Bad Day

1.Hungarian, not California
Yeah I know I've been raving about the public transportation here, and it really is as great as it sounds. Not great: getting stopped coming out of the metro to have my pass checked, being asked for ID, and getting told that my ID is invalid and I am getting ticketed and fined. Except the man did not put it that nicely. He pointed at my UNC ID and said "Not Hungarian. California." (Me: Carolina). "Must be Hungarian. Not California." (Me: Carolina). I tried to explain that I hadn't known and that the ticket lady sold me the transport pass using this ID, darn it! "6000 forints," he said. I wouldn't do it again, I really didn't know, this isn't fair... some working up of the tear ducts, a frantic call to my student contact here as he wrote me an orange ticket... "6000 forints or trouble". Awesome, so I gave him the 6000 which was literally every forint in my wallet. Oddly he gave me back the pass (???) so I used it to get home after the opera. It could have been worse - the fine comes out to be about $30 so that isn't breaking the bank anyway. But I'm not going to say it didn't ruin my day, and I haven't been on the metro since.

2. Please insert PIN
 So the up side to this is that I don't know anyone so no one ever calls me. The down side was any help I could get was inevitably going to be in a language I didn't understand. I took the PIN card out (after some panicking) so I could still set my alarm and get up for work. Marieke (the greatest) told me lots of non-US SIM cards come with a PIN set on it and lock up everytime you turn it off, like I did in the opera. It was a matter of finding the envelope it came in. After moving some furniture I found the envelope and all was set to right. It was a panic at the time, though.

3. No microwave = no hot dinner for Emily
Side note: nothing is ever fully what it seems abroad. I have been calling my landlord, not so affectionately, my "crazy landlord" since he takes up my key everytime I leave the building and threatened to check my room weekly for cleanliness, etc. Sunday night was no exception. The kitchen had a sign on it, saying it was forbidden to enter because some 'foreigners' had left it a mess. Well I had just sat through a 3.5hr opera and was starving, so I entered and found the microwave had been taken away. So what did I do? I put the soup and pasta I had back in the fridge and ate a donut and some pretzels for dinner. A reasonable end to a pretty rough day.
The side note part is that my landlord is actually nice. He takes my key because there's only one for the room and, as of yesterday, I have a roommate, so whoever arrives back to the hostel first can pick up the key downstairs. And the other day when I picked it up, he smiled at my (sad) attempt to say the room number in Hungarian (although I'm very good at saying 'key' since it is close to the Russian) and taught me how to say 324. He had to say it more than once, I'll admit.... horrible language and its horrible vowels. Anyway I could really use a microwave.

Briefly, Sunday was a challenge. Adjusting to living alone in a country where I don't speak the language and a city where I don't know anyone was hard enough, so piling on the unfortunate experiences only added more strain. Fortunately I survived to tell the tale and am in a much better place today. These are probably the times I learn the most about coping with stuff. Anyway I guess if studying/working abroad were easy, everyone would do it.

More later!
Emily