Cost of Living in Budapest

If you are thinking about to move to Budapest for studying or working here you have to face the daily life and costs in Budapest and Hungary. Most people moving here from all over the world come to Hungary because of the job, just think about big companies such as Vodafone, Mercedes or Audi, or the second reason is love. So you come to the country, find an apartment and start your job but there are of course duties that have to be done. From my own experience I can tell you that there are a lot of things that have to be taken care of from paying the bills for gas to shopping your daily supplies. In this article I would like to give an overview about how much do things cost, something like the Big Mac index, and what you have to expect to spend for your daily life. Please note that all prices are just approximate numbers and can change very fast such as cigarettes or gasoline. To get an idea how much Hungarians can afford, the average net income in Hungary is around 120.000 HUF per month.

Cost for Food in Budapest

• Daily Menu in the business district – 1.300 HUF
• Fast Food Menu (e.g. Big Mac menu) – 1.200 HUF
• 1kg of chicken breast – 1.200 HUF
• 1 liter of milk – 250 HUF
• 1kg of tomatoes – 480 HUF
• 12 Eggs – 400 HUF
• 1kg of normal, local cheese – 800 HUF
• 1kg of apples – 300 HUF
• 1kg of potatoes – 330 HUF
• 0,5l can of beer – 200 HUF
• 1l bottle of normal quality red wine – 1.800 HUF
• 1l Coca Cola – 330 HUF

Housing costs in Budapest

• monthly rent for a 85 m2 furnished downtown apartment – 125.000 HUF
• monthly cost of utilities such as gas, electricity, heating etc (2 people in a 85 m2 apartment) – 40.000 HUF
• 8MB internet flatrate per month – 5.000 HUF
• 40″ flat screen TV – 150.000 HUF
• Microwave – 20.000 HUF
• Cleaning help (hourly rate) – 2.500 HUF

Costs for Clothes in Budapest

• Pair of Levis 501 – 25.000 HUF
• 1 pair of Adidas trainers – 20.000 HUF
• 1 pair of average business leather shoes – 18.000 HUF

Costs for Transportation / Mobility in Budapest

• Volkswagen Golf 2.0 TDI – 4.300.000 HUF
• 1 liter of gasoline – 420 HUF
• 1 ticket for Public Transportation – 360 HUF
• Monthly ticket for Public Transportation – 9.000 HUF
• Taxi from the airport to the city center – 3.000 HUF

Costs for Personal Care

• 6 days of normal medicine against flue – 1.500 HUF
• Average Deodorant – 580 HUF
• Regular Hair Shampoo – 750 HUF
• 4 rolls of toilet paper – 370 HUF
• Tube of toothpaste – 470 HUF
• Standard Mens haircut – 2.500 HUF

Costs for Entertainment in Budapest

• Basic dinner for 2 persons in neighborhood area – 4.500 HUF
• 2 cinema tickets – 2.500 HUF
• 2 theatre tickets – 7.200 HUF
• Dinner for 2 in an good restaurant incl. wine and dessert – 10.000 HUF
• 1 cocktail in a city center bar – 1.300 HUF
• Cappuccino in the downtown area – 500 HUF
• 1 beer in the pub – 450 HUF
• Monthly fee in the fitness studio – 15.000 HUF
• 1 package of Marlboro cigarettes – 690 HUF

Please keep in mind, as mentioned above, that prices are only approximate as they very much depend on the place and also change very fast. A proper dinner for 2 can also be 6.000 HUF only or exceed 15.000 HUF easily. Beer in a real kocsma can be 300 HUF only but in trendy bars don’t be surprised to pay 750 HUF. This article should just give a rough overview of what to expect for certain services. If you have a special request for a service or product  or you disagree strongly with a point just drop me a line in the comments.

This article was written in Daily Life, General, Study

Steve Jobs Statue in Budapest

On Wednesday December 21st the Steve Jobs statue in Budapest got unveiled which is standing in Budapests technology business park called “Graphisoft Park”. For you information, Microsoft Hungary has its office here. The 6 1/2 feet tall bronze statue was commissioned in mid October, right after Steve Jobs death, by the Hungarian Gabor Bojar who is the founder of Graphisoft, a software company that developes software solutions for architects. But why did Bojar commissioned the statue of Jobs? Steve Jobs in the mid 90s stumbled accross Bojars software and was impressed so that he helped him out in bad times and basically saved Graphisoft to exist. Bojars statement was

“Apple’s support included cash and computers at a time when Graphisoft was a small company with limited resources, working within the economic and political confines of what was, at the time, communist Hungary. Apple also introduced Graphisoft to its worldwide distribution network, which we rely upon to this day.”

