Friday, May 19, 2006

wherein i realize that i understand spoken hungarian

Today marks the 7th month that I've lived here. In nowhereville, Hungary.
Cegléd (pronounced: tseg-laid) is much the same as my hometown Oakdale, California. Except people here walk more and there are fewer strip malls, like none. But in terms of things to do, they are comparable.
I can't say that every moment here has been happy, some, in fact, have resulted in tears. Sometimes not understanding what the hell is going on can be panic inducing. I walk around on my very private set of the surreal life, starring yours truly. People learned quickly who I was; "vigyazz, jön az amerikai!" or watch out, here comes the American, preceded us at the playground; cashiers stopped talking to me and just pointed at the receipt. I wanted to scream, "hellooo, how the hell am I supposed to learn the language, if no one speaks to me?"
I recently got back from my short visit to California. On the plane to Budapest, during the landing, I thought to myself, "I'm almost home." What?!? And it was true. The whole ride back to our apartment I realized what that thought meant to me. I'm not vacationing here, I live here.
I live here. Damn, I should learn the language. Don't get me wrong, I "speak" some hungarian, I just need someone who can teach me the difference between iszok and iszom. Hopefully, I can find someone in Kecskemét to teach me on Fridays when I'll already be there for my English class.
A couple of days after I got back we went to Zoli's parents house, we had some pálinka, talked a bit, Zoli's mom mentioned that she had seen a gyönyörű car (beautiful) for sale on the road between here and Kecskemét. Zoli asked her what type of car it was and suddenly I heard myself say, "gyönyörű auto volt."(It was a beautiful car.)
WTF?
I didn't even translate it into English first?!?

So I celebrated my newfound language skills with more Pálinka!
Egészségedre!

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