A Snapshot of My Day – June 9, 2011

While walking to work today, I saw a someone across the street that was blind trying to make his way down the street. He eventually wanted to cross the street towards me. He must have been really familiar with the area because he knew exactly where the flower pots were and where the crosswalk was. Granted he had one of those sticks to help guide him, but I was still amazed. The lights here unlike in Canada do not make any sounds when they changed. I was worried that he was going to step out into traffic and me being across the street and not being able to communicate in Hungarian left me feeling a little helpless. But he must have been accustomed to this and listed to the change in traffic pattern. I was pretty amazed by the whole experience of watching him. I only hope he made it okay to wherever he was headed.

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My trainee buddy bought me a transit pass for a month. He got me a student version and asked if I had a student card. I do, but its one from the university, not the International Student Identity Card (ISIC) which is recognized everywhere. He told me usually they don’t check.

When you take the metro here, there are always transit people standing at the door and they ask to see your pass or ticket. In the past, I’ve had no problems. I just show them my pass and go on through. But tonight, the guard started talking to me Hungarian. I guess when he saw my confused expression, he tried to communicate in English, but the only words I understood was student card. I whipped out my card and he checked it out and let me go. I breathed a sign of relief and vowed to myself to get myself one of those ISIC cards ASAP. My trainee buddy said he will help me get one.

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Traffic is crazy. Forget any type of pedestrians having a right of way because the cars here have the right of way. Today I saw a taxi driver get visible upset and exchange words with a pedestrian because the pedestrian had the audacity to cross the street at a cross walk when the taxi was wanting to drive through. The taxi driver honked and honked at the pedestrian who took his sweet time crossing the road. Craziness!

I live off of a pretty traffic heavy street. Its not a main street, but it has a bus route and many cars driving down it at all times of the day. Often I can hear screeching tires, honks and once, a loud bang and crash sound. I’m surprised not more accidents happen here considering the way people drive. Yes, there are lanes and most people follow them, but it seems like cars weave in and out of lanes with little consideration of other cars and barely use their lights.

The street I live on doesn’t have traffic lights and rely on stop signs. From what I’ve seen, cars don’t necessarily stop at these signs. Usually they stop half way through the intersection leaving barely enough room for the car with the right of way to speed on by.

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Its hot here. Very hot. Almost every day its reached the upper 20s and sometimes into the 30s. But apparently wearing deodorant is not something that is done here. Whenever I take transit, I’m sure to come upon a super stinky person, even more so than in Vancouver. Bleh, its going to take some getting use to.