Signs of Green

Wednesay is my longest day. I went to the office around 9:00 so I could do a few things before my Hungarian class. I learned a lot. This language is NOT the hardest one in the world by any definition. One of the things that suddenly dawned upon me is that unlike most European language, but not English, every vowel in Hungarian has at least two sounds and some of them have four. Most European languages one can do the vowels with only Ah[for a], A[for e], E [for i] O,  and U. Hungarian also keeps it root words together. For example, nap can mean either sun or day, which right there makes sense. But then napi = daily, and a standard greeting during the day is Jo napot.

I began the class asking help to develop some vocabulary so I can manage going to the office for my resident permit tomorrow. The professor said she would drive me there. I told her I was concerned this would be a bit inconvenient, for I had received word from another Fulbright family that they had to wait at least one hour in the office after everything was verified to be correct. She still insisted she would drive me there and make sure everything was OK and then leave me until I have the paper in my hand and then I could walk home.

I packed my lunch, for then at 13:00 I work with the same instructor for one of the English as Special Purpose classes. This group wanted to know the working conditions for a nurse in the United States. I asked them to define what "nurse" met and found the only definition they have is that a nurse works in a hospital. So I discussed that. However, on Monday I am doing a lecture with a Bachelors of Nursing class about nursing models in the United States. I didn't quite know what this meant, it just appeared on my schedule. I'm going to discuss all the different options for nurses in the United States and I think they will be surprised.

The sun was out and made quite a bit of difference in the snow level. I walked out of the building and noticed something green where a snowback had been yesterday. I don't know what it is, I'm just happy to see this sign of spring.

I walked toward the Arkade for I needed to do some grocery shopping. Along the way I stopped to take a photo of the apartment building that I've been noticing. I really like the balcony rails on this building, and notice the arrangements of the windows below, too. This is all another sign of the love of the Hungarians for great design.

The sidewalks along the street near the Arkade were very crowded. I thought, "Well, it's the time that school is out." But was I surprised. I wanted to stop for an ice cream sundae at one of my favorite places in the Arkade and could hardly find a seat. It wasn't just teens either. Who knew 2:30 or so was rush hour!  I found a seat and had a wonderful cherry sundae and did my homework for my Hungarian class.

Shopped for groceries and brought home a couple of new items. One is mayonnaise in a tube like toothpaste, the same packaging as I got for mustard, and the same that will be for ketchup if I ever carry some home. I wanted to get some sausage to go with the saurkraut that I bought at the market last week. There are so many kinds and I don't know what anything is! I ended up on the canned foods area thinking I was getting canned kielbasa, called kolbasz in Hungarian. Well, I opened it and it had kielbasa all right. What I purchased was actually like a bean casserole with kielbasa. Put it on the stove with a little extra water so it didn't scorch while it was warming and it turned out to be quite good. I'm not unhappy there is some in the refrigerator for another meal.

Watched some TV tonight by doing a go around. NBC Olympics won't allow me to open any video, but I got some interesting stuff by going to the web site for the Today show directly. Also got the idea to look for the Daily Show and get those, but with a few days delay. However, the one from February 11 about health reform and that Hawaii already has it and the Republicans who went there for a meeting didn't even know it and were clueless that things have been working fine in Hawaii in 40 years is just funny beyond belief.

Wish me luck for getting the magic piece of paper tomorrow so I'm legal.