Danger, Will Robinson

This town is old. This country is old, the dominant cultural group has a thousand years of history Most of the rest of the world is older than my native country. So I can't take anything for granted. Nothing. Not the way to water flowers, not the way to cook a meal. Not the way to clean house, or do laundry, or dust, or regulate the interior climate. Nor park a car or drive, or bike, or even how to enter a shop. I have to figure out how to stay out of trouble. How many ways can I get hurt or destroy something?

Fire is not my friend. I burned the tiny little pot holders, I burned the rice. I left the empty espresso pot on the fire. Every time I use a match to start the burner I have to be careful not to burn my hair.  Now I understand why my husband told me not to burn the house down. 

I pocket dialed my cousin in Budapest while he was in a business meeting.

I nearly caused an accident when cars had to stop fast to let me cross the street on my bike. There are cars parked on the side of the road-which means parked IN the road. When a vehicle comes toward me, it has to move into my lane in order to pass the parked cars. I stop my bike for a construction zone and didn't know there was a cyclist behind me who could have run into me. I said "I'm sorry," and he said he would have done the same thing. Whew!

I'm grateful I can go for a daily run. It is one thing that I can control. But sidewalks can be treacherous and the dogs in the gardens are scary.  Dogs seem to exist for security, and some of them  bite. The sidewalks run right along the garden walls, the dogs bark viciously, and walking or running past is scary. Not all roads have sidewalks and sometimes I have to walk or run down the street. Surfaces are uneven, the sidewalk or paving changes or buckles. Sometimes it's cobblestone and sometimes it's concrete. A sidewalk slopes up, then has stairs down. This place is so non-ADA compliant!

What I would do I in an emergency? I can ask to go to the hospital with my awesome language skills ("Help please we go hospital.") How would I communicate with the intake staff? I don't have a dictionary or translator software while jogging. I do have Find my iPhone turned on and I can use Strava or Nike Run Club to map my route. It could help to find my body in case I don't return.

Stress, stress. I'm glad I'm headed home, where I am safe. But wait, that's where I keep burning things, knocking things over every time I turn around. I have to consider everything before I touch it because I don't know what lies underneath, behind, or in it. Where am I safe? What am I doing here? What are an of us doing here? Wait, that's another kind of blog. 

Inside the house are crystal and pottery over a hundred years old. Breaking them would be a tragedy. Vacuum cobwebs from these ceiling. Dont brush them because it will cause plaster to dust down. I dropped the vacuum cleaner handle and nearly hit one of them. Will the near-misses never end?

Be careful in the rain. I closed everything up in a hailstorm, but forgot the little we window in the pantry and rain got in. I was relieved that the pantry has a tile floor and was easy to to clean up.

I wonder if it is stressful for my family to work so hard to communicate. They are very patient and kind, and we laugh a lot. But it must take an effort on their part.

I started crying for no reason during FaceTime with my husband. We were taking about the trip in general, and how I hope it will rest my brain and help me embrace the future since I've lost my job. I just burst into tears. I didn't know why I was crying! But I let it out and he was sweet about it. 

Every night I am grateful for sleep. I need the restoration to have energy for the next day. I am not complaining, I am soldiering on, looking forward to how this will help me grow into the new phase of my life. Evidently it will be a phase wherein I will be a lot more careful than I am now. 

A little speak I Hungarian language

That's the literal translation for a way to say "I only speak a little Hungarian." Famously, "everybody" knows that it is difficult to learn a new language as an adult. So I am grateful to my friends who encourage me and say they're confident that I will pick it up. Thanks, folks! I like to think positive, as "everyone" knows. But this is one area where it's hard to cheer myself through the rough spots. Oh, yes, I sing a bit, I crack really dumb jokes using my baby talk Hungarian. But here is a little info about what I'm swimming in now.

Nouns and verbs can each have more than a dozen variations.  I've read that Hungarian has potentially millions of variations on words, That's because almost every word has multiple endings, depending upon the formality of the conversation, with whom one is speaking, whether it's past, present or future, and how the vowels harmonize. Yes, they almost rhyme-it can making speaking Hungarian fun.  They do have some very funny words. One of my favorite is "HEY-ba-ho-ba." It means "sometimes." Another is "FEN-ky-pez-o-gape," meaning "camera." Oh, and another is "HEP-a-hoop-a," for "bumpy." And "FRE-go-li" is a folding rack for air drying clothes. I get the giggles sometimes listening to a conversation. The family know I like funny words so they give them to me whenever they think of good ones.

Anyway, back to grammar. Let's use "to go." I go, you go, we go. They go. A person goes (no gender based pronouns). Nothing new here, right? But that's just the verbs. Nouns are conjugated as well. And that depends not only on who is speaking, but also the person or thing in relation on to the noun. For instance, my money, your money, our money their money, a person's money. The word "money" changes, not the indicator of whose money it is. Pronouns apparently are generally used for emphasis. Or, if a person doesn't know how we to conjugate anything and has to use a pronoun with the root word of every verb and noun. A person, say, like a dumb American (ahem).

