countryside

The last few weekends I’ve been fortunate to get out of the city and enjoy a bit of the Eastern European scenery. With my parents coming to visit soon (and bringing a rented car) it’s likely the trend will continue. The fall scenery has been wonderful (though the changing trees don’t hold a candle to the colors in Michigan and especially Pennsylvania). My favorite part, though, has been the friendly encouraging people I’ve encountered. People in Budapest are friendly enough, but seeing Americans and suffering through their terrible Hungarian pronunciation isn’t a rare experience for the typical Budapestian. But out in Esztergom, Visegrad, or any of the many Slovakian hamlets we went to last weekend they’re a bit more gracious. This isn’t too surprising – everybody says you have to get out of the big cities to really see a country. So if this is the real Hungary, it’s one of the friendliest places I’ve ever been. Two examples: I was trying to ask directions in Hungarian, and the young man I was talking to patiently endured my slaughtering of his language before slowly and clearly articulating his response. I had a follow up question that was beyond my Hungarian, so on a whim I asked if he spoke English. He replied, “yes, I do. I would have said so before but I could see you really wanted to try your Hungarian, and you were doing very well.” (If only my students could form a compound-complex sentence like that one!) And second, last night, we were looking for a restaurant that was listed as number 14 on the main street in Szentendre. We couldn’t find it, so we asked the shop owner at number 13. She told us number 14 didn’t exist (which it doesn’t), but walked next door to another shop keeper to confirm this. When they agreed there was no number 14 we apologized and started walking away (they also apologized profusely – I guess for their town’s obvious deficiency for not having a number 14!), but a minute later the first shop keeper came running down the street after us. She had asked at another shop and found out the restaurant was in the next street over. Above and beyond the call of duty barely scratches the surface of this woman’s kindness to us.