Settling In

I arrived in Pécs, Hungary on Wednesday, September 2.  Flights from Kansas City to Houston to Amsterdam to Budapest uneventful – just long.  My shuttle service picked me up at the Budapest airport and took me right to my apartment door.  What a great deal.  On the ride with me – several students attending medical school at the university where I will be teaching – one each from Norway, Sweden, and Germany. 

My landlady, Gabriella, was out-of-town, but her friend Agnes showed me to my flat. Anyway, I had been up around 25 hours – except for naps on the plane – so I was pretty tired.  Well – seems Gabriella has three dogs and they barked constantly all night – oh, my – until 3 a.m. when Gabriella apparently came home from her trip.  I admit I was a bit worried thinking I would never be able to sleep at night – seriously the dogs were very loud and constant – but those dogs have been great since Gabriella came home from her trip.  I hope she does not travel much!!! 

I’ve been settling into my flat – I’ve posted photos below.  It has been great for me to arrange things and get a few extras to make the place more useful (an electric coffeemaker) and more comfortable, but probably boring for you to hear about. 

I have already had some adventures.  First, of course the dogs.  But that turned out ok.  Then there was the “body lotion” I bought at the drug store. I thought the consistency was a little weird and it felt sticky the first night, but the next day – after putting it all over my legs – I realized there was a little bubble at the opening of the bottle.  I went to the sink and put my hands under the water – and lo and behold – yep, it’s not lotion, it’s soap.  So I had been walking around with soap rubbed into my skin.  Well, I could always use some nice smelling hand soap. 

I’ve had a great meal of korhelylevés (levés means soup) and this soup is made of smoked sausage, saurkraut, and smoked pigs knuckles.  I have heard it called “drunkards soup” as it is supposed to be good for the hangovers.  It was wonderfully tasty – full of paprika and with sour cream dumplings on top.  I’ve had only 2 gelatos so far – trying to control myself – one mango and one grapefruit.  Heavenly

And I had a real cappuccino (hard to get in Kansas City, I think).  Here is a very short video of my first cappuccino in Hungary – look how they put a heart on the top in the foam.  Heavenly.