Walking Around

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Above is a lovely video about Pecs. I'm getting anxious for the snow to melt and sidewalk cafes to appear. I'm glad to share some of the anticipated views with you all. Right now Szechenyi Ter is still under renovation and doesn't look truly elegant with a large fence around it. In the past couple days I've seen some signs that work may soon begin on this renovation. I do hope that it will look nicer when the Minnesota visitors arrive.

I decided today to share a couple pictures of things I see on the way to and from the university office.

Every day I wonder what is the story that goes with this bear.

And today on my way back I noticed the above in a store window. What's this?

Oh, it became clearer when I looked at the next shelf. The answer is wallpaper borders. Displayed as these are creates a great visual image.

In the class today I discussed what a refugee is and then spoke about the refugees who come to Minnesota. Now I have to think of a topic for the class next week.

I stopped for lunch at the Elephant restaurant, wanting to try this restaurant as a possible place for the Metropolitan State students to eat when they come here. It is called Elephant because there is an elephant statute on the sign on the building. The story is that once this was a store that sold "Eastern products" and so an elephant was added to the building as a sign of the exotic.

I had bean soup and panna cotta. This restaurant will definitely stay on the list for the students' dinner. My landlady neighbor also highly recommends a restaurant somewhat closer to my flat.

One thing that is unique to Hungary, according to my experiences in other countries, is how elegantly that silverware is presented. This above picture shows how the dessert fork arrived on my table.

From here I walked over to the other Faculty of Health Sciences office and picked up a letter from the office that I need for my long-stay residence permit. While there I copied my insurance card and also a special form my landlord had to provide to show that he indeed owns the property. (One of my Fulbright colleagues shared it is much more complicated to get such a visa here than it was when they spent a lengthy time in China and also needed such a permission from the government.) My goal for Thursday is to file all these papers and hopefully getting my long-stay visa.

I came back to my flat for bit, and then walked back to Szechenyi Ter and spent an hour with the English conversation circle offered today at the same site as the American Presidents' exhibit.