Business as Usual (Changes in Hungary)
Coming up in this episode of Hungary’s online radio show (and podcast)… “Business as Usual (Changes in Hungary).”
In the second of a series of Budacast episodes, Uncle Drew once again speaks to Barbara Ürögdi of Helpers Hungary who tells us that doing business in Hungary is always about changes, but last year’s wave of new legislation could rock your boat.
These days in Hungary, one might feel like they’re lost in the woods given all of the legal changes, protests, and economic turmoil. Lately, Drew says it can almost be a bit overwhelming if one pays too much attention to news about Hungary.
Not to worry – Barbara has some more tips for those living and working in Hungary, to help them sift through the facts and fiction. Hopefully she addresses any concerns listeners might have about what’s been going on.
First, she speaks about the kinds of clients that Helpers has to later address some of their specific concerns.
She says the basic idea of Helpers is to provide core services: to provide business consultancy and project management; and relocation – basically for small business owners, foreigners who do work or business in Hungary.
“In this, we are quite unique on the Hungarian market,” she explains, “because the services we provide are only typically available for big businesses, through consulting companies and big relocation companies – things like financial consulting, business planning, market research, partner searches, legal and accounting advice and also practical project management.”
Barbara continues: “I think what’s important is that our core client base is made up of small- and medium-sized businesses that are owned and run by foreigners, and that’s a very niche market because they typically have to rely on consultants and the local experts to make sense of the regulations and to run their businesses, not only compliantly but also successfully. But because of the size of their business, they generally do not have the same concerns as corporations have.
“Big consulting companies and also the media and government communication tends to focus on the interests of big business, so most of the stuff that you will read in the media does not directly concern you if you’re running a small business but finding out what does and doesn’t concern you is tricky business,” she explains.
“Legislation tends to be written in Hungarian and is very very long and basically incomprehensible to anyone,” Ürögdi quips, “so you have to rely on experts. And you get some of your information from the media, but that’s pretty much your only source of information, especially if you’re a foreigner. So what we try to do is provide targeted assistance and information, specifically for small- and medium-sized businesses – that’s why we’re here having this conversation.”
Helpers Hungary has actually reacted in a very targeted way to the tidal wave of changes in Hungary in late 2011 and early 2012.
“Two things kind of coincided over the last few months,” she explains. “One of them was expected: we knew that both corporate legislation and the tax regime are going to change from 2012.”
She says that in terms of legislation, things always change in Hungary, so that was no surprise.
“Taxes change every few months; it’s very difficult to keep track, but not only that – it’s also very difficult to plan ahead, which is essential for business,” says Ürögdi in terms of doing business in Hungary. “So this is something we’ve been preparing for for a while.
“We knew that there was a proposal on the table which would be voted on just before Christmas, for example, which affected, more or less, every piece of law that has to do with owning, running or transferring a company. What we didn’t know is that there would also be a modification, which would be passed on December 30th. So then we basically spent the first week of January sifting through those modifications and trying to figure out what actually changed and what didn’t.”
According to Barbara, Helpers also knew that the tax regime was going to change.
“Most of that was public, but until something is actually set down in law, it can always change at the last minute in Hungary. So it’s been a few months of trying to figure out what’s going to happen and trying to prepare our clients for it.
“Interestingly, that has coincided with the whole political and economic turmoil that kind of happened in Hungary over the last few months – we did not plan for that. We also didn’t plan for the inflation that happened. So there’s a lot of stuff that we’ve had to do on the fly and keep in contact with both our partners and advisors to make sure that we are as thoroughly prepared as possible.
She says that at the moment there are two concrete steps that are being taken by Helpers.
“One is that we have prepared a document, which is very short – two pages – and it’s literally the most relevant bits and pieces from the new corporate law and the new tax law that are specifically interesting for small businesses.
“Just to give you an idea, the new corporate law is 300 pages and the modifications which were passed are another 300. It’s lots and lots of stuff, so nobody actually reads that. But our lawyer show specializes in assisting small businesses has provided us with 10-12 pieces of information that are directly relevant, so we’ve compiled this all in a document. It’s on our website and accessible to anyone for free, so it’s not just for our clients.”
