Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2006 (18. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)
2006-06-09 / 24. szám
Tickets, please! Almost everyone has a story about the ticket inspectors in Budapest: people who were ordered off the vehicle or allowed to pass, inspectors who were obstructive or sympathetic, who were difficult with foreigners, or who kindly gave directions. HVG.hu travelled with the inspectors, on the trams, on the bus and on the metro. Just about everyone has travelled without a ticket at some point, whether by design or by accident. Even the ticket inspectors. „I’m a poacher turned gamekeeper,” said László Horvath, a senior inspector, who has the best performance figures of all Budapest Transport’s (BKV) 409 ticket inspectors. From the nine interviews we conducted with them, it is clear that nobody plans to become a ticket inspector. Peoples stories differ: Some were unable to find a new job after finishing their maternity leave, others came for a stint of a couple of months, and others thought it was one job they could still do as they neared their 50th birthday. Inspectors take a three-week course, during which recruits learn about the network and the tariffs and learn some psychology too. „You can tell something about people from the way they behave,” said Sándor Toth, head of the tariff revenue department at BKV The company is even catering for tourists: since 2002, around 70 people have taken part in a 100-hour crash course in English. „It’s about who beats whom in a psychological sense,” said László Horvath. „If someone pays the spot fine but the person next to them doesn’t, then you have to be more determined: you have to maintain your prestige in front of the paying passenger.” Inspectors say the weather is the major factor affecting people’s likelihood of paying and their response if challeneged. If it’s sunny, then everyone’s in a better mood. At the beginning of the month, when people feel rich, people are not too worried about the inspectors* All agree that Roma passengers are less of a problem than teenagers. „Nobody can get under my skin,” said Janos Meri, who in 13 years of service has caught 100,000 ticketless passengers. „I’ll board in front, you at the back, and you in the middle,” said one inspector to his colleagues boarding the number 7 bus at Bosnyak ter. Surrounding people is the best tactic. Eva Horvath uses a sneakier approach with a student on the number 62 bus who last bought a season ticket in September. „I pretended to accept the ticket, and asked him for his student identity card. I took down the details and then told him his ticket was invalid,” said the inspector. László Horvath likes to go incognito. He pretends to be a normal passenger and holds a ticket. Company rules help him, since inspectors do not need to wear a uniform. On the metro, it’s common to see a teenager walk straight past an inspector, who makes a halfhearted attempt to grab youngster by the arm and hold him back. This is a minor work-related risk. But plenty of inspectors have suffered broken noses. Mostly, however, inspectors have to get used to a range of choice invective. „We’re people, too, and sometimes we just lose it and respond in kind,” said Horvath of cases like the one where an inspector in the 13th district manhandled a homeless person off a bus to the accompaniment of a stream of expletives. Inspectors are driven not only by the joy of catching people. The benefits are just as much of an incentive. Each „successful intervention” - that is, each fine paid - merits an HUF85 bonus for the inspector. This means inspectors are keenest on spot fines, since they can be certain of getting their bonus. But these happen rarely, maybe once or twice a week. Furthermore, BKV’s employees have to meet annual performance objectives: everyone has to manage 360 successful interventions a year. In consequence, the inspectors prefer busy routes, like the number 4-6 tram or the number 7 bus. The metro is best from this point of view. When we visited, five inspectors caught 16 passengers in 15 minutes. There are other favourites: Horvath mentions the number 56 tram, because „the people are more civilised.” But not everyone is so fortunate. They readily admit that some are „overenthusiastic,” with the occasional inspector not above singling out foreigners for closer inspection. Judit Wild Massive public support for Olympics Budapest, May 31 (MTI) - Seventy six percent of those asked in a recent survey said that Hungary should apply for the right to organise the 2016 summer Olympic Games in Budapest, pollster Szonda Ipsos reported on Wednesday. The survey was conducted early in May, on a representative sample of 2,000 people, at the request of BOM, a civic movement seeking to make Budapest an Olympic venue. The study found that people living in small communities were most enthusiastic about organising the games in Hungary, and even in Budapest, where locals were not quite as keen, over two thirds of respondents gave a positive answer. _ Most people asked thought that having the Olympics in Budapest would favourably impact tourism and the economy as a whole as well as boost infrastructure projects. DUNA Travel 8530 Holloway Dr. #102 W. Hollywood, CA 90069 SPECIÁLIS ÁR LAX-BUD-LAX $566.