The statue is made of bronzed by the Hungarian sculptor Erno Toth who created it the way Steve Jobs is probably most remembered, turtleneck, jeans and round glasses. If you want to see the statue of Steve Jobs in Budapest you should visit the Graphisoft Park (See on map) which you reach the best with the suburban train HÉV to direction of Szentendre.

This article was written in Budapest News

David Guetta in Budapest

David Guetta is coming to Budapest to give a concert in the HungExpo (1101 Budapest , Albertirsai út 10.) on December 17th 2011. The prices for the gig of the world wide superstar DJ range from 8.990 HUF to 15.000 HUF for a VIP ticket. At the moment David Guetta is for sure the most successful and famous male artist and producer worldwide. His events are always sold out so that you should hurry up to get your ticket for the David Guetta Concert in Budapest.

David Guetta has been playing already on Balaton Sound this year and according to the reactions on Facebook or Twitter it was a blast. Though very comercial, or probably that is the reason why, he fills up every venue and so he will do with the HungExpo as well. The “Nothing but the Beat Tour” which this concert is part of has been very successful for David Guetta and also his recent albums and singles such as Where them girls at or Sweat are mega successful.

David Guetta Tickets for the Budapest Concert

At the moment tickets and further information are only available on this website. I do not know if this is a original and approved website from DG himself or just a website opened up for this concert by the tour organizer. The direct link to the ticketing system you can find here. Anyways you should get your tickets as soon as possible because as I mentioned it will be sold out very soon, the information is going around Facebook like hell at the moment.

This article was written in Entertainment, Music & Arts

Celebrities with Hungarian Roots

Hungary is such a small country one might think that not many well known people come from there but you are wrong, there are several worldwide celebrities who are either Hungarian or at least have Hungarian roots. You will be amazed what celebrities have something to do with Hungary so here we go.

Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein is a New York born designer from Jewish-Hungarian immigrants

Jamie Lee Curtis
Just like Calvin Klein Jamie Lee Curtis has Jewish-Hungarian ancestors

Freddie Prince Jr.
Hi grandfather was Jewish-Hungarian as well

Drew Barrymore
Her mothers name is Ildikó, I think that says it all

Paul Newman
His parents are Jews from Poland and Hungary

Alanis Morisette
Same here, mother is Jewish-Hungarian

Adrien Brody
His mother is a Budapest born lady

Goldie Hawn
Goldie Hawns mother is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants

Kate Hudson
Since Kate Hudson is the mother of Goldie Hawn, she is quarter Hungarian

Rachel Weisz
Weisz György, a Hungarian inventor is her father

Tara Reid
Tara is a super mixture of different nationalities, Hungarian is one of them

Andrew G. Vajna
Budapest born, still very present in Hungary and most Hungarians know that he is Hungarian so it is not such a surprise

River and Joaquin Phoenix
The grandparents are Jewish-Hungarian

Estee Lauder
She is the child of a Hungarian and a Czech

And there are also some other such as Tony Curtis, Mark Knopfler or Gene Simmons who also have somewhere Hungarian roots. I think it is quite impressive how many celebrities which we know from many movies, as singers or other world wide famous artists are actually with Hungarian background.

This article was written in Hungary, Odd

Budai Gourmet Festival

The Budai Gourmet Festival in Budapest (Millenaris Park) is organized by Sziget.hu, the company organizing the Sziget Festival, Balaton Sound and the Volt Festival in Sopron as well. So it is ensured that this festival is professionally organized maybe even a bit too professional in my opinion. For the relativly high entrance fee of 2.900 HUF you are equipped with a wine glass and a payment card (based on NFC -Near Field Communication technology) in order to make your payments at the stands. This payment method seems to be very popular nowadays among festivals in Budapest, this was the case at the Pálinka Festival already, and the card will be valid for the Balaton Sound, Sziget Festival as well as the Volt Festival as well. OK, enough talk about the organizational issues, let’s jump into what the Budai Gourmet Festival has to offer in terms of Gourmet.