As a follow up to that, Helpers Hungary has started a blog.
Barbara explains: “We’re going to have about 1-2 entries every week, detailing the new experiences that we have with the new legislation in Hungary, since a lot of it is currently just information but we don’t actually see how it’s going to work in practice.”
She said the blog will also include reflections on the economic and political situation in general.
Ürögdi gave one example of some information in the document compiled by Helpers.
“One of the things that affects our business directly is that the procedure for incorporating companies in Hungary has changed completely and is actually still in the process of changing. One of the services that we provide, which is pretty much at the core of our service offering is setting up companies and launching them – starting them in their operations, for foreigners.
“Until last year this was pretty much the simplest process in all of Europe, and one of the cheapest, because it was basically a ‘one-stop shop’, all filed electronically and basically in a day or two you’d end up with a company with a new VAT number and you’d be ready to go. You can open a bank account and trading the next day.”
She says now a new step has been introduced for registering companies in Hungary.
“The trade registry actually has to request a VAT number from the tax authority before actually registering the company, so technically if the tax authority does not approve of the owners or the CEOs it could reject the application and basically the trade registry would not be allowed to register the company.
“We informed our clients about this last year, because we knew that this was coming; what we didn’t know was how this was going to work out in practice. So far we have found that in the case of foreigners it’s actually quite simple, because what the authority looks for is previous tax liability, and if there isn’t any, for example in the case of a foreigner who’s never done business in Hungary, the issue of the tax number is basically automatic.”
According to her, this is one aspect that might actually disadvantage Hungarian business owners that have a long tax history in Hungary.
Barbara continues, “In the document we do outline the procedure, but we also include reflections on how this is going to affect clients’ businesses. In this case, for example, it might end up just being a formality for them – something that they should be aware of, because there is a hypothetical possibility that it could hinder the registration, but in the end it seems that in practical terms it’s not going to hurt them.
“So we’ve tried to keep it sort of practical, rather than translating the law we try to publish our experiences and kind of warn clients about realistic pitfalls and not burden them with too much legislation.
She points out that the Hungarian business environment gets a bad rap.
“It’s true that in some things it’s quite harsh. Most of the time that has to do with employment: taxes on employment including income taxes, social security, pension payments and all those are quite high. That is true, although I have to say that there are places where it’s higher and where it’s lower, but our corporate tax is one of the lowest – it’s on the same level as Cyprus, at 10%. Cyprus is well known as a tax haven. Hungarian dividend tax is at 16% which is also not so horrible.
“There are a lot of items in our tax system which are favorable and some which are not, but that’s kind of how it is to do business, you kind of make your way through the good and the bad.”
Of the Helpers document, she concludes: “In the end we kind of try to keep it realistic and focus on stuff that can actually help our clients get started and focus on their business rather than spending a lot of time working on legislation and worrying about tax laws.”
She says if one is well prepared and well informed, it’s possible to do good business in Hungary.
“I think a lot of the time people run into walls, because they don’t know what to expect in advance, and then they are shocked and surprised when their accountant tells them that they have to pay this or that thing, but technically that is something that you can plan for. And if you plan for it, if you have a solid business plan and financial plan, then you won’t have those kind of surprises.”
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0Alterations and Modifications (in Hungary)
In this episode of Budacast, Alterations and Modifications… We talk to entrepreneur Barbara Ürögdi of Helpers Hungary about what Hungary’s tidal wave of legal changes in 2012 means for expatriates, their businesses and life in Hungary.
If you’re even the slightest bit interested in what’s going on in Hungary, you’ve no doubt heard about all of the legal changes being enacted by the Hungarian Parliament and the subsequent international criticism.
Without getting into the politics, Budacast and Helpers Hungary’s Barbara Urogdi serve up some information and advice for those living and doing business here. Be sure to get this great summary (FREE download) compiled by Helpers:
Changes in Hungarian corporate law and related legislation (2012)
First of all, Barbara describes what’s been going on since last December in Hungary and says that numerous Helpers’ clients have been asking her what the changes mean for their lives and businesses.
