Hungary

Hungarians don’t go for open displays of emotion. Walk down the street in any city in Hungary and you see people walking down the street, carrying on a quiet conversation with the person next to them or just staring straight ahead, trying not to be distracted by anything on their way to whatever important date they’re late to. No arguing, no crying, no wild hand gestures, and the only people shouting will be drunks staggering home from the pub.

And these are the people that their Slavic neighbors consider hot blooded, which should give you an idea of how downright depressing a street scene in Slovakia can be.

Don’t get the wrong idea though—Hungarians are friendly people, and they go out of their way to help tourists. Ask somebody on the street for directions, or to recommend a restaurant or pub, and they’ll smile and help you if they can. If they don’t speak English, they might call a friend who does and have them talk to you.

Hungarians keep a lot of emotion in day to day that they’re dying to let out. Talk to a Hungarian for a little bit, have a few drinks with them, and before you know it they’ll be talking to you like a long-lost identical twin. German-speakers often describe Hungarians as fiery and unpredictable for this reason.

Learning a bit of Hungarian will go a long way. The majority of Hungarians don’t speak any English, or any language other than Hungarian. At least learn the basics: how to order a drink, say “excuse me” to people you bump into, buy a pack of cigarettes. More Hungarians know German than English, and a few German phrases will help a lot.

Younger people usually speak a bit of a foreign language, since they just learned it in school; if you’re talking to an older person and having difficulty making yourself understood, look to the nearest person under 25 and ask for help. If they don’t understand that, frag für hilfe.

Hungarians, like Germans, greet everybody with a handshake, even good friends that they just saw yesterday and will probably see tomorrow. None of this casual half-nod and mumbled “what’s up?” that Americans go for. If you’re sitting down at a table at a restaurant or pub, shake everybody’s hand before you sit. It can be a bit disconcerting, you walk towards a table and suddenly there are seven or eight hands reaching for you at once.

Hungarians don’t really go for the kiss-on-the-cheek greetings that are so popular in France and amongst some Germans, except with close friends and relatives. So if a Hungarian you know initiates that greeting, you know you must mean something to them. A man kissing a man is only acceptable amongst relatives, and even then it’s not really common. This probably doesn’t shock most people, but it’s worth clarifying in case there are any Saudis or other man-kissing nationalities reading this.

Unless you like being stared at, stick to conservative colors and don’t wear anything too obviously expensive or flashy. Most Hungarians dress like they’re on their way to a wake. The craze for pink that has made it so much more difficult to tell which German men are gay and which aren’t hasn’t spread past the Austrian border. Women don’t even wear pink here.

There wasn’t really such a thing as fashion in Eastern Europe until the Berlin Wall fell, everyone from the workers to the Politburo bigwigs wore the same dull clothes. Since then, Hungarians have discovered the joys of subtle shades of green and blue, but anything brighter than that and you’ll cause car accidents.

There is a lot of prejudice against the Roma throughout Eastern Europe, and Hungary is no exception. The overwhelming majority of the Roma are very poor, and many of them are beggars. If you don’t want to give them something, just look straight ahead and keep walking – they can be persistent. It’s hard to say no to an eight-year-old kid, though, when you think that the 50 cents in your pocket could feed her and her brother tonight.

At the same time keep your eyes open though when you see Roma kids as many of them are pickpockets. Although the large majority of Gypsies are honest people, who work hard for a living and don’t get much in return, the ones you’re most likely to come in contact with hanging out in train stations and on the streets are best avoided. Lifetimes of poverty, discrimination and police brutality have made them hard, and the $20 in your wallet could pay for the month’s liquor.

Hungary is one of the heaviest-smoking countries in the world. 35% of adults smoke, and you can smoke in most public buildings. The majority of restaurants and bars don’t really have non-smoking sections, and if they do, it’s not always enforced. They’re required by law to have one, which is probably why some restaurants have one or two tables without an ashtray.

Trains, though, have more non-smoking cars than smoking ones; finding a smoking car can take a bit of a hike, and trains that are only covering a short distance don’t even have them. You need to be 16 to buy, but you have a better chance of getting strip-searched at the border than you do of being carded to buy smokes. If smoking bothers you, bring your own supply of oxygen.

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