hungarian mini-marts

I think it is so funny that at any given hungarian convenience store, no matter how tiny, it is possible to buy at least four varieties of sour cream and cottage cheese, but there is never a bag of chips in sight (much less a slurpee machine). Incidentally, under communism most of these state-run stores were called 'ABC' and now they are called 'CBA' . . . way to make a statement. 

my hungarian name

I realized today in hungarian class that my name in hungarian basically means "woman belonging to Brian" since the "ne" suffix is what is added to a man's last name to create the woman's given name after marriage. After squashing my feminist indignation, I am taking this as a sign and will now be entertaining offers for marriage from anyone named Brian. 

brand new buda blog!

I can no longer ignore the onslaught of cries for me to start my own blog (there have been two, both from kara). So it is with greatest pleasure that I unveil my new blog. The background color represents the food I miss most: pumpkin. Soon, Starbucks will be bringing back the pumpkin-spice latte and I won't be there to greet its arrival. It is already quite cold here and yesterday I suffered my first complete-loss-of-color-in-my-feet ordeal, so it looks like it will be a long winter without kami's uggs by my side. We have no control over the heat in our apartment. It turns on automatically on October 15, and once it does there is no way to turn it down. So apparently, the whole building spends the winter roasting to death or leaving the windows open because of the least economically and ecologically friendly heating system ever invented. 

On a more positive note, I have located the best falafel in town, started taking Hungarian lessons again, and tentatively joined a choir and a hiking club. Although after yesterday's numb feet I am thinking about dropping the hiking club in favor of some sort of sock-knitting, sheep-shearing, or pyromaniacs association.