Hungary Anyone?

I would say hello in hungarian if i knew how, but i don't, not yet. this place is crazy, excuse me for being totally steryotypically american but.....no one, and i mean no one, can speak english here, its insane! we went grocery shopping, to the bank in the mall, ate at a restaurant where in true rahamim fashion i learned some vegitables
slonka = ham (thats always the first)
gomba = mushroom
viz = water
sajt = cheese (that one also some how always ends up on the list too)

anyway i am here and safe so all is well. in the next two weeks i look forward to organizing guys life for him while he is at his orientation crash course to learn some hungarian and making alfajores for him as well. we bought what we think are the ingrediants for the cookies. yay fun adventures in a land that seems to have a language that is not connected to any other what so ever! It is quite hard to guess here. it looks like german with long words and umlouts everywhere but there is no connection to any german i know, not saying i know a lot but really.....also the money here is so week its like 160 forent to 1 doller. so like lets say i want to buy something and its 20bucks i am looking at 3000 forent......its just so bizzare you can't even comprihend what the hell your trying to buy.....maybe this is a good place for me. I walked up to a pair of shoes and the price was like 9956 i got so overwhelmed i just walked away. also in the grocery store we were looking for certain foods we know the boys like and it was so complicated to figure out what the things said on them we gave up.....i said maybe this is a good place for a diet. eventually we started just going by pictures and looking for clear packaging. the hardest i spent looking doe something was for the dulce du leche for the alfojores cookies. First i found nuttella so i looked in that area and where the jams were to find maybe just some in a jar like a spread- they have that in israel- nope. Then i decided maybe i would be able to find condensed milk so i looked in the cooking section and the canned goods section - nope. then i took a break. finally i started asking a few people if they spoke english - also nope. took another break. then i decided to check the same aisles i had been to again, maybe i just wasn't looking hard enough you know? when i felt i had trully exauhsted that angle and decided i wasn't going to get any where with out help i started asking for english speakers again. one couple - nope - random guy -also nope - another couple - nope as well.....then i decided i had nothing to lose and i was going to try and get what i want any way. I picked up the caramel syrup i found and a jar of chocolate spread and pointed them. The couple confired for a moment and then started searching the jams. still nothing. then i said ok lets try something else. We learned earlier that milk was tej when we were trying to buy some. so i took a can pointed to it and milk - tej. they confired, quite the think-before-you-do kind of couple. and then they walked up to their friend that worked there (???wtf???) and then finally they walked down this aisle and pointed to whipping cream. that was written in english - great. i said thank you to them for the help, which by the way is very similar to the slang word that mean pussy (excuse my language) in hebrew, and then noticed what seemed like condensed milk in a tube! woo hoo! i'll let you know how the cookies come out.

The end
more on Hungary later