This article was written in Entertainment, Hungarian Food, Leisure

Foursquare Specials in Budapest

Want a free drink? Or a little present? What about a half price for all drinks? That all you can have now with Foursquare in Budapest and all over Hungary. Foursquare recently released its version 3.0 and it is now possible to add specials to certain places so that you can boost your business with specials and as a user of Foursquare you receive discounts, freebies and all that kind of stuff.

Foursquare is a localtion based mobile application for all devices from the iPhone, over Android to Symbian, Microsoft and even Java phones. It gives you the possibility to share your location with your friends, give and receive tips about certain places and from now on receive specials from certain places.

What that means for Budapest I checked out a bit and till now it is still in the beginning and probably not too popular in Hungary but its fun. So I checked few of the special you can receive. In the “Opera Garden Hotel & Apartments” for example you get a free Nespresso coffee if you stay in the hotel and check in via Foursquare. Not a big deal but once you are there grab the free drink. In a bar called Moro Antik (I haven’t been there so I can’t tell you what place it is) you get a free coffe every fifth time you check in there. So if you are anyways there often grab your free drink.
To more competitive benefits you can have ub Cheers and Dürer Kert. Cheers gives you a drink for free once you steel the mayorship (kind of proof that you are there where often) from somebody else. So check in a couple of times, see if you became the mayor and get your drink for free. In Dürer Kert it is even more beneficial since you get all drinks you order for half price if you are the mayor of Dürer Kert. So you really need to be very often there but once you are the mayor you can get lashed for half price.
And a last one is actually not a bar or cafe but the House of Terror museum. Every 20th person who checks in receives a small gift from the House of Terror, whatever that is but try it.

All that is of course playing around with the new world of technology and mobile apps but if you are into it than check out what you can get for free or cheaper around you. Do you use Foursquare already or you think these kind of apps are useless?

This article was written in Internet

Rihanna Budapest

Rihanna Budapest, 08.12.2011, Papp Laszlo Sportarena – Get tickets here & now

This is probably the concert of the year, Rihanna in Budapest performing in Papp Laszlo Sportarena. Rihanna for sure is one of the top performers all over the world at the moment winning tons prices, giving sold out concerts and selling millions of albums. Yes, Rihanna is a megastar and she makes a stop in Budapest for a concert.

The 1988 on Barbados born Robyn Rihanna Fenty how she is originally called released 5 albums so far (Music Of The Sun, A Girl Like Me, Good Girl Gone Bad, Rated R and Loud), with the album Loud she is going on tour now with 58+ performances worldwide and on December 8th she will have her performance in Budapest’s Papp Laszlo Sportarena.

This article was written in Entertainment, Music & Arts

Budapest Android Application

This artcile introduces a few Budapest Android applications that I would like to present you here. As Android is becoming a more and more popular Operating System for mobile phones I had a look at the Android market how you as an Android user can improve your trip to Budapest with a free application to guide you throught the city or give you some tips on the go. Basically what I found are 2 Applications about Budapest as a kind of travel guide and 1 App for information about the Budapest Airport.
If you plan to come to Budapest and need an application for recommendations and tips have a look on the apps I downloaded and had a closer look on. I think that it is a good compliment but does not replace a Budapest Guide or decent research before arrival. Don’t rely on the app to bring you to all the cool places.

This article was written in Information, Internet

101 Things to See and Do in Budapest

The full list of things you must see and do in Budapest

There are some things you have to see or do in Budapest. Some are in the Budapest guides, some not so here is an all complete list of things to see in Budapest! The points will have small comments what it is about or why you have to do it, most of them have links for further, more detailed information.  This list will be updated constantly and if you have any suggestions about what to see or do please leave a comment.

This article was written in Blog, Information, Sights & Trips

Thai Massage in Budapest

A Thai Massage can really heal your soul and make feel as if you were new born. Sometimes you need to give yourself some time to relax and get refreshed by some strong Thai girls hands. After hard working days I about every second week or so I visit the Paradise Thai Massage Center near MOM Park in Budapest. Don’t get me wrong, this is no paid advertisement or any kind of marketing text I am writing here but it is a recommendation if you feel like getting your bones in the position they belong to and your muscles relaxed.

