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Thanks for visiting our blog about our time in Hungary.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

How do you say "Big Mac" in Hungarian?

I am constantly conflicted by two opinions in my brain. One thought is that it really doesn't matter where you live--people and places are all relatively the same. The second thought is that it really does matter where you live--because people and places are too different to possibly be the same. The more I try to pick a side in this argument the more merged my feelings become on the subject. 

I used to really believe you had to live somewhere different to truly experience something "different." But now that I live in Hungary, I keep finding more similarities between the people here and the people back home. People are people no matter where you go. Kids act the same in their behavior and they love the same music, movies, clothes, etc, the only difference is language. When I am teaching I often forget they are not American students...at least until they say something in Hungarian. They even love the same food. When I ask the students what their favorite food is they almost always say McDonalds!

Speaking of McDonalds, Ben and I had our first taste of it here in Hungary. We normally don't go to them back home, but now that we're in Hungary we could no longer resist the temptation/curiosity of it. When you step inside the McDonalds here in Debrecen it is obvious you are no longer in the States. The ceilings are vaulted and the furniture is modern and sleek. The staff is even better dressed! And the kitchen is actually clean! The menu is essentially the same--the word for Big Mac is still Big Mac. The only major difference is that here you have to pay for your ketchup and other sauces you usually can get for free back home.  

I'm sure some people will be mad that we went to McDonalds. I can hear the typing of angry comments now like: "You went all the way to Hungary just to go to McDonalds?!" Or "You should be sampling more of the local flavor and not wasting your money on something you could get back home!" And those would all be valid complaints to make to us. However, after you have lived in a country for a month...which it almost has been now for us. That "honeymoon" feeling you get when traveling starts to wear off. It especially wears off after you have struggled time and again to order the "local food" in a foreign language and get tired of the blank/annoyed stares. So forgive us if once in a while we do go to McDonalds or KFC or Subway...or any of the other countless fast-food chains here. We go to places like  this because its nice to order something and be understood for once. And it is also nice that a Big Mac tastes the same here as it does back home---actually I think it was better here. 

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