From the Archive: 2018 - André's Periodical Email Newsletter Issue 3

Periodical Email Newsletter from 2018

Nov 05, 2018

* This piece was originally written on November 5, 2018

Well hello there everybody!

In this latest edition of Andre’s Periodical Email Newsletter, I hope to shine a light on my “vie quotidienne” (everyday life) in the wonderful city of Budapest. I spent the last edition of APEN talking about a couple of our trips and I figure an issue about my life in Budapest would only be appropriate since I’ve called this place home for the last two months and will continue to do so for another month and a half.

Budapest is a lovely lived-in city that gleams with ornate architecture but also contains enough grime and roughness as to remind you that you’re not in some sort of fairytale. When you stop and look around, you’re hard-pressed not to find beauty in the intricate detailing amongst Budapest’s buildings, bridges, and parks. Like a wilting flower, you can find undeniable charm and appeal in the worn-down sights of peeling paint and plaster, decaying shingles, tarnished brass fixtures, weathered bricks, and cracked tiles, granite and marble.

I have included a series of pictures to show you mine and Shannon’s ~15-minute walk from our apartment to class.

Walk to Class 1: This is a view of our apartment building (our apartment is through the hallway and on the right-hand side)

Walk to Class 2: Carl Lutz Memorial

Walk to Class 3: Mural commemorating the “Match of the Century”

Walk to Class 4: Curved Building

Walk to Class 5: Book Stand

Walk to Class 6: Funky Old Yellow Building with All Its Charm

Walk to Class 7: Neat Fountain

Walk to Class 8: Budapest Eye (not as mighty as the London Eye because there is a city bylaw that prohibits structures to be taller than the St Stephen’s Basilica and Hungarian Parliament)

Walk to Class 9: A view of the St Stephen’s Basilica with Sculpture of the Fat Policeman

I hope that this, along with the rest of this email, gives you a better perspective of what our experience in Budapest entails.

Where we’re living:

Shannon and I live in a cozy 1-bedroom apartment in the bumpin’ Jewish quarter, formally called Erzsébetváros or District VII. We’re in the heart of Budapest’s bar and restaurant scene, which means that there’s an infinite amount of food/beverage choices and plenty of cute and interesting shops nearby. It also means that the weekends are a bit raucous, but that’s ok cause we’re hardly ever around on weekends (continue reading these email newsletters to find out what type of things we get up to on weekends!).

A particularly funky feature of our apartment is our sleeping arrangement. I suspect that in an attempt to maximize space, the apartment owners took advantage of the roughly four-metre-high ceilings and installed a bunk bed accessible by ladder. We like to refer to our bed as “our little nook” or, for you bird enthusiasts out there, “our little nest”. It’s an unusual set up but we’ve grown to really like it… though it makes going to the bathroom in the middle of the night a bit of a hassle.

Other amenities of our flat include: a pullout couch, washing mashing, dishwasher, internet, and cable TV with a handful of English channels.

We're here for school after all...

After all, it’s school that brought me to Budapest and so I should highlight this component.

Shannon and I curated our schedules so that we have four-day weekends almost every week, which allows for plenty long weekend excursions. The down side of this is that, for me, I have 8 hours of class crammed into every Tuesday (starting at 9am and finishing at 8pm), which makes for tiresome days, but it’s worth it.

I’m taking some interesting courses: Comparative Constitutional Law, Regional Human Rights Systems, German Constitutional and its Impact Around the World, Human Rights and Criminal Justice, and last but not least… an elementary Russian language course! Although I must admit I’m taking Russian for kicks, there was a rationale behind it. Some language classes cost extra (such as German, Spanish, Chinese, Hungarian), whereas others are free (Latin, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Russian). I was interested in taking German but was not so keen on paying ~$200 extra. Aside from being at no extra cost, Russian is the only language class held once a week (as opposed to twice), which means more free time “to focus on my other classes”.

Despite my slacker-driven pursuit of the best schedule, I really am enjoying learning Russian and attending the class.

Russian is very interesting to learn because unlike English, French or Spanish, Russian is exclusively handwritten in cursive, which makes it necessary to learn how to write the letters in cursive. In addition to the writing component, you of course have to learn the block-letter form of the Cyrillic alphabet – which is what you see on signs, print, and on Russian keyboards. There are a few of the 33 letters in the Russian alphabet that resemble English letters and may have the same sounds as English or French letters, but there also many that do not. For example, the B (upper case) or в (lower case) in Russian is actually the “V” sound and У (upper case) у (lower case) may look like a “Y” but it actually possesses an “oo” sound. If you wanted to make the B sound in Russian, it would be Б (upper case) б (lower case) and if you wanted to make the “Y” sound it would depend whether you wanted to do “ya” (Яя), “ye” (Ее), or “yo” (Ёё) or simply the “Y” sound like in the words toy or bok choi (Йй). Needless to say, Russian has been keeping me entertained and I’ve been telling myself that I’ll be reading the original works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky in no time!

My pal Mike

For those who don’t know, Shannon and I are studying at the Central European University (CEU). It’s an American-accredited school (affiliated with Bard College in New York State), but its operations are all in Budapest. One other distinctive feature that links CEU back to North America is that the university’s President/Rector is, oddly enough, former Liberal Party Leader/ Leader of the Opposition (2008-2011), and 2011 Prime Ministerial Candidate, Michael Ignatieff. Most of my classes are in the same building as is his office and I am always keeping an eye out to see if he’s around. Just over a month had gone by and I still hadn’t run into Mike….

Then, one sunny October day, I got an email from his assistant requesting my presence to attend Mr. Ignatieff’s domicile for a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. This gracious invitation, which was extended to all Canadian students at CEU, was finally an opportunity to meet the head honcho himself. Having to skip out on my beloved Russian class, I put on a nice shirt and my best trousers, put gel in my hair, and walked on over with Shannon and our classmate Jérémie (an exchange student from U of T). We arrived at his fancy apartment shortly after 6pm. In attendance were about 20 other Canadian students, some Canadian CEU professors, and the Canadian Ambassador to Hungary. I mingled about, drank Hungarian wine, and ate a nice turkey dinner on Ignatieff’s living room couch with other guests. After about 3 hours of being entertained at Mr. Ignatieff’s, we headed home… but not without getting a picture with him, of course!

Mike I. with Jérémie, Shannon and I

As President of the CEU, Ignatieff has certainly been busy lately. Recently, the CEU has been in the news quite a bit as there is great uncertainty with regard to the future of the school. To keep things brief, it basically comes down to the Hungarian government (under Prime Minister Viktor Orban) not wanting the CEU in Hungary. CEU was created 27-odd years ago through a hefty endowment funded by billionaire and philanthropist George Soros. There’s been quite a bit of tension between Orban and Soros, which has been a reason why the Hungarian government wants to oust the American-accredited international-centric graduate school. Two weeks back, around the same time that Orban banned the field of Gender Studies in Hungarian schools, the CEU’s board voted in favour to move the university to Vienna next year due to an impasse on reaching an agreement with the Hungarian government. Luckily none of this affects us, as we’ll be wrapping up our time in Budapest in December.

All’s to say life in Budapest is treating us very well and we’re enjoying our time on exchange. We’ve had the pleasure of having wonderful guests pay us a visit. Notably: my beloved parents, Pierre and Laurine; our classmates Alexandra and Eric; Shannon’s childhood friend Lesley; our Aussie friend Grace; and in two weeks, my homie Hans will be stopping by.

Thank you once again for reading, I certainly hoped you enjoyed this latest edition of my newsletter. And once again, if you have any comments or feedback, please do not hesitate to write.