Pestilog

...And it was a beautiful thing

I got a Kasia for Christmas. And I absolutely loved it.



I flew to Warsaw on December 19th, and got to spend a few days there with her and her family. It was a fabulous trip. On the one hand I got to see a new city and be shown around by someone I knew. But I also loved it for the opportunity to see the people and places that Kasia holds so close to her self-image.

She has lived with her family all over the place: in Berkeley, DC, Boise, Jersey, even Germany. And every year until she was 16, I think (maybe even later), she would spend the summers with family in Warsaw. She grew up in a truly bi-cultural environment. And, because she moved around so much in the US, for as long as I have known her, Kasia has always contended that the only place where she ever felt at home, because it was the only place she came back to year after year, is Warsaw.





I also got to see Kasia climbing railings like a monkey. And in that moment, it was clear that the world was as it should be.



We slept in through half of the day the whole while I was in town because we were up bothering each other, being addicted to MySpace surveys, and working on schoolwork until 3 or 4 am next to each other on the little fold out couch in her gramma's back office. We spent a little time each day wandering around to see what we could see, but spent hours sitting in cafes and just talking, catching up on all the stories that cant be told over e mail or during our occasional trans-Atlantic drunk dials. We just talked. For hours. Over poorly mixed kirs, overpriced espressos, and the most delicious falafels I have ever had in my life. Which was fitting.



We went to the University of Warsaw one evening, where Kasia's gramma is a sociology professor. We also stopped by the Zacheta National Gallery of Art, where we saw a phenomenal exhibition called Polish Painting of the 21st Century. It was phenomenal. There is a great little scrolling gif of some of the paintings if you follow that link. I didn't get any pictures of the exhibit, but I did grab a shot of the main staircase, which had been doused in brightly colored paint from top to bottom.



I flew back to Budapest on the 22nd and feigned productivity through Christmas and the few days following (I still have so much work to do before class starts on Monday). But on the 29th, Kasia flew into Budapest to ring in the new year in Jokai Terrorist style. Kasia is one of the coolest people I have ever met. You may have noticed that I live with two of the coolest guys ever. Needless to say, the colliding of my two universes rendered a product that can only be called "swell."



It was a brilliant event, her three days here. I never noticed this, but she and Marko have the same taste in music. You would think I'd have caught onto this by now, not only because both of them enthusiastically wear their music collections on their sleeves (I mean, if there is one thing I know about Kasia, its her not so secret love of bands like The Killers and Neko Case, and Marko is like a walking John Cusack from Hi Fidelity, who knows more about American indy rock than I do). Also, Kasia made me a huge stack of CDs before I left Chicago, cause she's a rockstar like that, and Marko ONLY comments on my music when I play something she sent me. We ended up not making it to the shisha bar we wanted to go to on her last night in town, because the two of them spent nearly 2 hours transferring 5 gigs of music onto Kasia's computer from Marko's personal collection. Here is a picture of the two of them at New Years reciting the words to every Depeche Mode song ever written. Seriously.



The night before New Years, Stephen, Meaghan, Kasia and I walked down to the Elizabeth Bridge to go to the Rudas baths. Thats where we found all the crazy lights that are in the pics of the previous post. The baths on a Saturday night was just too full for us to handle the wait to get in, but we ended up walking around the city at night, which is always one of my favorite things to do.

On New Years Eve, we all went to the Living Room. A whole crowd came. Stephen's girlfriend Meghan was in town, and Marko brought two friends from Croatia, Veno and Nada, who we first met when she came to visit over Halloween (check out those pics here). I had plans to meet Asa at Oktogon, where a huge street party had been set up, but these plans got derailled, and he ended up calling me at 130am from someones apartment on Oktober 6, having been towed in by David Pupovic, with no idea where he was. The gods were indeed with us.

Later on, Marko and company stayed at the Living Room to get down with their bad selves, and Stephen, Meghan, Kasia and I trooped off with ideas of home. Instead, we started talking about cool places to visit before Kasia left, and in the end, at about 2am on New Years morning, we somehow made it to and into Szimpla (not the killer backdrop eh?).



We ran into some other CEU students, and Kasia immediately introduced herself as my facebook wife. This totally took the other students off guard, and they were like "ah, are you....really? Is that true?" Kasia responds in excellent form with "Well, I have no idea how long this is gonna last, since she is HAVING A PUBLIC AFFAIR!"
I still dont think they had fully figured out what was going on by the time we went home. I have never laughed so hard.

Her last night in town, Kasia and Marko and I stayed up till 5 am drinking wine in the park, watching Cunningham Muffins videos, and generally enjoying the heck out of each other's company while we could. She went back to Warsaw yesterday, and should be about in Chicago again by now. I miss Chicago, and the people in it. I want to have a slumber part with Sean and Ligaya so much I cant even tell you.

But its ok, because I apparently seem to have a nack for keeping a hold on rad people as life progresses.

Oh, and this just in. There is a good chance that I will get to don a tux as a groomsman in John Mayer's wedding. The happy penguin proposal will keep you abreast of new developments.

Onward to the papers. woot.

Labels: Budapest, clubs and bars, hotlinks, kasia, Marko, photos, rabble rousing, Stephen, thin justification for my existace, travel, Warsaw

posted by Veruka2 @ 9:57 PM