According to a venerable English adage, Hungarians are the only people who can go into a revolving door behind you, and come out of it in front of you.
Although the Budapest Novotel Congress Hotel, the location for the recent MEDEA+ conference, has a revolving front door, and although I observed it intently, I could detect no evidence of this phenomenon.
The most obvious characteristic of the Hungarians was that they make startlingly aggressive waiters.
Out at various venues, and hearing the experiences of various delegates, I get the idea that the form seemed to be that you do as you told, eat what you’re given, and only ask for things if you’re prepared to cope with a campaign of intimidation.
I made the mistake of pointing out that the lamb cutlets I had ordered for dinner were actually noisettes of veal.
But our waitress insisted I’d ordered veal noisettes. Several times.
I never eat veal.
Eventually she thawed a tiny, weeny bit. “I’ll get lamb cutlets, but you ordered veal”.
I made a final, feeble, protest.
“You ordered ze veal”, she insisted, flouncing off to the kitchen.
I gibber apologetically, but get my lamb cutlets.
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