEVER get written!).

While yesterday was my first day, today was really my first day, as the time for meet and greet was over, and well it was my turn to get down to business and start working, applying what I have learned to the real world. So far, the most important thing that I have been given is to become acquainted with the country level and regional politics. Learning the political structure, names and faces is perhaps the more fascinating- and most confusing part learning about a country. It also made the day feel very long... all this 'newness' is pretty exhausting!

SO far, so good.

I also got another phrase book today (which is good, because I lost mine on SUnday and have been sans linguistic aid since then!). I think I might have left it on a bench outside Ikea.....oh well. I have decided to concentrate on learning numbers now...because those are important...especially 1-10 and perhaps 1-100. So far a similarity be French, English and Hungarian can be found in their number system, (yes!). as after 10 the next number is literally 10-1 (eleven), 10-2 (twelve), 10-3 (thirteen), 10-4 (fourteen). So knowing one to ten, then each multiple of 10 after that to one hundred will vastly increase my vocabulary! I also found out today that the measurement system here uses kilos and decagrams (which are multiples of 10). This might explain why I got a funny look when ordering 10 decagrams of something....).

For those of you who wish to read about every detail of my live, after work I went to the DM, which is the German equivalent to Boots and Shopper's Drug Mart. Goal: Mouth Wash, teeth flossers, and shampoo. Outcome: success. Actions to achieve goal: analyzed the German words on the mouth wash bottle (thank gosh you can actually read German out loud in English, and it sort of sounds like either some odd accent in English, or something very literal. (to do this I had to peel back the Hungarian language sticker that was plastered on top of the German). For the shampoo, I smelt them, and settled on Dove...as it smelt most like home, and well frankly the mouth wash translations were tiring enough. The tooth picker floss things were easy...just had to look for them.... Max comes tomorrow (yeah!), I may take him back to DM to be a free translator!

After the DM, I stopped at the Spar for a snack ( I still haven't gotten the nerve up to going to the very scrumptious smelling pastry shops that are at every metro stop, and every other street corner, I really need to hurry up and become more confident in Hungarian!). There I also bought this bread that looks like Challah, but there seems to be dark and light bread mixed together, its marbled!. That was exciting. Then I ended up on the red metro line instead of the blue, only slightly changing my route home.

When I got home I wrote a 'article' for the uOttawa 'blog' that I have to contribute to, and now, well I am writing on this one. the uOttawa blog was actually harder than I thought....I didn't really know what to write about! When it is posted, I will post it here...but I promise you, it's not as exciting or photo-laden is this one is!


I also started to do some laundry....and of course, the laundry machine is vastly different than north American versions of laundry machines...how to describe? well, for starters, the machine is top loading, but the barrel that the clothes go in is actually in the same position as a north American front loading laundry machine. You have to physically 'open' the barrel (after you open the separate lid), and put in the clothes. The lid has 4 different dispensers on it...and the pictures don't really say much regarding what goes where...I decided to wash the towels first....just in case.....I am fearful of putting in the rest of my clothes...not because I am afraid that they will be ruined....more that I don't want to have to deal with shopping for new clothes....its no fun shopping when you need something!


It is getting late here, so, in the vain hope that I can get to bed early tonight....I should head off!

Happy rest of day everyone!

Jess