Oops

Until I learn Hungarian, I am going to have serious communication issues. Meaning I will have issues as long as I am here. (I just signed up for weekly language lessons but am not optimistic. Someone told me Hindi is closer than Hungarian to English. My extensive knowledge of Latin derivations is not going to help me here.)

I felt a bit defeated yesterday. I went shopping after work at Kika, the Hungarian Ikea - complete with a food court with strange meats in heavy sauces. I needed some random apartment stuff but could not friggin' find anything! And apparently I suck at charades because my imitation of drying dishes and placing them on a drying rack resulted in a sales lady showing me the store's selection of pitchers. When I got home, I realized the sheets I bought did not fit my bed and what I thought were pillowcases were actually duvet covers (yeah, how I missed that one, I do not know). I am sure returning the aforementioned items will be a piece of cake.

That isn't the best part. I picked up a few plants for my apartment since it currently looks like a barren hotel suite. I brought the plants through the checkout line but a surprisingly spry older woman yelling in Hungarian came running after me in the parking lot. What (I think) happened is that I had to pay for the plants outside versus inside the store so had stolen three pots of pink geraniums from this extremely pissed off woman. When I tried to pay her for the plants, she refused and took the flowers from me. Needless to say, I do not have geraniums in my apartment at the moment.

I wanted to go food shopping too, but Kika was all I could handle last night. It was probably a good thing I also did not hit up Tesco (the Hungarian Wal-Mart which my coworker Balasz repeatedly describes as “cheap and shitty”). If I had, I probably would have mistaken charcoal for chocolate cereal and fly paper for toilet paper.

I haven't had issues in every retail destination. Some of the friendliest people whom I met here worked at the gyro store next to the Marriott. I went there so many times when I was staying at the hotel, the guys began to talk to me and give me free falafel when they weren't talking on their cell phones. So obviously I was a fan. And they told me if I ever needed to exchange money or have anyone killed, I could go to them. OK, I am kidding about the second part, but I do think I met the Hungarian equivalent of the Mafia.

TGIF.