The New Flat is Coming!

Ahh, and you Brits out there are going to hate this, summer has arrived at last.  Bringing with it the heat.  Yesterday was in the high 30's - positively sweltering - causing me to jump up to wash in cold water every half an hour!  Indeed, the summer's heat is here late this year, yet it is also different in another way, bringing a closeness and a little hint of extra humidity that makes it even harder to take.  Not that I can really complain about the weather now, I mean, not really the done thing, is it...yet working here in this closed space, with the heat from the laptop, can really make you appreciate Britain's cooler climes.  Not the rain, though.

Yet while this weather continues, our new home continues to change as the new wires go into the walls and the new plaster is added to fill in those gaps.  Yes, the first room of the flat - the bedroom - is nearly ready to paint, while the kitchen will be following close behind.  We're still searching for those final ideas, and while some are outrageous for people of our means right now, some are really very close to becoming a reality.  One of these cheap and fantastic looking ideas for the kitchen is the use of old bricks.  We only have a few kitchen cabinets to work with and these are tired looking.  So, instead of buying new ones, we've been looking at ways to build out of old rubbish.

Brick Kitchen Cabinets

Buying old bricks is incredibly cheap over here and you can let your own imagination run wild when it comes to the design.  Use them to build cabinets or how about as the splash back wall behind the cooker?  You can lacquer the bricks to give them a great finish, making them a perfect accompaniment to a natural looking kitchen.

With the money we save on the kitchen cabinets, we can buy some awesome tiles to go with it - we're really looking forward to how it's going to turn out.

And how are we funding it all?  Well, keep your eyes peeled, as www.stomsolutions.com is close to going live!  Watch out for the great new blog, fantastic service and special offers, all coming along very soon.

Let me know what you think, and if anyone has any suggestions for future blogs, drop a comment, and I'll see what I can do :)

To write or not to write

Ahh, writing.  The thing I have done and enjoyed for years.  Never would I have thought that I would be putting it off...  Writing professionally is something that can change that.

Yes, I know that I've not been writing five minutes, but I can still express how it feels when inundated with work that just needs to be completed, while you sit there staring at the screen, waiting for that magic title to pop into your head.  While this waiting may be hard to take, when you finally find that hidden creativity that results in the title your client is after, the surge of energy is almost orgasmic.  From a hunched wreck longing for another coffee you are transformed into a veritable writing machine, your fingers caressing the keys as your imagination creates an article fit for a king.

And then you finish.  You look through and add in the missing links and remove those inevitable erroneous commas, and then you relax.  The article is complete.  You save your work again and open a new document...and the whole merry-go-round of despair and elation begins again.

Perhaps more than any other profession, writing offers a full range of emotions to torture and exalt the soul.  And when writing for a living, going through this process ten times in a day...need I say more?  Perhaps it is personality building or perhaps I am starting to know why my journalist friends are going gray.  But, truly, I wouldn't have it any other way.  While I may currently be stuck in a literal hole, my metaphorical one is left long behind.  Writing for a living, and not just that, working for myself, has set me free personally.  It may be early days and once those late payments start adding up and those tax bills start piling up I may change my mind, but for now contentment is close at hand - though I cannot wait for our new flat to be finished and our move to be complete: while my cave may have given me a great idea it is not the most comfortable place to work in the world.

But to reality.  Soon I will let the world know about how a flat changes throughout its renovation (as well as how I still cannot help those erroneous apostrophes that keep attempting to creep into my work) and how it takes shape in the next month.  Here's to hoping it's finished by July!

Time is of the essence

It's funny that, after waiting and waiting for something, too many things always happen at once.  It doesn't matter if you're waiting for that bus or if you're waiting for the new phase in your life, it always comes the time when three things happen at once!

Now, it's still no excuse for a lack of posts, but the world does not stop turning.  So, I'm waiting upon my company details to be finalised, and with it the website will go live.  Everything is signed and ready to go, and now it's in the hand of the tax authority.  On top of that, the flat is now ours, and has been stripped out and ready for renovation.  There is a builder, and we will have everything done soon, we hope :)

I will talk soon about the vagaries of setting up business here in Hungary, and of the process of making a house ready for living, but for now you can just indulge me for a bit.

Writing.  It comes and it goes, but the one constant is that when you can engage a topic, you can write well and write long upon it.  And this topic does not need to be one close to your heart.  While I may instantly be able to start typing away and produce a decent piece on rugby, the same is not true of healthy snack foods, for example.  Yet, if you can find an angle from which to approach it, the words will just flow out from your fingertips.

