A Bit of Hungary

Well, after consuming 4 of these and now buzzing on sugar, I decided I would give you a little tour of my beautiful country, Hungary, mainly through little interesting facts. So here we go...

  • Capital : Budapest
  • Area : 93 030 km2 ( 35 910 sq.miles )
  • Population : 10 million
  • Population of Budapest : 2 million
  • Form of goverment : Republic
  • Flag : red, white and green equal size horizontal stripes
  • President : there is a president however in my opinion he is not representing the Hungarian nation
  • Prime minister : there is a prime minister however in my opinion he is not representing the Hungarian nation
  • Climate : continental (but mainly very cold in winter and very hot in summer)
  • Official language : Hungarian
  • Administration : 19 counties
  • Hungarian name : Magyarorszag (Magyar = Hungarian, orszag = country, land)

... We call ourselves 'magyar'. Loud and proud. Even when on holiday abroad.

... Hungarians are very opinionated. They have an opinion even if they don't have a clue about the subject.

.... We love politics. We don't have a choice. Our every day-existence may depend on who gets elected.

... We ring the church bells every day at noon. This custom is based on the order of the Pope and because it was in the same year as the year of the battle of Nandorfehervar ( Janos Hunyadi against the Turks ) most people associate these two events.

... We celebrate the so called 'name-day' which is a calendar day related to your first name. The origin of this custom comes from the Catholic Saints who are thought to defend people with the same first name.

... We celebrate Easter Monday not just Easter Sunday. On Monday men go to visit their women friends/relatives/colleagues and sprinkle them with various perfumes. Women don't really enjoy having multiple smells by the end of that day. In return women give small presents to men like painted eggs (recently it's just painted hard boiled eggs), chocolate, drinks or cookies. The origin of this custom comes from the villages where guys poured cold fresh water on girls believing to keep them nice and pretty.

... We celebrate our new grain crops and bread on every 20th of August. This day is also the celebration of our country founder king St. Istvan I.

... Caused by smoking and stressful lifestyle the average lifetime in Hungary is about 7-8 years less than in the USA, and based on statistics we have high rate heart attack and cancer.

... Hungarians don't really go to the pub. Pubs are called 'kocsma' and are filthy and frequented only by heavy drinkers. What I mean by heavy drinkers is people starting there at 6am and leaving at around 9pm. Magyars like to drink at home.Clever.

... Although people think Hungarian is similar to Russian or Polish (why?!!it still boggles the mind!), the Hungarian language is a Finno-Ugric language, unrelated to the other languages of central Europe. It is more similar to Finnish.

... The first subway system in Europe was built in Budapest. It looks just like the New York subway.

... We use our first and last names in different order. The family name is the first.

... And last but not least please don't ask if we're hungry. We don't like it.

posted by Katuska @ Friday, May 26, 2006 Comments: 4