budapest: I can't do the math

Budapest I: I can't do math

We've got an Airbnb in Budapest for a whole week.  Spending a whole week in one spot isn't something I really do anymore, but justin isn't as excited as I am to go to a new place every four days or so.  He likes to stay put for a while.  And I really knew nothing about Budapest at all except that that it is a modern beautiful city and that's what justin and I like.  We're city people.  

I'm not really sure what I was expecting.  I think I was expecting something like Istanbul, with a whole east/west feel.  Justin says "I think Hungary is lot more western than you think."  He was right.  I guess My complete lack of historical understanding and not having studied the map enough figured into that.

Budapest is actually two old towns that got melded together: one is called Buda and the other is called Pest and they're separated by a river.  We're on the Pest side, where most of the touristy shit it, and our Airbnb is right smack in the middle of the most upscale hipster-ass square at the edge of party central.  There's young 30-somethings drinking, smoking, and snacking outside all day and night at the combination boutique/bar or the combination barber shop/bar or the combination juice joint/ bar, all right downstairs from our place.

We're also right across the street from a park that seems a bit like union square.  And then the culture shock kicks in... backpackers.

Fucking backpackers everywhere.  Since we steered clear of the old town in Prague we really hadn't encountered grimy Americans and brits getting loud and drunk and being stupid on this trip.  But worse than that... it seems that Budapest is "stag party" central.  Packs of (mostly British) dudes either on their bachelor weekend or just a weekend away with their mates with a goal to get as fucked up as possible as cheaply as possible. They really do call it a stag party, and I know this, because the dudes get matching shirts for the event.  That say "stag party."  One bar had a sign that said "no stag parties."  It didn't seem to stop anyone.

We saw a lot of this over the week, and a lot of packs of women on their bachelorette weekends as well.  

Party town is also incongruously at the edge of the former Jewish ghetto.  Budapest was home to a lot of Jews, and, big shocker, they were rounded up and stuck in a walled ghetto.  Like everywhere else.  But for decades.  And now, that shit is real nice.  That's probably why people hate Jews so much... we make really nice things out of really shitty situations.  

First item on the agenda: ice cream.  I leave justin in the Airbnb ("how is it you always want to just show up somewhere after traveling and then just run around and look at shit?" He says) and I look for ice cream in the park. It's called Lavendula and each flavor is mixes with some herb.  Strawberry-basil, lemon-thyme, some shit like that.  I order two scoops, and it costs about $2 but they're so TINY.  It was good enough but not so exciting. I take this as a bad omen of things to come.  

I go to the grocery store across the street to pick up a few things and place the gelato container which I finished in about 4 seconds into the basket to throw out later.  But by the time I was done shopping, I had forgotten about it.  I get to the cashier, and he doesn't speak English.  I start to take the things out of the basket and he indicates to me that I'm just supposed to hand him the the whole basket so I do.  And he sticks his hand right into my sticky gelato container.  He makes a scowl and he says some shit and I remember that this is one of the rare occasions I've got a hand sanitizer in my bag so I pull it out and ask him if he wants some, putting it into my hand first so he knows what it is and he gives me a huge smile and accepts.  I put it on his hands like I'm his mom and he rubs it in and smells it.  He likes it so much that he walks over to the next cashier and makes her smell it.  Then he says to me "come back anytime!"  I take this as a great omen.

In the entire week we were in budapest, with the possible exception of one really bad waiter, everyone was super nice and super helpful and friendly and very understanding that you just aren't going to be speaking Hungarian.   English translations everywhere and very easy to get around and figure out what to eat.

For dinner, after arguing with justin that we should not be going to some hotel restaurant, even if the reviews he found were great (he's convinced that trip advisor is full of hackers who put in a bunch of fake reviews and his intel is better), he eventually gives in and we go to this nicer-than-I-wanted restaurant.  How do I know this?  They've offered us a welcome drink in a champagne glass.   I feel a bit underdressed, and I like to start off in a new place with a little more of a casual, authentic vibe but whatever.  I begrudgingly admit to justin that maybe his hotel restaurant might have been a better idea.  The food was good but a little more frou frou than I generally like, meaning that one of our meals came with foam on it.  Do fancy American places still do this? I know that foam was really popular for a really long time but maybe that trend has been entirely replaced with sous vide everything now.  I don't know, I'm not classy enough.  All I know is that when a nice meal shows up with glorified spit on top of it, even if it is reminiscent of fresh shelled peas, the meal no longer seems appetizing.  It was certainly good and the group of French men on their fancy "stag party" night were politely clinking their champagne glasses and not bothering anyone as mediocre jazz played on stage.  To paraphrase Justin, Europe does food better but no one comes close to Americans playing jazz.

The conversion factor for Hungarian money is about 300 forint to $1.  Well, that isn't so bad.  Take off two zeros and divide by 3.  Easy!

Here's the problem.  You have a couple of tipping options, it seems.  You can just round up the change to something convenient, depending on where you are.  If you're at a coffee shop or a bar or something, it would be small. If you're at a nice restaurant, you're supposed to figure about 10 percent, then round up to something convenient, and do all this IN YOUR HEAD, WHILE HES WATCHING YOU, and then tell the waiter what you wish the total to be.  

Think about this.  In America, they bring you the bill.  It's the cost without tip.  You give them your card, they run it, bring it back to you, And because  we're morons, suggested tip amounts are calculated and printed on most receipts, and then there's a little space for you to do the math.  Or, you have that one friend who's good at math (which is usually me) figure it out for you.  

In most european countries, they ask if you want to pay with cash or card.  If you say cash, you hand it over and they fish out change from a little purse they carry with them.  If you say card, they bring a cute little machine over to your table, and usually there is a way to select a tip either by percent or by amount and they give you the receipt and that's that.  Fuck, in Canada, they'll even ask you if you want to split the bill, either equally or by what you ordered.  But in Budapest, you're supposed to figure out a total and tell them what to charge.

You'd think this would be easy for me.  I teach calculus.  But I am actually really awful at adding and subtracting.  Someone fucked that up for me a long time ago.  Percents, fine.  Logarithms, fine.  But adding and subtracting on the spot, in my head, with people watching, knowing I'm a MATH TEACHER, is just too much performance anxiety.  Here, it's worse because you're adding numbers with 5 or 6 digits with a tip of two digits fewer.  I'm Naturally pretty neurotic and worried I'm going to fuck it up even at home under normal circumstances and either leave a stupidly large tip and have to embarrassingly take it back, or under tip and feel badly later.  I know I sound like a fucking idiot.  Even justin is at the table laughing at me and he's notoriously terrible at math.

So I look at the waiter whose standing there patiently with his little credit card machine, watching justin laugh at me and I just get total math stage fright.  I say, so... this is something everyone does here?  They just all... figure it out?  I'm American, you know...  can't you just figure it out FOR ME?!?  Justin interjects, "by the way, she teaches math."  

This guy is tickled and he figures it out for me and asks if that's ok.  I'm horrified.  But even in my humiliation i understand that if it's something you're used to doing, you do it. Even if you're not so great at math.  Like, say the number 1972 out loud.  Easy, right?  Now say 1,324,361,213.  You could do it, but you'd pause to figure out what that first one represented, and you'd be speaking slowly the rest of the way.  Or at least that's what I'm going to tell myself so I don't quit my job tomorrow.