So, you’re here, in Budapest, in a lovely new house, but the furniture is, well, not to your taste. Don’t worry, Budapest has plenty of places to bag a bookcase, snare a sofa or procure a pouf.

Occasionally, an expat might complain about “bad” Hungarian driving, when in reality the problem lies with the expat not fully knowing the local rules of the road.

Nowadays, the health conscious often opt for bottled water over tap water. However, few are aware of the impact their choice of H2O tipple has on the environment. Bottled water consumption has more than doubled globally in the last six years and is greatly taxing the world’s ecosystem.

Your first trip to a Hungarian market may prove a tad disconcerting. Cows’ tongues, pigs’ cheeks and chicken heads dangle overhead. Lanes are crammed with mounds of weird shaped legumes, knobs of queer nuts and peculiar fruits. It all seems a wonderful trove for a witch’s kitchen, but the poor expat can be forgiven for …

We all know what it is like to be a new arrival on the expat scene. It can be unnerving walking into a room full of strangers for your first expat social. But do make the effort!

Work begins this weekend on repairing Margit híd, meaning at least one summer of harrowing traffic chaos in Budapest. The bridge will remain open for trams on the 4-6 line and pedestrians (although access to Margit Sziget from the bridge will be closed until March 2010), but be closed to traffic until the end of …