“A lot of our clients have been contacting us with different questions and concerns,” she says, “because there’s a lot of stuff written about Hungary in the media these days, and while a lot of it is disturbing and true, a lot of it is quite sensationalist.
“I think people are having a bit of a hard time teasing apart the two and finding out not only what is true, because that’s almost like a philosophical question, but what exactly is relevant for them, for their lives, for their business.”
For example, Barbara says that some of Helpers’ clients are concerned about the status of Hungary in the EU, “because there has been news or rumors that Hungary might get kicked out of the Union, which I think is quite unrealistic. As far as [clients] are concerned, that would affect their lives very deeply, because they are currently resident for example in Hungary and can travel freely in the EU.”
She says that the other issue regarding the legal changes concerns businesses.
“There’s a lot of panic over the situation of the Hungarian banking system,” she explains. “Most people know that the currency has declined around 15% over the past few months, which is quite drastic, and people are reasonably concerned, both about the fate of the currency, about the security of their bank deposits, about their mortgages and just the general reputation of Hungary and the international markets.
“Most of our clients are foreigners and they do business internationally, so they are concerned that having a Hungarian business might not be such a good idea after a while if things go as they are going now.”
But are such changes more likely to hit locals harder than foreigners living in Hungary?
“The decline of the currency actually favors foreign investors and also exporters, so basically anyone who does their business in euros or dollars and ends up having expenditures in forints is currently very happy. Not all of those people are foreigners, but most foreigners are in that kind of situation, so a lot of our clients – whether they get a salary or income from business – actually draw their income in euros or dollars. So for those people, actually until inflation catches up with prices, it’s a good thing.”
Additionally, Ürögdi notes that real estate prices are currently very very low in Hungary.
“Add to that the inflation that’s happened over the last few months, and the fact that real estate prices haven’t even begun to catch up with the inflation. The fact is you can buy property for 10-15% less now than three months ago, which was already quite low.
“So if you have euros or dollars to spend, that can actually be an advantage to you.”
She addresses the recent rise in Hungary’s VAT rate.
“The issue that people often mention is that VAT’s very high in Hungary – it was already quite high last year at 25% – and now it’s been raised to 27%. That is one of the highest in the world, it’s true. But, once again, people who do business to business transactions with foreign companies, or do wholesaling outside of Hungary generally do not pay VAT anyway on those transactions, so many businesses are actually unaffected by this.”
Barbara says in general there’s a silver lining to such changes.
“There are a lot of people who see an opportunity in the situation rather than an obstacle.”
Not panicking in the current situation in Hungary is the key, according to her.
“Until recently, almost nothing appeared about Hungary in the international press, and in a way that was a good thing, because most of our clients try to get information from reliable sources, so they would speak to consultants like us, or speak to Hungarian friends, their lawyer, accountant, and that’s how they would make their decisions.
“But in recent months there’s actually been a lot of press about Hungary in English, and a lot of that does seem to induce panic. So when people are reading stuff like people are burning the EU flag in the streets, and if there were a referendum Hungary would definitely step out of the EU, of course they get concerned.”
She continues: “If you get all your information from the media, then you will be tempted into sensationalist thought, but if you actually speak to experts, which is what we have been trying to do over the past few months: trying to make sense of what’s going on, and also trying to find opportunities for our clients in the current situation, they will tell you that the chance of Hungary actually leaving the EU has not risen by much over the past few months; it’s just the exposure that has risen, but the chances are still very very slim that that will ever happen.
“There’s really not that much to panic about, and as I said, a lot of the recent changes can be viewed as opportunities, and in that case you should be happy.”
Stay tuned for our next episode with Barbara from Helpers Hungary as we help you sort facts from fiction in the rapidly changing Hungary.
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0Mulling it over (Budapest Xmas Markets)
In this archival edition of Budacast, Hungary’s online radio show and podcast: “Mulling it Over.”
Hear what happens when some intrepid expatriates weather the cold to bathe in the sights, smells and sounds of one of Budapest’s traditional outdoor Christmas markets.
