Tuesday

There came up a requirement where I had to prove my Jewishness. I needed some documentation saying that I am Jewish. I was totally convinced that I have a birth certificate somewhere here where they listed my religion. You see back then when I was born they listed that kind of details.

I looked everywhere in the apartment, in my safety deposit box and couldn't find a damn thing.

The only real proof that I have and had all my life, minus eight days does not seem to be acceptable.

So, I looked up the Budapest Jewish Central Agency (or something like that) and wrote them an e-mail. I figured I would be there in a few weeks maybe I could go in a pick up a copy.

I was totally flabbergasted when I received a reply in a day from a nice lady asking for information about me like date of birth, my mother's maiden name and telling me that they would be looking for it. Naturally I responded with the proper information.

This morning she answered back that the stuff was ready for my pickup for a nominal fee of about $8.

With the general bureaucracy rampant there this was a very pleasant surprise. I guess $8 goes a long way!

Something else.

Tonight we went out to dinner with some friends. There were the five of us and that means one was stag. Unfortunately my elder friend is a widower but I was glad he joined us. He doesn't have too many chances to go out and when we invited him he immediately accepted it. He doesn't want to go out with anybody except us and we start to look at him as part of our family.

This was an Italian restaurant and there was no shortage of food and good conversation. We had drinks, soups, salads and main courses. All of us ate well and interestingly none of us took any food home, meaning we all finished our portions.

My GF and I finished off a pitcher of sangria and that was gooood!

I like these midweek soirées.