sam and the city

Budapest Part I - language issues

Good day faithful readers. What did you do on the weekend? Me, I went to Budapest, and it was gooood! I was quite nervous before I went. Every time I’d travelled to non-English speaking countries previously I certainly wasn’t fluent, but at least I had known the very basics like yes, no, thankyou, hello, goodbye, and some of the numbers. Going to Hungary my entire vocabulary was limited to “Goulash” and “hello”. Don’t get me wrong, I tried, but how are you supposed to remember, let alone pronounce words that are different combinations of vowels and z’s?

The only reason that “hello” stuck in my head is that in Hungarian it is “szervusz”, which according to my faithful phrase book pronounced “ser-vus”. Every time I thought about it I’d picture a group of people sitting impatiently at a Hungarian restaurant yelling at the waiter “SERVE US”! The waiter looking around smiles, gives a little wave and wonders to himself why these customers are so vocal and persistent with their greetings.

As it happened though, my phrase book was almost entirely unnecessary. Every time that I went somewhere I’d spend an hour practicing my lines, walk up, confidently say “szervusz” (then chuckle to myself) and the person would reply in perfect English! I’ve actually come to the conclusion that no-one in Hungary says “szervusz”, they all say “hello”, albeit in a strange accent that kind of sounds like pillow without the p. Either this or they can spot a foreigner like myself a mile away.

I’ve probably got a bit of a bias view because of the areas that I visited, but it seams as though Hungarian is nearly turning into a second language in its own country. You can certainly see the need though when a single person is having to deal with people from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, other Easter European countries, all one after the other. The entire time that I was in Budapest I only came across one person who didn’t speak English, and that was the 200 year old lady operating the cloak room at the national gallery… and I’m sure that she was probably taking lessons.

posted by sam @ 10:15 pm 0 comments

Good samaritan

Good day faithful readers. Traveling on the tube here in London isn't for the faint hearted. There are all sorts of hazards one has to negotiate on a daily basis, and this is on top of the dreaded "gap" that we're constantly being told to mind.

One that I find particularly hazardous, and one which has caught me out numerous times is the ticket gate. If you're just slightly too sluggish it'll try and have you. If you happen to have bags with you then might as well lay down and accept your fate. The worst scenario is that it'll snap its jaws shut and refuse to let go, with you on one side and your bags on the other.

This morning I had to travel to Bristol for a meeting. While waiting at the station to catch my train I spotted a poor soul in exactly the scenario described. Even worse, the item of luggage stuck on the other side of the gates was the backpack that he was wearing. No matter how much he squirmed he couldn't turn around to extract himself. Before he was taken into a death roll I rushed over to be of assistance.

All that was required was for me to lift the bag up slightly to let if come over top of the gates. Unfortunately the victim had worked himself into such a state that he tugged on the bag just as I was lifting it up. This caused it to jerk toward him, which in turn caused him to drop his coffee which then splashed all over me. Covering me and my suit, which I had literally had drycleaned the day before, from head to toe.

As I stood there, speechless, dripping, the victim looked me up and down, said thanks and walked off to catch his train without a word of apology. Leaving me to go to my meeting looking like I'd stepped straight out the garbage heap into the office.

The moral of this story? If you ever see someone lying on the ground in need, do NOT lend a hand. Instead give them a swift kick and be on your way! No more good samaritan behaviour for me.

posted by sam @ 8:17 pm 1 comments