Hungarians seem to have much of a reading habit when compared to the Americans. I could rarely find a reader in America, whereas every other person in the metro has a book. They read while sitting, standing and even (in the case of one old lady) walking. From Agatha Christie to William Gibson’s Neuromancer to Harry Potter, you see every kind of book out here. The most popular one, amongst all is the one which I am currently reading – Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series (“That Vampire Book, as Snag puts it across). They seem to have something for Vampires. The escalators at the metro are filled with advertisements of Vampire movies and books.
There seemed to be a lot of hoop-la today about the date being 09-09-09. My mock mail about 09/09/09 09:09:09 also elicited some funny responses. “Set your time zone in the SAP system to CET + 1 check your time the through menu System->Status (later change your time zone to the next)…This way you can experience the date and time more than once while saving costs.” suggested Moinu. “We should start this for factory calendars too... not just Gregorian calendars…” he continued “we'll see all the factory calendar definitions in P7D and start sending mails…”. And in the evening, i find a post on Facebook: "Posted at 09/09/09 09:09:09".
People are so smart. They have an answer to everything now…
Lunch was late, by Hungarian standards. Almost everyone had finished lunch at 1:00 PM, and we had the place for ourselves. I opted for the huge pastry and a bowl of salad. Snag was searching for vegetarian food. Gyula pointed out the dish and remarked: “It’s delicious”. She wasted no time in selecting it. Within a minute, she regretted her decision. “How can this be delicious?” she remarked. I pointed out the paprika sauce kept near the salad table. It seemed to pass her test. “I like this Paprika Chutney!” (That’s how she named it.) “I’m going to buy it for home. I am now a fan of Paprika!”
The discussion or rather the argument, bordered on why men are better photographers than women. It ended with Snag threatening to stab me with a fork.
“My photos are so nice!” She started off again. “Your photos do not look natural. They look so plastic.”
Since it was late, I abandoned any thoughts of a walk. Gabor had mentioned that the Meygeri Hed, the new suspension bridge, was only one hour’s walk away from the office and that had piqued my curiosity. “They jokingly call it the Chuck Norris Bridge” he said, “All because of the naming poll for the bridge. Someone said why not name the bridge after an international personality, and Chuck Norris received the highest nomination.” American comedian Stephen Colbert had also dropped in his hat in the ring, and actually won the poll. We should probably try this in India the next time a bridge is named after someone in the Nehru Gandhi family.
Looking at the name of a colleague, Snag remarked. “Hey, this guy is named after the bridge”(referring to the Arpad Bridge). “Couldn’t it also be that the bridge was named after some guy?” I asked.
Sessions in office went late into the evening, and hence there was no roaming around at night. Still, I managed to squeeze out a small walk in the evening…and to my surprise, promptly ran into Frank as I exited the hotel.
The world sure is a small place.
And, I decided to do something about the "Post date and time" for this post.
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