A few years ago Maria Bredican and her friend Jennifer showed up at the Christmas market (Karácsonyi vásár) on Vörösmarty Square in Budapest. Their mission? To warm their bones in the tradition that is drinking “forralt bor” or mulled wine: cheap wine that is spiced up with cloves, cinnamon and orange peel and served hot, preferably in a mug.
Jennifer says she doesn’t shop at this market, but enjoys the “semblance of Christmas past” there.
“There are lots of smokestacks, cooking, lots of fatty foods, sausages. You can buy your vinyl wallets, plastic calendars, marionettes, other faux handicrafts at any one of these stalls. I love the Christmas lights, odd shapes up and down the trees. Not too many bells; no Santa Clauses. Nice atmosphere. Folks sort meandering slowly. It’s cold so I suppose most are at home or – worse – at the shopping mall.”
As they stand beside a ceramics stall, Maria, is excited over the mulled wine that you can buy at the market.
“Lots of people seem to be wandering around and mostly drinking wine,” she says, noting that it’s an excellent idea.
Take note that in this – the most touristy Christmas market in Budapest – a mug of mulled wine can get pretty pricey, especially when you have to fork up a “deposit” to use one of the ceramic mugs instead of a plastic cup.
“I think you actually get your money back if you bring it back,” says Maria.
Jennifer fires up her order of two foralt bor. Only red wine is available.
Their tab is 900 forints – about 4 euro (even 6 years ago when we made this podcast).
Jennifer gives a 100 forint tip.
“I didn’t realize that the wines are served in these big, old fashioned ceramic pots,” she says. “I thought it was just for looks, but I’m looking at this now and it’s on hot stones on a woodburning stove – most of them are – so I guess this would keep it at the perfect temperature, right?”
“Because you can’t boil this; if you boil it you lose all the alcohol?”
Maria remarks: “Oh, really? Cause I boiled one at home the other night.”
“You want to have a little alcohol,” says Jennifer. “Let’s try this.”
“I really need this,” Maria says.
Jenn: “My only complaint about the forralt bor is you usually get it in a plastic cup, so the heat just comes right through. So if you’ve forgotten your gloves – like you have – your fingers get a little too hot to carry it.
“I will tell you something about this market – this is all handicrafts and very Christmas like – there are several other markets around town, like at Jókai tér and Liszt Ferenc tér where you can buy sweatpants and knit hats and shoelaces. Here it’s all handicrafts.”
Maria replies: “That’s why people come here – it’s for the ‘kürtős kalács,’” referring to the sugary, spongey treat that’s shaped like a chimney and is prepared before one’s eyes on an open fire.
“The big donuts, cinnamon cake, but thin and tall. Like a cinnamon cone soft cookie.”
“You see queues of people waiting to eat this and nibbling away,” Maria says.
Jenn says it means “smokestack” or “chimney.”
They watch the kürtős kalács being made and offer their observations.
“It’s like the pizza places when I was a kid,” Jenn explains. “You could watch them make the dough.
“They’re rolling it out with one of those big wooden cylinders – and she has to answer her cellphone. Just like 100 years ago.
“If I didn’t know that these were sweet, I would think it was like a pizza dough or a bread. It looks toasty and warm; I’ve never seen it cooked over the hot coals like that.”
Maria asks some visitors if they know what it is.
“No, that’s why we’re trying it for the first time. It’s sweet with the taste of cinnamon. Do you want some?” she asks Maria.
“No, I think I’m going to get one myself,” she says.
A bit later, Jenn reports that the Hungarian purveyors at the market start to pack up for the night.
Maria says, “Looks like it’s time to leave and everybody’s getting cold.”
“There are a few diehards getting chestnuts. It’s a lovely crisp night. Are you in the Christmas spirit now, Maria?”
“Yeah, I’m a bit better. Not as grumpy as earlier.”
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0Citizenshift (Acquiring Hungarian citizenship)
In this episode of Budacast, Uncle Drew files this special report on how to become a Hungarian, i.e. how to acquire Hungarian citizenship (if you’re eligible). Drew accompanied his wife Andrea and his mother in law to the district mayor’s office in Budapest’s 12th district for the swearing in ceremony.
