Cow in Various Forms

"I have thought of everything I can think of, and the one thing that gives me some hope is the ethos that underlies the educational exchange program. That ethos, in sum, is the belief that international relations can be improved, and the danger of war significantly reduced, by producing generations of leaders, who through the experience of educational exchange, will have acquired some feeling and understanding of other peoples' cultures why they operate as they do, why they think as they do, why they react as they do and of the differences among these cultures. It is possible not very probable, but possible that people can find in themselves, through intercultural education, the ways and means of living together in peace."

(J. William Fulbright: The Price of Empire)


Friday night. Grey. Dark. Approximately 40 degrees F, but no rain, so a decent enough evening for the Hungarian winter. I spent the majority of the evening working away at my database of Hungarian/Romanian/Slovakian/Austrian/Serbian towns and as the clock was nearing 11pm I was tempted to head to bed, call it a night, get some shut eye so I could be awake for my 9am meeting with a professor (yes, on a Saturday, I didnt schedule it, trust me). At which point my doorbell rang. A handfull of my friends had gone to a play in the theater in my building (Parisi Udvar), and wanted to know if I wanted to go "grab a beer". A bit fed up of typing the slovakian letters into excel (c, d, n, all with various accents over them) , i saved my database, tossed on my blue ski cap and headed for the door.

We (Annike, Judit, Ashlin and I) headed to the Hungarians' favorite bar, Wichmann Söröző. Annike (a Hungarian) works as a dramaturg at the National Theatre with Ashlin and Judit (also a Hungarian) teaches English at a high school in Budapest. We walk in the small bar, a tiny basementesque pub, filled with picnic sized tables. When we walked through the door we were blasted by a barrage of smoke, no not a fire in the kitchen, just 50 some youngish Hungarians smoking cigarettes in a basement that has no ventilation. The back wall was barely visible through the screen of smoke. Anyways, we found a table and were introduced to the owner of the bar (a former olympian kayaker, apparently, who now weighs probably 300 pounds and is as round as he is tall, images of him stuck in a kayak and overturning floated through my head).

Anyways, we ordered some beers and then Judit and Annike had the brilliant idea of getting shots of 'Palinka'. This is some awful national drink of Hungary, basically some kind of brandy, fruit flavored this time, from some region in Hungary. I tried to politely decline, as Im not one for liquor of this sort--but they wouldnt have it. At this point Annike teaches us that if the person who bought the shots cocks their elbow in a certain way as they are lifting their shot that means to do the shot in one gulp, but positioned in another way meant two gulps. Anyways, i ignored the position of Annikes elbow as she threw back her shot and i sipped mine in about 7 sips, trying not to display any of my not-so-subtle facial expressions as I did my best to swallow the stuff. Ugh.

By this point, I thought it would be a good idea to eat something--I asked the owner if they had goulash (typical Hungarian stew), no, chicken breast on bread, no, lard on bread, no (my favorite heart healthy choice). So i asked what they did have, but I didnt recognize the name. Judit and Annike piped up and said yeah, order it, it's good, delicious even. They say it is the classic Hungarian meal after working in the field or after building a house. I decided to go ahead with it, i was hungry, although i certainly hadnt farmed or built anything on Friday. After one of Judit's students stopped by our table at the bar ( a much more common occurence in Hungary than in the states, the kid was 16), the owner of the bar brought our food---A BIG BOWL FULL OF TRIPE---YEP COW'S INTESTINES. I all of the sudden felt I was on some bizarre Hungarian version of Fear Factor, although without any particular prize or cash earnings awarded if you finish your meal. Luckily a big basket of bread came along with the tripe, so ended up stomaching as much of the tripe as I could and then dipped the bread in the sauce and ate that instead. After which point, both Judit and Annike admited that they had never really had tripe, and in fact were vegetarians. THANKS!!!

Rotten Beef (aka Rob Alexander on Halloween)

After stomaching the tripe, eating lots of bread, we moved on, thank the good lord, to another establishment where they played music and we danced etc. Dancing was followed by a trip to McDonalds (in which Aslin managed to put down 2 cheeseburgers and a Big Mac)--I limited my intake to just one McRoyal, and some fries. Unfortunately I (and Ashlin) had been asked to coffee by one of the American Fulbright professors (she is teaching nursing here and her research is on the meditational benefits of walking a labryninth, hmmmmmmmm.). Anyways, at 9am (approximately 3 hours after returning home from the night before) I was really in no shape to be listening to anyone, let alone an academic ramble on about her research on meditation. I did my best to smile, nod, ask a few random questions and appear interested (hopefully). Ashlin showed up about 45 minutes late, at which point he took over the converstation and I regressed into my own little world of focusing on my coffee, after which I went straight home to take a nice long nap, followed later by a steak dinner. At which point I reflected that I had three forms of beef all within an 18 hour period. Wouldnt Dr. Atkins, god bless his soul, be proud.

E.Coli!!!!!! Rob, friend from IU on right, now at Syracuse getting his PhD. Apparently Syracuse just had an E.Coli scare in the water supply!