Soon there will be a sister blog to this one, so keep your eyes peeled for announcements, but it will be of a very different feel.  While this could herald me spending less and less time on here, instead this will continue to adapt in a different way.  The change of colour scheme and layout will help to keep the place fresh, and in the future, you can be sure to find different examples of my ramblings.

So, read on, and keep those eyes peeled.

New Beginnings

And we’re back.

One thing that Budapest has in abundance is distractions, from little cafes and bars to statues dotted seemingly at random throughout the city.  And while this may be no excuse to pause a blog entirely, there are other things Budapest has as well.

One of these is a creative energy, a vibe that permeates away from the party places frequented by tourists.  Little cafes on each corner are full of photos or paintings by local artists.  The tables look almost self designed and the coffee is excellent with nearly no exception.  And if you pay a visit to one of these, you’ll not come out empty headed.  Throughout history, a lot of the biggest ideas have been made in coffee shops, from the founding of the big American banks through to the writing of great literature.  Indeed, the seeds for the 1848 revolution against Habsburg rule were sown in the Cafe Pilvax in central Pest.  This diversity is because these cafes make you think: they give you ideas.

Which is a reason why, soon, my company, Stom Solutions, will be going live.  That’s right, soon I will be the proud owner of a services company, providing quality content and writing services to whoever wants it.  It’s not a decision taken lightly, but it’s one that was brought about by Budapest.  The ideas and vibes implanted in me by the architecture, the river and just the feel around the place helped to formulate an idea that started on a hill in Budakalász, a great town north of the city.

I may go into some shameless self promotion... but Stom Solutions will be offering the best quality of writing service, whatever it is you require.  Soon, some great examples will be appearing, so have a look and comment – let me know what you think.  But I don’t want to bog down this blog with work.  If you have a real interest in article marketing, writing services and so on, visit our sister site, with its own blog coming soon: www.stomsolutions.com , otherwise, stay tuned for more posts here, about my life and times in Budapest.

As we’re moving house soon, coming up will be a post about the dangers, excitement and fun to be had with home decoration – from tiling to painting and even knocking down a wall or two.  So stay tuned.

The Couch Surfing Project - How to meet cool people

If you’ve ever travelled, I’m sure you’ve met cool people on the road.  Well, if you’d want to meet them again, but at home too - both yours and theirs - then Couch Surfing may well be the place for you.

Couch Surfing was set up with the idea to bring like minded people together and offer a means for them to share.  It came about at after the early successes of rival site Hospitality Club, and as the name suggests, it was based around offering and receiving hospitality.  With Couch Surfing, you offer your couch, a spare bed, mattress, or even just the floor to travellers, show them around, feed them, take them somewhere, any combination of the above, or anything else you can think of fun!  In return, they offer you their, hopefully enlightening, company and anything else they feel they’d like to share.

I was introduced to Couch Surfing quite recently, but I have to say it has proved really, really good fun.  We’ve met really cool people every step of the way, from the UK to New Zealand, Turkey to Thailand, and every step of the way, home and abroad.  You offer what you can, and what you get in return can  surprise you every time.  We’ve had a private performance from a singer songwriter, been cooked for by a professional chef, helped to make our own beer and shared a cake as our hosts 100th and 101st guests!  And that is what Couch Surfing is all about.

Some people are, of course, worried about the possibilities of meeting unscrupulous or dangerous people through Couch Surfing, but through my experiences and the people I have met too, this is very rare.  From all of them, there have been about 2 cases of unscrupulous people, neither involving myself.  I may have met a couple of people I wouldn’t usually choose to spend time with, but even then they were good company.  If you just use your common sense, you can stay out of any trouble, just like in the rest of life.

Why choose couch surfing, though, when there are other hospitality exchanges available?  Simply, it comes down to numbers, and ease of use.  While Hospitality Club can claim to be the first, set up in June 2000,  it has a fraction of the members.  Couch Surfing can boast almost 3.5 million members, while Hospitality Club can claim under half a million.  There are of course others, but the largest of these, GlobalFreeLoaders, has attracted just over 50,000 members since 2005.  The other benefit Couch Surfing gives is the comprehensive search function - allowing you to select hosts exactly to your preference.