In connection with officially becoming a Hungarian national, Andrea provides some tips for others who hope to become Hungarian.
Andrea smiles when Drew asks her if she’s excited to become a Hungarian citizen. She says the process took her about seven months (the Hungarian government has fast-tracked the process to swear in ethnic Hungarians living outside of Hungary’s borders, like those from Transylvania, like Andrea). Things weren’t so easy for her 13 years ago, when she tried to gain Hungarian citizenship when she first moved to Hungary. “They were not interested in me,” she jokes.
Drew says she’s interesting; that’s why he married her.
Andrea says the entire process of applying for Hungarian citizenship is no longer as complicated these days. She explains that she had to submit certain documents and prove relations between herself and her relative that was born in Hungary (her mom). In other cases, it could be someone’s grandparent as well.
In the Hungarian citizenship swearing in ceremony, a district government official makes some short remarks about becoming a Magyar, before the entire crowd repeats the citizenship oath and is officially handed their citizenship certificate.
At the end everyone makes a toast to the new Hungarian citizens, who receive flowers. Egészségedre!
After a bit of organization in the ceremonial hall, the Hungarian citizenship proceedings begin. Everyone stands to sing the Hungarian national anthem and then the participants take the oath, which contains the line: “I consider Hungary my home.”
When the ceremony is finished, everyone starts milling around and clinking glasses.
Outside, Drew realizes that his wife has officially become a Hungarian citizen, so he asks her how she feels.
“I’m so proud,” says Andrea, who offers a few tips for others seeking to redeem their Hungarian citizenship.
She says, “Don’t even start the procedure if you don’t speak the language, because you will need it through the entire process, starting with the application through to the very last step, when you take the vow. That’s the most important [tip].”
Andrea adds that becoming a Hungarian citizen take a heck of a lot of patience, because the process takes a lot of time (and effort).
To get started: gather all your documents, like birth certificates and supporting documentation to prove that one of your ancestors was Hungarian.
If you need help with your citizenship request, don’t hesitate to contact Andrea Szalczer-Leifheit, who heads Expatriate Services at Helpers Hungary. She can offer you more information on Hungarian citizenship requests and even guide you through the entire process.
Stay tuned!
Uncle Drew & Andrea
0
Budapest Action Figure
High flying Radmilla
In this episode of Budacast, Hungary’s online radio show, we introduce you to Budapest artist Milorad Krstic and his wife Radmilla, who has become the subject of her husband’s creations. Drew visits them in their studio in a funky, old part of Budapest. The three of them speak about their gallery from the early 1990s, what inspires them in the Hungarian capital, and how Milorad began using his wife to reinterpret many of his paintings, and photographs, of Budapest.
Check out more of the Adventures of Radmilla at Milorad’s website.
Stay tuned!
Uncle Drew & Andrea
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0Biking in Buda
In this episode of Budacast, Hungary’s online radio show, we take you on a little video tour of some things you can run into biking around in Buda. Uncle Drew and Andrea head out to Nagykovacsi, find the “Nagyret” and end up stuffing their faces at one of Budapest’s most famous restaurants, Nancsi Neni. Stay tuned!
“Expatified,” Hungarian style
In this archival edition of Budacast, the hosts of Legal Alien, a now defunct English language radio show in Budapest, pummel Uncle Drew with questions about what it’s like to live as a foreigner in Hungary.
Finding his smile in Budapest
Drew says he arrived to Hungary in the fall of 1990, when he lived in a town called Szentes, which is on the Hungarian Great Plain not too far from Szeged.
He recalls that his friends planned on going to Hungary for a few months after experiencing the exotic manner of a legendary photography professor at Beloit College, Michael Simon, who was of Hungarian origin. Drew says Professor Simon was a bit eccentric, sometimes suggesting, tongue-in-cheek, that students seek psychiatric help based on the photographs they had taken.
According to Drew, Hungary was likely a very popular destination in Beloit’s study abroad program because of Michael Simon’s popularity with students.
