Igen Magyar!

I arrived in Budapest a week ago with a challenge: to make this my new home. I’ve visited Budapest several times over the past few years, but now I've been asked to make our office here my base.

While I have to put my US life on hold yet again, I am excited to take on another delegation in Europe. And Budapest is one of the greatest cities in which to do so. One of the new EU member states, Hungary is experiencing somewhat of an economic boom. But I don’t care too much about that. What really invigorates me is the constant reminder of the great Austro-Hungarian Empire, to which I find myself feeling a sort of allegiance. While transforming into a modern city since it became an independent republic some 15 years ago, Hungary retains amazing references to the former imperial days through her architecture, culture, and general way of life. I always get the feeling that the royal family is up in the palace protecting us and ensuring our prominent and peaceful place in the world.

History can be found everywhere in this city. I set out today to achieve my simple objective, that being trying to find some local markets. I spent most of my time walking down Béla Bartók street (named for the great Hungarian composer and pianist) and October 23 street (commemorating the uprising against the Soviets in 1966). Unfortunately, the markets were all closed by 13:00, which is when I arrived. I guess the fact that there are no 24-hour super-mega grocery stores also somewhat preserves and respects history.

Linguistically, Hungarian is unfortunately not related to any of the languages with which I’m familiar. But I’m prepared, having loaded a full set of language lessons onto my iPod prior to my departure. I am proud to announce that I have made some progress. When people speak to me, I used to confidently reply “nem Magyar.” That, unfortunately, means “no Hungary” (and I think that could be construed as a political insult… oops! To attempt to make up for my ignorant aspersion, I’ve titled this entry “Igen Magyar!” meaning “Yes Hungary!”). Just yesterday, on my way to the secret lunch place (more on that in a future blog), I learned that “nem beszélek magyarul” is actually what I should have been saying.

I’m not much of a blogger, having spent 9 years in the publishing world, complete with editors, proofreaders, fact-checkers, and a production team (and, of course, a sales team!). But I’m ready to embrace the medium, assuming the full publishing workflow on my own (and with no plans of selling advertising space). The editors and proofreaders are replaced by Microsoft Word, the fact-checkers by wikipedia.org, and the production team by blogger.com (I guess saving all of the staffing costs no longer requires a sales team to support them all!). In any case, I’ll throw my random tangential thoughts here, so it will be like I never left New York City. As they say in the UK, “press us!” (or rather, bookmark this page).