-tól +TX. az ár szeptember 3-tól érvényes Információért hívják ZSUZSÁT TEL: (310) 652-5294 FAX: (310) 652-5287 1-888-532-0168 Június 9,2006 íj) AMERIKAI tyagyar Hírlap The English Page of the Hírlap can serve as a bridge between the non-Hungarian-speaking members of the family and the community. Use it to bring people together! Subscribe to the Hírlap! Advertise your business in the Hírlap! If any questions or suggestions, please call (323) 463-6376 The best burger in town? IF an American tells you to go and try the best hamburger in town, you might start thinking of one of the American diners decorated with those oh-so-typical red leather seats and chrome bar stools, purchased out of a How to make an American Diner catalogue. The hamburgers there are huge, garnished with half a kilo of Freedom Fries, swim in ketchup and mayonnaise, and, horror of horrors, the juice has been squeezed from the pickles. Thankfully, my American source was a much more ingenious type. His hamburger paradise is located on the corner of Móricz Zsigmond körtér, and it looks nothing like either an authentic Nevada diner or its trendy Magyar interpretation. Rather it looks more like a countryside gyros hut, stuck under a social housing facility. Having devoured our three hamburgers at break-neck speed, my friend and I agreed with the American. Humble looking Wikinger has beaten the American franchises into the ground with the Magyar hamburger. What more proof is needed than my American friend, who gladly ignores the golden arches nearby as he walks instead into Hungary’s answer to McDonald’s! Wikinger is a self-service restaurant that is packed full around lunchtime. The popularity is due to the cheapness of the venue, but also to the choice on offer and the good quality of the food. People can decide to eat in the restaurant (in which case they have to listen to the staff shouting out the name of the ordered food, then grab the plate from the counter), or they can take away their lunch, dinner or snack. Hamburgers are served at a different counter from the salads and other main courses. There is an extensive choice of interestingly named burgers, from which non-Hungarian speakers can select only on the basis of their intuition, as no English language translations are provided. We picked a classic, a Maffia and a Győzike burger. The classic had fresh lettuce, cabbage, hamburger and something called “US sauce” in it, and was served in a buci, as were the other hamburgers. The buci, or bun, has little to do with American style hamburger bread. It is more like a giant zsömle (breadroll), only softer. When hamburgers, then typically sold out of caravans, first appeared on the Hungarian market around the beginning of the ‘80s, the buci was slightly different from what we have here. The ‘80s buci had a sleek surface, from pre-applied egg yellow, and had a slightly sweet taste that Wikinger’s supplies lacked. Strangely, the sweet buci went perfectly with the meat, the Magyar style mustard and ketchup, and the pickled mixed veggies sliced in julienne fashion. Maybe this buci is no longer produced, or the market research at Wikinger showed a higher rating of the savory version among its target audience. The Maffia was the random selection of the Dutch member of our tasting group. Maffia is a cat in one of the best Hungarian cartoons ever made, Macskafogó, and the name probably refers to the chicken meat and cheese in the burger. My choice was a Győzike burger, which also needs some explanation concerning the Hungarian media world. Győzike, Győző Gáspár by birth, is a Hungarian rap singer of Roma origin who turned his life into a reality show in much the same way as Ozzy Osbourne has done. Well, sort of. Whether he likes hot sauces and Roquefort cheese is a question only he can answer, but the Győzike burger carried these two ingredients on top of the usual lettucetomato-meat trio. And it lacked the US sauce. General judgment of the three testers was that Wikinger burgers are great. Further research done into the penetration of the venue revealed that the tasty burgers have reached as far as the other end of Tram 61, where The Budapest Sun headquarters are. My Dutch companion pointed out that the Wikinger crew prepare a healthfultasting version of the American sandwich, leaving out the mayonnaise factor altogether, at least from our burgers. The attention to health is visible on the other side of the restaurant too, where steamed veggies and an inviting salad selection are also on offer. Whether Wikinger provides the best hamburgers in town is a burger-battle yet undecided, as we hear news of an excellent venue on Flórián tér too. But one thing is sure, Wikinger alone is already incomparably better than any of the more formulaic burger chains or the shiny, trendy bogus-diners in the city. Wikinger Buda, District XI, Móricz Zsigmond körtér 4. Hours: Mon: lOam-midnight, Tue-Sat 10am-lam, Sun lOam-lOpm Eszter Balázs .. 1 ' ........___....... .....-