Professor Simon had some connection to Szentes, where Drew’s friends told him they were headed. Drew says that after hearing about their impending adventure, he asked “Can I go, too?”
“Sure thing,” said his buddies, Lesley and Matt.
Drew says that before deciding to come to Hungary he felt like he was “23 going on 50.” He just wasn’t excited by the 40-hour workweek and blue business suit lifestyle in the United States. He remembers his job at a video production company in the San Francisco Bay Area as a mixed blessing.
After graduating, and not having been on an exchange program at Beloit College, Drew says he was still searching for something.
“I thought I would teach English for a few months,” he says, explaining that he spent about 9 months in Szentes before hitchhiking a whole summer with his friend Matt.
Crazy things happened to him when he arrived back in Hungary at the end of the summer to gather his things and say goodbyes before heading back to the US: he got involved with a nice Hungarian woman (surprise!), and then someone offered him a job.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do if I went back to the States,” he explains.
Over the years, Drew says, he’s stayed in Hungary for different reasons at different times.
Living out of a suitcase or really setting down roots in Hungary are things that he says he has struggled with for a long time. Over the 20 or so years, he’s lived in about a dozen different flats in different parts of Budapest, dragging that suitcase.
Despite that tenuousness, Drew says he can imagine Budapest as one of his base camps in the long term.
In that context, he adds: “I know a lot of expatriates who live here in a state of suspended animation. They are here for years and years, but still live out of a suitcase.”
After all this time, though, he suspects he’s committed to staying in Hungary.
After having lived here a few years, Drew recalls that he tried moving back to the US at the end of 1996, but it didn’t really take.
“Once you’ve lived overseas somewhere your interests change. It was tough, especially going back to the Midwest; I often think maybe if I’d gone back to the East Coast perhaps I would’ve been in more international circles, and stayed.”
Alas, that’s not the way things turned out.
“My interests just changed and I always found myself gravitating towards immigrant groups in the US; I kind of feel like an outsider there, especially in the place like where I come from.”
Drew says his hometown of Rockford, Illinois is a very blue collar town with very nice people, but there’s a caveat: “People are not really interested in the outside world, or know very little and are really not curious enough to figure it out.”
“For example, my parents own a restaurant and we have lovely waitresses. A couple of years ago, one of our waitresses said, ‘Oh yeah, Drew, I hear you’re over there in…Afghanistan.’”
He says that in much of the US, most people would not know where Hungary is.
So, what’s it like living in Hungary, according to Drew?
He says that while Budapest is such a gorgeous city, he finds most Hungarians in the capital to be joyless.
“Despite the frowns on the metro, this place is like a village,” he says of Budapest. “Over the years I’ve met so many people, and not all of them are my best friends, but I love the feeling of living in a city centre – that’s what’s missing in a lot of America; I can travel on public transportation here and literally probably see one person I’ve met over the years every single day. Maybe it’s delusional, but this really gives you the feeling that you’re connected to a place. You really feel a lot more like you belong, instead of being in the ‘hyperbaric chamber’ of your automobile, and never running into anyone.”
He says that with such a great public transport system, all kinds of people rub elbows in Budapest. Still, he thinks he’s even adopted some of the slightly sulky national character here, for example being irritated by tourists who are having a good time out in public.
“There may be something good in that,” he says of his attempted subterfuge, trying to act like a Hungarian. “I like being discrete and being an incognito expatriate. If you’re quiet, you can just kind of live your life. You don’t have to be pointed at as a foreigner.”
Drew talks a bit about why Hungarians are the way they are and their sense of schadenfreude.
“In connection with that, I have an Iraqi friend whom I’ve known here since 1991,” he explains. “He has a shop in the 9th district and whenever a customers come in, and maybe they’re frowning, he’ll just start singing and snapping his fingers. Invariably, the Hungarians crack a smile. So maybe that could be a personal mission for some people, trying to cheer people up a bit.”
Finally, Drew talks a bit about podcasting and why he started Hungary’s online radio show (and podcast), Budacast: a passion for doing radio in Budapest.
Stay tuned!