This article was written in Entertainment, Leisure

Bio Market Budapest

The Bio Market in Budapest is a weekly market only trading bio and organic products located on the parking place of the Budapest Congress Centrum (link to map). Every Saturday traders of bio and organic goods come together to sell their products. On the Bio Market in Budapest you can find anything from vegetables to clothes all biologically or organically produced. Most of the visitors you find there are young families having children to buy fresh vegetables, milk, bread, creams, fruits and much more for their children but also for themselves.

As stated on the picture the Bio Market is open from 6.30 till 13.00 every Saturday. Nearby you can find a park with a playground where most people are going to after or before shopping to play with their kids and spend the time after on the fresh air.

The Bio Market is a collection of little wood houses where the traders offer their goods and talk with the visitors. I think it is a good opportunity to buy fresh and local vegetables and fruits and not to buy all your grocery in the big shops like Tesco or Auchan even though it is a bit more expensive. Additionally you can find there interesting new products especially what they make there fresh. Another reason for me to go there is Mangold, the “spinach like” vegetable which you always get in Croatia next to your fish and potatoes. This is actually the only place in Budapest where I have seen Mangold.

So if you fancy bio and organic foods and drinks and want to spend a Saturday morning out in the nice weather than I recommend you to go there one day. I also wonder if there are other bio markets somewhere around the city so if you know one please let me know.

This article was written in Budapest News, Hungarian Food, Shopping

The Budapest Airport Logistic Problem

Since quite some time I am travelling almost weekly by plane and start my trip after the airport transfer by taxi at Ferihegy Airport 2A in Budapest. The flight I usually take is at 07:20 to Warsaw which seems to be the worst time to checkin at the airport as this is the time of business travelling, no matter which day you decide to go. In terminal 2A you have guessed 30 checkin desks and two ways to enter the security check.

It first starts with the checkin which in my case does not take long as I use the quick checkin terminals to get my boarding pass but sometimes I need to drop off my luggage and thats where the problems start. There is a seperate counter for luggage drop of which you are not allowed to use, instead you need to queue with tons of other people who don’t have their boarding pass yet or online online print outs. This is another line than the usual one but still it is long enough to spend there half an hour and who got up at 4.30 to be at the airport by 6.00 knows to value half an hour. So I decided nowadays not to check in any luggage anymore as it simply takes too much time. I mean why the hell do I need to spend my time in a queue just to drop off my suitecase? Pointless.

That was point one where you can spend a massive amount of time at the airport in Budapest but than comes the security check which is simply a mess. You have 2 chances to enter the security checkin and as you can’t see from which side the queue is longer it is a bit of gambling (usually the right entrance is the shorter one). In any other airport I have been to the ticket and passport check before the actual security check is kind of organized but in Budapest it seems like you being in the queue for free beer at a festival. Two ladies trying to check hundreds of passports and boarding passes which in this time is almost impossible. And after you went through that you have to queue again for getting your security treatment but of course only 4 of possible 8 lines are open of which 1 is for priority.

So all in all I spend on a monday morning up to 1 hour on the airport just for checkin and security check. I am not a logistic specialist or an airport controller but my logic thinking is that people responsible should know at what time how many people approximately want to travel and in this case I open up a few more checkin counters and security check lines. When I go with the flight at 9.30 there are not so long queues of course because fewer people travel but the amount of open counters and security checks are the same so why not increase the number of people for one or two ours in the morning and it would all go much easier. By the way I am not the only one thinking like this, if you check the Foursquare page of the Budapest airport you will find comments like:

Extreme long check-in and security queues (Terminal 2A) at morning departures (flights between 7 and 8 am).

Watch out for security when departing. Its a hellish long line!!

So to be sure you catch your flight and not leave Budapest in stress you should take some time for checkin and security check. Once in there is not much to do wrong, it is a simple, small airport and that’s why I don’t understand how to have so big trouble in organizing a normal checkin.

