!Yo Diggity!

Heeeellloooo! Well I have arrived safely in Budapest! The trip over went very smoothly – besides a couple of delayed flights, all went very well. I arrived at my new apartment just about 10 minutes before the guy from the apartment management got there: perfect! He, Andras, helped me get into the apartment and check things out. He got the pleasure of hauling my two HUGE bags up 4 flights of stairs. And it is quite a staircase, I must say. I will surely be in great shape after my time here – quite happy about that. Then Andras drove me to the nearest mall where I could do some shopping for some things I would need – basic groceries, cleaning supplies, a hair dryer – you know, the necessities.  Everything was relatively easy to find…. I think. I did buy a bottle of spaghetti sauce which I discovered isn’t sauce at all, but actually salsa (and not good salsa at that – sort of sweet - ick). Also discovered that the toilet paper here is just about the same makeup as paper towel. And not the good quality paper towel but more the kind that you find in the public restrooms at the park. That’ll take some getting used to. Haha. After Andras left me back at the apartment, I was so hot and tired from all the traveling… I just wanted to shower and take a nap. However…. One thing I forgot was a towel. UGH. Well, I didn’t have an alarm clock either so I’d need both of those in the morning so I decided to go back to the market. It’s really just 4 blocks up the street so I freshened up as best I could and went on a hunt for a bath towel – and a hunt it turned out to be. I asked a couple of people where they thought I could get a bath towel and though they seemed to understand what I was asking for…. They couldn’t tell me – didn’t know!! I walked all over that darn mall before I finally went and splurged on a beach towel from the Speedo store.  It was definitely more money than I wanted to spend on a towel – but I was desperate at that point. Headed back to the apartment jumped in the shower (btw – generally, before you wash a beach towel it will put little fuzzies of whatever color your towel is ALL OVER – mine was blue) and unpacked all my bags.

First day of work today and I mis-set my alarm ‘cause I’m not quite used to that 24 hour clock. Heehee. However, my body clock woke me up 15 minutes before the REAL time I was supposed to get up. So that was nice. I knew I could get to work using the subway but wasn’t really sure of the process. Went to the ticket counter and no one in there spoke English… okay… so I turned around a resorted to asking any younger looking person that walked by. I am discovering that if I ask, “Do you speak English?”, an affirmative answer isn’t necessarily true. I didn’t get much from the guy I talked to so I went to the window and held up a finger – I got 1 ticket. Haha After that subway ride was perfect – rode north for 4 stops – recognized the stop from when I was here last I thought I heard someone mention the street – and it was correct so my commute will be really super easy. Walk four blocks to the train station, 4 stops on the subway and one more block to work. Piece of cake!

Everyone at work has been really nice and helpful. Mike (the guy from Purdue who moved there with his wife 2 months ago) showed me around today and helped me get some towels. I’m going to his place tonight for dinner – he said his wife will be thrilled to talk to another American. Had my first leadership team meeting (there are 8 of us from all over the place) and that was very interesting. We are going to have a leadership team – team building event in October in Vienna, Austria. Wow. I guess we do these off-site trips once a quarter! COOL! Vienna is apparently only 2 hours away so maybe it’s less cool than it sounds…. NAH – it’s still cool. I also met up with the other young, US expat that is here: Shawn. He’s going to have some people over for dinner Friday night to introduce me to some folks. So looks like I’ve already got lots of plans! Yeah!!

This morning I went for a jog before work - across the chain bridge over to the castle and back across the Margaret island bridge past the Parliment. Sweet - so pretty!!! More updates to come and I hope to have my phone connected soon…. but for now I must work….

Hope this note finds you all well…. you are all in my thoughts and my prayers!

