15/01/2005

This Sunday will be remembered as the day we learned the most important sentence in Hungarian. Jó villág van. It is a good life. To make sure we got the meaning right, Gyuri’s wife Zsofi coocked us a wonderful Hungarian lunch. There was no end to the food and the wine. We couldn’t but say the sentence again and again.
During the meal Gyuri made a list of the new English words he learned. Gyuri likes lists. In our first week here, he came by now and then and when anything was needed, he took a small notebook from his breastpocket and wrote the errant in question down meticulously. Striking it through again five minutes later when it appeared not to be necessary after all.
It was the same notebook he was writing in now. And at the end of the lunch, it was almost evening, he named the words one by one. Ridiculous. Terrible. Disaster. Horrible. Nightmare. Deception. We fell silent. So this is what our Hungarian friends learn from us Dutchmen? Fortunately Gyuri knew the solution. He striked the words through one by one and poured us another drink. Jó világ van!