Thus I speak in the infinitive with pronouns, and it sounds ignorant. Which, obviously, I am.  I bet it's irritating so I'm working on learning the endings. But my brain can can only take so much each day. I feel like I did when I was learning SQL-burnt out at the end of every day. Thank Isten for Google Translate app!

Here is an image of a song in the church songbook. It is beautifully old fashioned. You might be able to see examples of the words and diacritical marks. Learning all those vowels can be pretty funny as the family exaggerate prounounciation so I can hear and replicate it.

Home, Hungarian style

As you might expect, this is a modern home with all the conveniences: washing machines, fridges, dishwasher, microwave, vacuum cleaner, gas ranges, gas heating, etc. However, it is probably a hundred years old, made of brick, and lots of housekeeping tasks are totally different than my experience in the USA.  I am enjoying learning new ways to do things.

The house is really three cottages on a central courtyard. Each cottage is complete, two of them have their own kitchens. All of them have their own baths. There is also a large kitchen on the courtyard which all of the cottages use. It is the life of the compound when guests abound. There are flowers everywhere! It smells heavenly when the night air wafts through the house!



The cottages generally have tile, wood, or linoleum flooring. When we enter, we take of our outdoor shoes and put on slippers, similar to some homes in the US. All homes thus far in my experience here do this. The advertising circulars prominently feature slippers, so I think the practice is widespread. Anyway, it's important to keep the floors clean, so there are also small mats at the entrances. We wear slippers in the houses and in the courtyard. We put on street shoes when going out. We wipe our feet on the mats when we come into the house, and again when leaving the entrance and going into the main part of the house.



Coffee here is always espresso. On my first day in Baja I learned to make coffee. I don't know the names of things, so I'm using the closest word I can think of. See the photos for clarity. First fill the metal espresso pot with water. We will end up with two shots of espresso. Pack the filter with fresh ground coffee. Screw on the lid which has a nozzle attached. Place the porcelain coffee pot on top of the metal pot with the metal nozzle pointing into the porcelain spout. Start the gas burner and put the espresso pot on the fire. It will boil and send steam up the nozzle into the porcelain. That is a silent process. When it's about done it will start gurgling. It only gurgles for a little bit, so when it's about done then turn off the fire. Use teeny pot holders to grasp the nozzle and the porcelain pot, tilt them toward each other, lifting the outer edges, in order to disengage them. Then pour out a rich, black brew that will get your day going! I am used to an 18 oz carafe of latte with honey every day, so here I drink the entire pot of espresso, with milk and (local) honey. Deeeelicious!

Have yogurt, or pastry, or sausage with peppers, or fresh-laid eggs for breakfast. The family's hens produce a few eggs each day, so there are plenty of rich, free range, organic eggs to enjoy. After that, wash up the dishes. We wash by hand in my cottage, the dishwasher is across the courtyard.  To wash, put dish soap on the sponge, and run some hot water on it, making lots of foam. Turn the water off, and wash a dish. Turn the water on and rinse it, then set it aside to air dry. Repeat with each item till everything is clean. I've taken dishwashing as my chore, since the family are doing the cooking. (I can heat up leftovers, so there is no danger of starvation when folks aren't around. Starvation is scandalous in a Hungarian household.)





Every morning we open each of the houses to let in air and light. They have special rolling shutters on the outside of the houses. These shutters are both shades and security. Older ones are made of wood, newer ones are metal. They close to keep out the bright sun, and to keep out naughty people. They open to let in light and air. They roll down from the top of the window, accordion-like, and can be used as solid or permeable barriers. The shade in the photo is partially open, to allow in light, and still provide security. We keep the windows on the shady side of the hous open all day long to let cool air in. We close the sunward windows when it gets hot in order to keep hot air out. Since the houses have thick brick walls they retain the cool air and are pleasant all day long. When the weather cools off in the evening we will re open the sunward windows.



My sister-in-law recently renovated her grandparents' house and moved in. It is big, bright and sunny. She created a effective design! All of the internal walls and doors have windows. This creates a sunny interior without having to turn on lights. (Don't worry, the window in the bathroom door is frosted.) Many of the windows open to allow the air to flow freely and keep the house cool in summer. My external window opens on to the enclosed garden, so I don't have the external shutters. It didn't yet have a screen, so we all pitched in to install one. Now I can have my window open all night and most of the morning. Perhaps you can see from the photo that all of the windows are dual - I think that aids in insulation, but I haven't figured it all out yet. Over all I think the house design is very energy efficient.

By the way, people here are very private, that's why I seldom post their pictures. I feel that people are more interesting than things, but I respect their privacy.