This article was written in Budapest News, Private

Facebook and Twitter

Already since some time Budapestagent.com has a Facebook and Twitter Account with some Fans and Followers. Not that many though. Anyways this should not be a post about the existing channels rather than a new feature I embedded yesterday night which lets you easily post articles of Budapestagent.com on you Facebook and Twitter account. Under every article of Budapestagent.com you see from now on a “share” button for Facebook and a “tweet” button for Twitter.

You can with one simple click spread the information written here to your network of followers and friends over at Facebook and Twitter. Of course this is also a help for me to gain some visitors at the end of the day. So be social and spread the news. As I can see some people did already post things on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks for that.

This article was written in Internet

Margit Bridge Closed

Margit Bridge in Budapest is one of the most used bridges in Budapest and additionally one of the two entrances to Margit Island. This main traffic road is closed now until 2011 at least. First Margit bridge was closed for cars only, except from taxis. Now taxis aren’t allowed as well just trams, bikes and pedestrians are allowed to cross the bridge. So you can walk it, bike it or use the tramp to cross the Danube on Margit Bridge.

So what does that mean for the traffic in Budapest? You might know that for the past years also Liberty bridge was closed and everybody thought that it will be a desaster but it wasn’t. I think in the case of margit bridge it will be the same even though Margit bridge has much heavier traffic than Liberty bridge does.

This article was written in Budapest News

How not to use Twitter

First of all I am a big fan of Twitter and I love the fact of the easy communication but there are several examples of how you should not use Twitter. One of them is the Twitter Account of the Sziget Festival which you can find under twitter.com/sziget which I added before the Sziget Festival started cause I thought I might get some updates on acts performing on the Sziget Festival in Budapest. Well I was disappointed quite fast and by now I am not following the Sziget Festival on Twitter anymore. So here is why.

First of all Twitter lives from followers AND following other people. Have a look on the Sziget Festival account. Around 500 followers but following nobody. Well OK, some people / companies do that because they have no time to reed all the tweets. So there is already no communication and Twitter is a communication tool. Next thing you will see if you check out the tweets. “Sziget on Flickr >>> bla bla message here – link”. Thats about it. They simply took the Flickr RSS feed for the tag “sziget” and use a service that automatically posts all pictures that are uploaded on Flickr with the tag “Sziget” on Twitter. Nothing more, no own posts. The problem here is that Sziget means island in English named after the Hajógyári island in Budapest where it takes place. So what happens if you take a RSS feed which has a generic word? You get tweets with all images tagged as “sziget” including the ones which have nothing to do with the Sziget Festival in Budapest. How annoying is that?

Now automating your tweets is no problem I thing especially if you use it to create fake accounts which are great because whenever you need to you can tweet some ads or self promotion and even earn some cash with it. I have some of these accounts but a bit more creative than the Sziget account.

So here is some recommendation for the Sziget people on how to use the account automated in a bit less simple way. The main thing is that followers don’t just want to see images. They want to watch movies and read articles as well. So?

1. Take the RSS feed of a Youtube tag as well to tweet some videos in between.
2. Search in Google News for “Sziget Festival” (I think that’s unique not just like “Sziget”) take the RSS and post these news articles to read.
3. Go to Technorati, search for “Sziget Festival” and take that RSS feed to cover the blogosphere and tweet their articles.
4. Create an Google alert on “Sziget Festival” with “as it happens” and take that RSS feed to cover the rest of the net.

Yo will now have a quite good amount of Tweets on a daily basis which are not just false images but also videos, text, blogs and much more. Every once in a while you should of course tweet the one or other real thing written by your own. I set up a Twitter account about the Sziget Festival and did exactly the above mentioned steps plus some additional features which might even bring some money but that I will cover in another post some time later. So I would bet that I pass the real Sziget Festival Twitter account (if it is a real one) by the next Sziget Festival in 2010. And because I am setting up this account now I will add some more accounts with similar topics to save some time.

So once more for the makers of the Sziget Twitter account. Put a bit more effort in Twitter because it really is a great communication tool with great effects now and in future.

This article was written in Internet

Budapest Affiliate Conference Recap

End of last week the Budapest Affiliate Conference took place at SYMA Event Hall for the conference and several other places for party and networking. I have to give a big shoutout to the guys of iGaming Business for organizing this superb event here in Budapest and I hope Alex that you will come back next year as discussed with the conference.

iGBaffiliate brought over the best of the best in the gaming and casino industry filled up with the top of the Forex industry. The panels were filled with big names in gaming and casino affiliate as well as world wide top SEOs and affiliate marketers. It is useless to go into details now about the program and the parties because it happened so much and at some points I don’t really remember what exactly happened in the clubs afterwards.

