Are Hungarians burned out on tourists? Unsmiling pessimists? Not willing to work in tourism and letting immigrant workers deal with tourists?
Is Hungary a great place for an American ex-pat to retire on social security? I hear the buying power is three times as much as in America.
These interactions occurred in recent days.
I talked to a Hungarian "cousin" who spends six months of the year living in Budapest, where he owns an apartment. He says he is "at peace" there, which he is not in the United States. In the U.S. he lives in a major city. He is educated, intellectual, and artistic, and after many years in the U.S. he is also based here - marriage, children, grandchildren.
"You should get your Hungarian citizenship," he said. (He means duel citizenship.) He urged me to walk into the consulate with my genealogy and I said "But there's a language requirement and I won't pass." He said no there is not. I quiet and look it up later - there most certainly is.
How difficult it is to pass a Hungarian language exam in order to get Hungarian citizenship is controversial. Online you can read every opinion and experience about it. Easy! Difficult.
Soon after speaking with him on the phone - outside a library where, upon the call coming in, I rushed out with book I had not checked out and sounded off alarms, I came in and apologized for the mishap. I explained I'd been waiting on the call and soon a library clerk came over to me.
"I just came back from Budapest and we had a horrible time."
According to this person, she and her traveling party, four women, had tried to speak Hungarian and thought they had done fairly well. This was a longed for and saved for vacation. However, she said people were not even willing to give them directions to the bus and were, overall, not nice to them. Then she said, "And they are racist." Since this woman could pass for a Hungarian I asked her what she meant. "One of the women traveling with us is from India. I think they snubbed us because they thought she's a Rom...."
Hmmmmmmm.
Any experience or opinion YOU want to share? Leave me a comment!
