New = Good?

When you live somewhere you get used to the order of things and the value you put on them. So, in a new place, it sticks out when something messes with the order. First there was the train. I arrive in Budapest and get my second-class ticket from the airport to town. I get on the very normal looking carriage. The ticket inspector tells me I’m in first class and to haul my bemused-tourist-face down to second class. So I leave the rows of badly-patterned seats and find second-class which consists of old-school private cabins with big comfortable crimson chairs, with soft head-rests, and more room. Err
ok. In my head this is first class. The only explanation is that the first-class carriage is more modern and air-conditioned. And I guess it’s one of those things where new is supposed to equal better, even though its less comfortable, is less pleasing to the eye, and has less soul.

Second there was McDonalds. I went in there once (just for glass of water – honest). And the prices of the items were as expensive, if not more, than London. Which is weird for several reasons but mainly because people earn on average a lot less money in Budapest. In London it’s a cheap bite, frequented mainly by teenagers, and on-the-way-home-drunk Friday-nighters. Its also enemy number one for the food ethicists. I started to wonder if McDonalds is perceived differently here, somehow having more status. I suppose this was once the case in England when  the arrival of these places in the 80s from America seemed like a little slice of 50’s Americana. I do remember my Dad taking us kids as a treat (in those days there existed Ronald McDonald, this annoying and slightly sinister looking clown, as well as the lower profile Hamburglar who was in my opinion far cooler both in name and appearance).

So these things are strange, but then I’m from England where people don’t bat an eyelid at paying crazy amounts of money for beer and cigarettes.