I managed to find batteries, and to cough up for them, so now I have some photos of my new apartment. This is my room, complete with inherited printer and desk lamp. Thanks, Sarah!



This is the view from my window. I have spent more time than I should trying to draw this building.






This is my herb garden! Since I have no pets and no children, all my maternal instincts are necessarily channeled into these five plants. Look at the new growth at the top! You can't tell, but the mint is putting out new shoots as well. Unlike most people in Budapest, they love the hundred degree weather (not an exaggeration, by the way).



Finally, Szabadság hid and the Duna, as seen from my window. "Szabadság" translates to "Freedom." For all that Americans talk about how much we love freedom, the Hungarians really go all out and name everything after it. Budapest has a Freedom bridge and a Freedom Square (where, appropriately, one can find the US Embassy). Considering that Hungary was more or less ruled continuously by a foreign power for four hundred years, one has to ask oneself who this "freedom" is from. But then again, nonspecific freedom is a cause everyone can get behind. Wooo!

An oft-neglected aspect of living overseas is that the logic of what can be purchased where changes. Not necessarily drastically; it is the subtlety that makes it disorienting. I'm sure I've mentioned my struggles with Hungarian pharmacists -- anything relating to personal upkeep can be purchased in the pharmacy. This includes what one might assume, such as medicine, things that you get in CVS, like vitamin supplements (and anti-bacterial cream :( ), and things like earplugs.

I am at a loss to explain what logic permits the drug store, which sells shampoo, conditioner, makeup, and so forth, to also sell a wide selection of bio and health food products but to not sell batteries.

Where do I buy batteries?!?

Scenes from Budapest:

As I was walking from yoga to the tram this morning, I saw a small shih tzu-ish dog, whose lease his owners had dropped, mozeying along and looking bemused. His owners, four overweight, overly-tanned, over-made-up sixty-something woman in bright pastels, were all four of them bent over and shouting "Come here! Come here!"

Actually, maybe it was only funny if you saw how slowly the whole thing was moving.

Good news: I'm officially a legal resident of Hungary again! Nevermind that it took me a month and six visits to the Immigration Office. I even have "Immigration" stored in my cell phone now.

I'm still alive!

Last week I went to Krakow for a couple of days -- it was refreshing to get out of the city and do something different, as well as to be someplace just enough cooler than Budapest so as to be pleasantly bearable. [Did that sentence make sense? I worry that my English isn't as good as it used to be.]

My legal status is, as always, a mess. Thanks to a paper mix-up at the Immigration office, I *still* need to provide a bank statement before I can get a visa. I didn't find that out until two Fridays ago, thirty hours before leaving the city. Before I can get a bank statement, I need to give myself some money, which I'm sure will make my parents jump all over me.

I got an angry call from the office about two hours ago... See, this is the problem with going above the board. If I were living here illegally on a tourist visa, no one would know what my address or my phone number was, so in order to catch me I would have to be randomly detained and ask for my papers... Unfortunately they know where I live now and can call me whenever they like, so I have to get my act together or I might actually get kicked out. That would be lameo.

I'm still unemployed, although I'm resolved to change that (yet still madly procrastinating... Why???) I sent in one application and they got back to me right away, which my Dad said was a good sign. Unfortunately the recruitment lady is now on vacation... Everyone in Hungary goes on vacation all bloody summer. I think they need more Protestant work ethic.

So that's the news for now.

I got Rick Roll'd in the Mall today?! I thought that was against the rules.

Suitable for Europe, it was a techno remix.

I was pretty happy with myself today: I set a goal (buy a new phone, since the old one has been officially disfunctional since Friday) and followed through. Accomplishing things is satisfying; I should do it more often.

Other than that I am: applying for jobs, buying a bike tomorrow, moving on Wednesday... Busy busy busy!

I bought new shoes a couple of weeks ago! Sometimes I have difficulty reconciling this with my joblessness, but most of the time I managed to rationalize it... I worry that the money I've saved over the semester has been mentally budgeted for too many things (deposit AND three months rent AND health care, etc. etc.)

The point of the story, though, is that these shoes are eating my feet alive. Breaking them in is a slow process; until I do, however, I have to contend with numerous moderately-infected sores covering my feet.

One strange thing for me about Hungary, coming as I do from the States, is that if you want anything moderately related to medicine/vitamin supplements/personal upkeep you have to go to the gyógyszertár (pharmacist's) and ask a nice lady to give it to you. I went in for some hydrocortizone cream, only to hear that I needed a prescription! I felt like my civil liberties were being infringed on! My right to self-medication. (I suppose this is right alongside Americans' right to name their children Adolf Hitler, another one you're denied in Europe.)

Baldur suggested a different cream I might try, so I went back to the same pharmacy for Take Two. The women didn't know what I was talking about. I explained that I had a "little infection" and pointed to a cut on my finger. They brought bandaides; I insisted I wanted cream. I pointed to a cut on my finger, hoping this would clear things up. Rather, the women insisted that cream was unnecessary.

I sighed; I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. Apologizing, I reached down, untied my shoe, removed my sock, and lifted up my somewhat infected foot for the benefit of the women. "Little infection!" I insisted.

They agreed, and I got my cream. I'm still really sorry.

The other day I saw a guy nailing up a sign for an "Italian breew store." I hope they didn't pay too much for it.

I opened a bank account today! I feel like such a grownup. I also get to put a picture on my bank card. Ideas thrown around included:

- T-Rex
- Greater Hungary
- Barack Obama riding a unicorn
- A Thanksgiving Day hand turkey