Anyways I would love to see iGaming Business coming back to Budapest next year I will be there for sure. If you want to learn anything about the Poker, Casino or Forex industry you should attend this conference as well because you will have the chance to meet top affiliate managers of all programs and network with them.

Check out the video:

This article was written in Internet

It is done!

After weeks and months of working on the new version of Budapestagent.com it is finally online. It has been a hell of work but I think the result is awesome. That is the main reason why I didn’t add too much new content on the old version. I tried to keep the structure as closed as possible to the old version to make the change not too big but some changes had to be done.

I am really proud of the new version which I created next to my daily work, taking care about my child and much more things I do daily. Especially the ability to read got improved really a lot since the last version was a bit small and not too good to navigate. That should change in this version. Additionally the actuality on the frontpage is much better and much easier to handle for me.

As you might realize you have the chance to leave comments and discuss about certain topics which was possible in the old version as well but due to high spam fraud I had to close this feature after a couple of weeks. That should be better with this version.

As my list of events, restaurants, bars, clubs and so on which I have to write about got quite long you can be sure that there will be a lot of new content coming in the next days and weeks. So… I hope you like this new version even thought there are for sure some bugs in it which will be the task of the next days.

Cheers

This article was written in Budapestagent

ARC poster exhibition in Budapest

At the moment the ARC exhibition is taking place in Budapest on Ötvenhatosok square which is near the hero square. The task was to create a poster for the topic “What is happiness” which turned out to deliver some very very good results. Some funny as hell, some really serious but all of them super creative. The exhibition will run till 22nd of September and who cannot watch it due to the distance you can watch the pictures in gallerie which you find here. So make sure to check back after September 22nd.

No as I said some pictures were just hilarious for example this one:

It took me a moment to get it but I think thats just simple and good. There were tons of good posters so if you have the chance to see it go for it. It is for free, you can get drinks there and it is open till late if not all night. For all of you Hungarian speakers check the website.

This article was written in Budapest News, Music & Arts

Keresőmarketing Nap 2009

Today I received an email that the day after tomorrow the Keresőmarketing Nap 2009 (Search Engine Day) is taking place again in Budapest. I have been I think 3 times to this conference since I am living in Budapest on the one hand for business on the other hand because of private interest in this topic. I would have gone this year again but if I get an email, which for sure several others got as well, 2 days before the actual conference starts I just have to say that this is simply unprofessional. Any working person has for sure planned his worklife 2 days in advance and simply cannot come.

I have been to several SEO or other internet marketing related conferences if it was SES, SMX or the BAC this year and for every conference I was going I knew at least one month before that I will be there for the 2 days (Keresőmarketing Nap is as usual just one day). OK most of these conferences were much more expensive for regular visitors than here in Hungary but nevertheless you cannot announce a conference 2 days before it actually starts to the paying crowd.

Now for all of you who plan on going there what can you expect? Just another Keynote by Erica Schmidt from iProspect, another pannel on Etarget vs. Adwords again some skin deep Analytics session. Nothing new, same old speakers, same old exhibitors and yet another pen from Google. Wow. But for all of you who begin with SEO these days go there, have a look and listen. You will hear that you need SEO in your company and why but you probably won’t hear what you can do to improve your SEO inhouse, where to start as an affiliate doing SEO nor do professionals get any deeper discussion except from the things they know and you won’t hear any super insights like for example Dave Naylor talked about on the Budapest Affiliate Conference this year.

Enough critics, I really like that a conference like that is taking place in Budapest but they way it is announced and built up is something I don’t really like. As I said if you don’t have deep knowledge or want to network go there, it is something like 25.000 HUF for that day including a warm meal and coffee.

This article was written in Internet

AC/DC concert in Budapest impressions

I haven’t been to the AC/DC concert yesterday in Budapest Sportarena but I heart from several people that it waas a blast. Well the only proof I could find so far is on Youtube, so check out this video of the concert yesterday.

Looks pretty awesome. Cheers

This article was written in Budapest News

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