Love,
Jessie

Well… still feel like I am getting set up here. I feel like there is sooooo much to do and I spend soooo much time in the office. If I can just get that e-mail down to a reasonable amount! It is getting better, slowly but surely. And I think that it will get even better. I am getting more familiar with how things work period and I am getting more comfortable with the technology (SAP BW). So that helps. The Hungarians are getting more comfortable as well and I can see everything getting much more comfortable around here. Bill Falabella is here this week. He’s the guy that some of you may have heard me refer to as, “the loud guy on the other side of the cube wall” back in Houston. Really good guy. Was at lunch with him and another expat (should I say THE other American expat here), Shawn, and Shawn told me the best news I’ve heard yet. Bill was asking me about vacation days… I said, nope, no extra vacation, still US payroll. Shawn then brought me to the light… “No, no, no my young friend. By Hungarian law you have 20 vacation days!” Yeeeeaaa Haaawwww! I have yet to speak with my boss about this but the law is the law and we must abide by it, correct!? Hahaha. I love it. So, friends, I’ve got 12 more vacation days left to spend!!! Wow. So hard work I do not mind. Come on over here people – I’ve got vacation days to take!!
The worst thing yet is that I am still not set up at home – still living out of a suitcase and no phone and no internet. My boss approved an international cell phone for me so that should be set up this week. I hope. As for my home phone… I do have a number… but not connected yet. UGH. Very annoying. I am almost afraid to leave the office for fear that I’ll be disconnected from the world. OK, I AM afraid to leave for just that reason. In fact, one day last week I was leaving my apartment for work and hadn’t quite got the locks on the door down pat (there are 3 of them just on my door alone). I was turning the last lock and it was not unlocking for the life of the thing! I tried the other locks again, went back to the last one…. Turn again… no… again…. No… other way…. No… hmmm. I stepped back and started to panic. How in the world would I get out of here if I could not use the door?! Oh my, gosh…. Oh my gosh… I could be stuck in here for DAYS and no one would know! How would anyone know?! No phone… no internet, no e-mail…. What WOULD I do? I couldn’t get out the back windows – they’ve got bars on them. I couldn’t yell down the 4 stories to the street – no one speaks English!! !! I’M STUCK. This panic really only lasted for about 20 seconds but it was very real. I walked over to the window and said to myself, “Now, don’t panic. If you really are stuck you’ve got daaaays to figure this out.” Hahaha. It unlocked right away but still… quite a funny predicament!
I did have the chance to walk around a bunch on Sunday and explore some of Budapest. I had this whole walk mapped out… I would walk to church (Calvery Bible Church – English speaking pastor translated), then over to where one of the apartments that Greg is looking at is, then over to the mall/market to pick of a few necessities. Man this is a cool city. There are so many little plazas, restaurants and parks everywhere. Every place is cool. I have so much to explore… I feel like I’ve just barely grazed it. So the church I visited was pretty cool. I’m not sure that I liked the service translated as it was pretty distracting but the cool thing was that they praise and worship was really good. They did half of it in English and half of it in Hungarian (also called Magyar) which was actually really helpful figuring out some of the sounds. This language has many of our same letters pronounced much much differently. I think I could really pick some of it up by just singin’ along in church! I headed to the restroom when the service was over and got ‘trapped’ by an older women in the bathroom. She is from West Virginia and is a missionary in Russia. She is visiting Budapest for some eye treatment. Really sweet lady but when I finally got out of the bathroom… most of the people had cleared. Soooooo… I didn’t get to chat much with folks which was disappointing. Not sure how I feel about the church but definitely worth another shot. Next Sunday, I’ll wait to use the restroom.
So much more to tell really… but it is getting late and I’m getting up early ‘cause I am going to venture to Margaret Island for my morning jog (Margaret Island is an island in the middle of the Danube which has a 5km track around the rim).

Hope you are all in good health… and more importantly…. good spirits. I’ll be in touch.

Elevators are funny here. When I moved to Texas I thought that it was quite nice that gentleman always let ladies on or off the elevators first. Well since in Budapest I’ve seen a whole new set of manners. First of all, everyone says hello and goodbye. Took me awhile to figure that out… also, “hallo” is not only ‘hello’ but ‘goodbye’ also. Lesson #2. The elevators in my building (4 of them) are super tiny. You can fit 6 comfortablly, shoulder to shoulder but you are all facing each other and it sort of forces coversation. Conversation that always certainly I start with, “Sorry - I don’t speak Hungarian”. I really, really need to take some classes. A few people here at work want to so that is good - and hopefully will start soon. Lesson #4 in Hungarian elevator etiquette: no matter how tight the elevator, girls are always first. So even if you’ve squeezed 8 people into the 6 person elevator, girls STILL get out first. So you’ve all got to squeeze around to get out. Talk about uncomfortable. haha