Andrea & Uncle Drew
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1Ties That Bind (or not)
In this episode of Budacast, Hungary’s online radio show, “Ties That Bind,” we talk about the difference between how close families are Central Europe compared to in the US.
We also give you the scoop about how to get your residence established in Hungary (like Drew did) when you’re married to an EU citizen (Andrea), give a mention to what happens in Hungary on St. Stephen’s Day, 20 August, and recount how a Slovenian border guard didn’t want to let Drew out of the Schengen Zone (at 4am no less!).
Be sure to contact Andrea, head of Expatriate Services at Helpers Hungary, if you need help with sorting out your work visa, residence permit or any other official permit that you may need as a foreigner in Hungary.
Happy St. Stephen’s Day, August 20th. Drew says that while in the US the July 4th holiday feels like it’s the start of the summer, Hungary’s national holiday is always a signal that the summer is ending. Andrea says it’s because school is set to start on September 1st.
Perhaps you’re an international Erasmus (exchange) student, newly arrived to Budapest and you need some help sorting things out in Budapest? Again, Andrea might be able to help you with your residence permit or anything else.
And speaking of that, as he is now married to an EU citizen, Drew (an American) just received a 5-year residence card to stay in Hungary. If you’re like him, you know that renewing these is much more frequent for US citizens (and other non EU nationalities) than it is if you’re European.
Andrea and Drew talk about some of the steps necessary to get the so-called “tartózkodási kártya.” She says that, for an American, having an EU wife is the same as having a Hungarian wife (or husband). The residence card is much better than getting a Hungarian residence permit, which is like a visa sticker that is placed in your passport, because it’s good for 5 years. (Drew’s last permit was for less than one year.)
Now Drew is waiting for his address registration card (a “lakcím kártya”), which lists your address and basic information. It will be more permanent than the white cardboard thingy he has received so many times and never shown to anyone, and should arrive in the mail.
Ready for action
How was your summer vacation? We just got back from Tuscany, where our goal was to taste a lot of wine. Andrea says the landscape (taj) was beautiful. Drew says he was amazed at how expensive things were in Italy and is thankful for how affordable Hungary still is. They ended their trip in Venice, a beautiful place that can charge whatever the hell it wants.
Here’s a travel alert for those taking the overnight train from Venice to Budapest like we did: Beware of evil Slovenian border guards (at least one) who don’t want to let you out of the Schengen zone at 4 am! The guy couldn’t find the stamp in my passport when I had entered Schengen, so he didn’t want to let me out. It didn’t matter that I told him I was a resident in Hungary and showed him a paper from the immigration office that I was waiting for the renewal of my residence permit.
There was no reasoning with him, but eventually he stamped my passport out of exasperation. Was he looking for a bribe?
So what’s the difference between family relationships in Central Europe versus in America?
Andrea thinks family ties are not as strong in North America and recalls when she used to work on a cruise ship and one of the American guests kicked the bucket. She says that the family members accompanying him stayed on the cruise ship after he’d died.
Drew talks about the stereotype of Hungarians not being incredibly mobile, almost never moving far away from where their families are. He admits that he’s lived on both coasts in the US and that Americans just don’t feel distances in the same way.
While Andrea worked on cruise ships for about 8 years, she says that every 6 months she would spend one month back home to be around her family. She says she can’t imagine moving to a far away place like Australia, and especially as her parents are starting to get old.
Drew says that a long-time Budacast listener recently told him that she listens to the show to give herself a taste of what it’s like to live in Budapest, which she left when she was 8 years old. For him it is just shocking that any Hungarian could stay away for so long.
Budacast listeners, let us know what you think in the comments section of this site.
Our Word of the Week is tűzijáték, which is the Hungarian word for fireworks.
And, finally, I not only promise to stop talking about the weather (which has been absolutely sweltering in Budapest), but also will try not to introduce my wife with her super duper long last name.
Stay tuned!
Uncle Drew & Andrea
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0- My first flight to Hungary in 1990 was on Malév. The no smoking sign was turned off and a huge cloud of smoke emerged. My eyes burned.
- Hungary w/out an airline. Tomorrow Budapest w/out public transport? Anything goes.
