Pestilog

My Kingdom for a Slow Weekend! I mean...nah.

Ok, so the weirdest thing happened to me this weekend. But I'll get to that later. First things first:

Marko and I went to a showing of The Complete Works of William Shakespear Abridged at the National Theatre on Saturday. It was as fabulous as ever. The theatre house is outside the ring road on the south side of Pest, right on the Danube. Its a crazy looking building. Imagine if Frank Lloyd Wright ate the parthenon, and then spit it out again in a giant hairball...thats kinda what this place looks like.

This picture KINDA does it justice, but you cant see the giant temple that is buried in the fountain, or the half a pirate ship sticking out on the other side. I shit you not. This place is totally nuts. Oh wait, here it is:

That shit is bananas. Who makes buildings like that? I can say, though, that you can totally crawl way out on the bough of that ship (which is really high over a lot of water by the way) and hang off the end. And NO ONE makes you get down! Its great. I love this whole European disregard for the business of others.

Anyway, the crazy stuff happened after this when we went to a house party at David's house. This is David:

He's in the poly sci department at CEU, and, because there are so many danged Davids everywhere, is commonly referred to as "David from Serbia." Anyway, I had talked to a few people about going out dancing, and had gotten a few recomendations from Agi's husband, Yusaf, about where to go. Marko was down. Sanida was down. Ciprian had voiced interest. So, I was ready to take people to this place called Kultiplex in the 8th district near Ferenciek Tere, which is right by Tuzrakter, Nagy and Kisci West Balkan, and all the other good places in town. By about 11, I was ready to head, so we gathered our troops. Me, Cip, Marko, Sanida, and Luciana, Sanida's awesome roommate from Argentina. This is 5 people, including me. Managable group, right? Wrong, cause we get out of the apartment, and Cip and I look behind us, and see this:


Can you see the people way in the background, like 3 street lights away? Yea, they are all following me. I have no idea why. Somehow I became the leader of this group of like 25 people who all left the party en masse with the misconception that there was some sort of formulated group plan. Kultiplex is a 10 minute bus ride away, and lots of people are not happy to be going so far away, so people start yelling "hey! whos in charge!" And of course, Marko is like "Jen! Its Jen Carroll! She's our leader!" Marko is a bastard.
Case in point:

Anyway, right about this point, the night bus pulls up, so Cip and Sanida and I get on, and so does everyone else. 25 people on an already crowded night bus. Cip and I were having a good laugh about this.
Now, I want to be clear about one thing. I may sound exasperated here, but I do want to emphasize that the people who came out with us are really really awesome. The group was mostly composed of the people whom I really like and the people who I actively want to get to know more. But still. It was a little chaotic.
So, we get to Kultiplex finally, and its rather empty. boo. Yusaf's predictions were not, in fact, accurate, so we hang out for one drink.



Course, by this time, a lot of people are mumbling "Why did we come all the way down here just to sit around another table? Goodness. I don't even know who some of you are. I thought I was going out with like 3 or 4 friends. I'm sorry that I ruined your evening. Sheesh.
So, me, Sanida, Luciana, Cip, Wyatt, Marko, and two guys from Princeton (names? eh?) round up and head to Tuzrakter, which is a 10 minute walk away. Sanida had never been there, so it was great. It was drizzling a little bit, but the place is beautiful when the weather is like that.



Oh, thats Ciprian. This is the guy who managed to get 30 people to follow him over to his house for a party at 4 in the afternoon on a thursday during zero week. He's a character. So, yea, we didnt get home till late.

But don't worry. I still managed to get some sleep and get up the next morning for church. Literally. I have an ethnography project to do for my Anthropology of Religions class at Szent Istvan Bacilika, which is right around the corner from my school. So I went to mass this morning. Brigette was supposed to come, but she got stuck on a bus that she thought was going to Deak Ferenc Ter, which actually took her over to the Buda side, and she got eaten alive by fate and circumstance.

This basilica is beautiful. This is a shot from the outside. The flags marking the 50 year anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution are up in this shot, so its a pretty new picture.

My school is literally 25m behind where the photographer was standing for this shot.
The inside is almost too much. Gold and gilt and paintings and gloss and marble everywhere.

But mass was pretty casual, so it was nice. Lots of tourists everywhere on Sunday mass. That kinda pissed me off. I dont mind people coming in and seeing the place, and they keep the actual nave roped off, but people would come into the seats, and then go, and then come again, and then talk very loudly in english about the tickets they had just bought at the penztar for the tour later, and were, generally, just plain obnoxious. I wanted to smack a few people, but catholics dont really keep bibles lying around the basilika, so there was nothing to beat people about the head with. The preist and I had a totally culture-cross moment when it came to communion. Apparently, I take communion like an american protestant. Who knew? But the guy was super nice, and patient withteh fact that I spoke very little Hungarian, so we were cool.

I am told that there is a Ukranian orthodox church down by Erszbet Hid. I may head there in 2 Sundays as well. Sounds like a neat place.

But now, I have to go clean, because our place is filthy, and some people from my department are coming over later to watch Rabbit Proof Fence. I have to mop, or else I am going to start screaming like Ligaya when ever someone comes over. "I live in my own filth! ahh!"

Labels: Cip, clubs and bars, David, house, Luciana, Marko, party, photos, rabble rousing, Sanida, thin justification for my existace, tuzrakter, Wyatt

posted by Veruka2 @ 2:14 PM