The Szalay Residence

Hi everyone,

So as I said, I got here yesterday and took a cab up to where I am staying.  For those of you who haven't heard, I'm staying Tamas's (my college roommate's) parents' house!  They both emigrated from Hungary like 2 decades ago, but they keep a house here for when they want to come visit family
It's super convenient to the city.  It's in District XII, which sounds like a ways out, except that the Budapest districts go out in a spiral, meaning that XII is part of the second "ring" of districts--adjacent to District I, where I work.  In fact, my commute is going to be less than 20 minutes--a 9 minute bus ride to the major station Moskva Ter (I have no idea how to do all the accents and dots, so Hungarian is just going to have to deal with only 5 vowels just like the rest of us), and then only one stop on the metro to my work.  Add in the fact that my work is less than a block from the station and the house is like 100 feet from the bus stop, and I'll probably do less walking getting to work than I did getting to class at Tech =/

Also staying at the house with me is Magdi, Tamas's cousin.  Sadly I don't have any pictures of her--I didn't think about taking pictures until today, and last night she left to go stay with her mother for the weekend.  However, thank god she was here when I got in.  First of all, she let me into the house . . . the gate out front is very complicated.  Well not complicated, you just have to push/lift/whatever it the right way.  To be honest, I still haven't figured it out--when I left today, I tried for like 2 minutes, then gave up and hopped the fence.  I should probably make an effort to figure it out before I have to go to work on Monday . . .
Furthermore, she took me down to Moskva Ter and helped me get a monthly pass--lets me ride any of the public transit in the city, for about $50 . . . pretty reasonable, I suppose

Anyways, here are pictures of the house:

Front view:

The main floor consists of the foyer and then a single big communal room, divided up into sections

Kitchen and Dining Rooms:

Living Room:

The stairs up to the loft:

I live on the second floor, halfway between floor and loft

My room.  Those of you who are perceptive/my mother will  note that it took a mere 24 hours to turn it into a mess:

Balcony!  I cannot wait until it's warmer weather out:

Well that's all for right now.  I'm heading to bed early, trying to get myself on a work schedule.  Tomorrow I'm going to explore the inner city some, as I'm meeting my boss for coffee downtown tomorrow afternoon.  (Incidentally, what do I wear for "meeting future boss for coffee"??  Is it business casual? Is business casual something I should wear? I don't even know what it is)

Later!

Noah out