There are, of course, problems and criticisms.  The founder has set Couch Surfing on its way to becoming a for profit corporation - a long way from the original aims of the project - while the changes to the website have made it more personal.  Yet this should not effect your Couch Surfing experience.  So long as you don’t spend any unnecessary money on the site, you will still get the means to find cool, likeminded people to share hospitality with.  In much the same way people have always done.  If your only aim is to meet cool people, then Couch Surfing is a great way to do that.  So, enjoy the ride!

CouchSurfing  |  The Hospitality Club

EU Double Standards

Rossz időket érünk,
Rossz csillagok járnak:
Isten ója nagy csapástól
Mi Magyar hazánkat!


We are living in hard times,
Above us bad stars stand:
God save us from disaster
Our Hungarian land!

On 14 March, the day before the celebration of the 1848 Hungarian revolution, the EU announced that it had suspended funding for Hungary over it’s high budget deficit.  The EU has given a target of a 3% deficit to member states, and while Spain will receive continued funding with a deficit of 5.3%, and the Netherlands too, with a deficit of 4.5%, Hungary will have to reduce it’s deficit without EU support, despite running a deficit on the 3% target.

The official reason for these funding cuts is the ‘high’ budget deficit, with Hungary’s 2013 deficit expected to rise to 3.6%,, mainly due to lower tax receipts and high interest payments on rollover debt.  The lower tax receipts are expected due to lower growth expectations, while the EU has suggested that the decision would be revisited in 3 months, if Hungary passes more budget cuts.

Yet the reason for this predicted worsening of Hungary's budget deficit can be blamed, at least partly, on the lack of the IMF standby loan leaving investors with a lack of faith in the Forint.  Orbán's government received criticism for the passing of a law meaning homeless people could be fined if found on the streets of Budapest.  Yet it seems the EU are following this same stupid law on a much larger scale.

Hungary is being beaten into submission over its refusal to make more budget cuts.  And they are right to do so, as many public sector workers couldn't live on any less, with some already earning just 78,000 Ft, or €265 per month.

It seems that the EU is being influenced from elsewhere.  Austerity measures lead to one thing only: more profits for big corporations.  With government cuts making some services unfundable, corporate business will take over the reigns.  The EU is revealing its true face with it's treatment of Hungary.  Other central European countries have come out on Hungary's side recently, with many Poles at the celebrations yesterday, while Austria has publicly accused the EU of double standards over its treatment of Hungary.

As Arany János said, "Above us bad stars stand".  He may have been talking about 1848, but it has as much relevance now as it did then.

Jobs for expats

While I may have always dreamed of visiting Budapest, it was visiting the city that made my mind up about living here.  Yet I didn’t go about it the best way, in hindsight.  Today, I will give some tips for expats looking for work here in Budapest.

First things first, misconceptions.  Speaking English, without any other language, will NOT get you a job in Budapest anymore.  There is still a school of thought that any English expat travelling to a non-English speaking country will easily be able to find work if not for a company, then teaching English.  Here in Budapest, there are a lot of English schools, and if you either have the qualifications, or prove your aptitude in teaching your native language, they will give you work.  But not much of it.  Your hours could be inconsistent, and they are not known for paying a lot.  My thoughts were that I would only become an English teacher if I had no other choice, and as such, I am yet to become one.

There are a few areas that will get you a job in Budapest speaking just English.  If you have qualifications and experience in finance and human resources, or if you are a computer programmer - especially C and its variants as well as Java, then you will probably have your pick of jobs.  As a lot of companies streamlined their business,  the idea of the Shared Service Centre (SSC) was born, and Budapest provided a good balance of regulations, workforce and location to attract global companies such as IBM, BP and GE to set up their International SSC’s in the city.  At most of these SSC’s, the workforce deals with finance and HR only, and in some cases it also deals with IT and customer support.  But know that jobs at these companies will be very popular, so the number of applicants will be huge, and it will take an age to get a response.

So, how about the rest of us?  One thing always available are telesales jobs.  I did this, and it can be soul destroying for very little income, yet it can also provide a decent income if you show aptitude.  But I’m sure that it isn’t most people’s top job, and if I had the choice again, I would probably avoid it.  There are a few jobs that can be found by just surfing the internet repeatedly.  Try looking for individual company websites, SSC’s based in Budapest, job sites such as cvonline, profession.hu or monster, other sites such as LinkedIn or just talking to people.  Yet the number of jobs for expats who only speak English is not high.  The best way to find a job in Budapest may well be if you can speak multiple languages.