Tuesday 3 August 2010


Hungary #4 - insects and punctuation

I'm in a Hungarian internet café to print out my boarding pass, and decided it would be a prudent time to post. The topic of today's discussion is the various insect encounters I've had in Budapest so far, and my attempts to familiarise myself with a foreign keyboard layout.

The first happened when I was laying on Simon's bed, looking around his apartment. I noticed a middle-sized spider (maybe 3cm in diameter) chilling on his ceiling, and asked whether he knew it was there. "Yes", he replied. "That's Glenn". Apparently Glen keeps the flies in check, and it certainly seemed he was doing a good job - a respectably sized web containing many demised flies hung from the ceiling just a short distance from Glenn.

Two and three occurred when we were tidying up the apartment for guests: I noticed an army of ants parading around the room (impressive considering the apartment is six floors up). I asked the same question to Simon as to whether he was aware of them, and he replied in the affirmative once again. Whereas Glenn keeps flies in check, the ants' jobs is to manage crumbs and other debris by carrying it into the floor and disposing of it. Three was more gross - there was a dead cricket in the corner that had been torn open by ants (presumably) and had had eggs laid inside it. I quickly disposed of this atrocity.

The fourth was also a cricket, but this time it was alive and decided my chest would be an ideal landing position. I was holding a pint at the time, and very nearly threw it all over the table. I flicked it off, then some braver man than I picked it up and threw it, when it somehow defied gravity and stuck itself to the ceiling. Number five happened in the same bar - I had just finished in the toilet only to realise that there was a beetle INSIDE the bowl. Bleghhhhhh.

This is a Hungarian keyboard. Notice how the Y and Z are switched around. I keep typing Zs where I want Ys, then realising, backspacing, correctly typing a new Y, then out of impulse or some weird tick, add an unwanted Z afterwards. Also notice how there are symbols below the letters as well as above the numbers - you probably recognise these symbols as those which occupy the area of keyboard where the accents are in the picture. These symbols are accessed by holding "Alt".

Fascinating.

4 comments:

  1. QWERTZIOP haha. I like it.

    Oh, you are SUCH a pussy!! I have encountered ants twice - once in my Great Uncle's house in Australia (though he's racist, and claims they came in my Coco Pops) and the second was when my beef's house got some. Both times they were in a cupboard. They can defy gravity or something!

    As for the cricket... Merrrgh that *IS* gross. Makes you wonder what the ants are thinking, laying their eggs there O_O

    Also, as much as I'm not squeamish about insects, if they're about my person I don't want to touch them. Something about spindly legs puts me riiiight off :/

    Hope you're having fun and miss your blogs! xx

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  2. I'm not a pussy, the insects didn't bother me I just thought they'd make good conversation :p

    Ants are hard core. Maybe the cricket wasn't full of ant eggs, can't be sure, but it was full of something...

    it was fun though, and thanks :D

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  3. it was black and lumpy... so probably yeah

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