Monday, March 19, 2007

Sarajevo, Bosna i Hercegovina

That's right. We forced a spring break on ourselves. And it was good.

Well, it was mostly good. We left Budapest with 7 people, made it to Sarajevo with 5, and came home with 6, so it was definitely eventful if nothing else.

(for the exceptionally curious, Monica got turned away at the Bosnian border cause Romanians still need a visa, and Tyler went home with her, and we found a Michigander who decided to come back to BP with us and is allegedly at my apartment right now fixing our shower...)



We trained in from Budapest, which took nearly 12 hours. The scenery was gorgeous. The route took us through Hungary by way of Pecs, then down through the northern end of Croatia, and then through central Bosnia to Sarajevo.





On the train, we slept on and off all day, and watched the towns go by. In Bosnia, we saw a couple of men chasing a giant pig around a yard that had escaped from its pen, and it made us all laugh out loud. We also met a few sketchy dudes who asked if Kendra would mind offering them an official invitation to the US and inquired as to her marital status once or twice.

But anyway. Once we got to Sarajevo, the hostel met us at the train station and taxied us to our room, which was right in the center of the old city. Right across the street from this actually:


Sarajevo is an unbelievably beautiful town, nestled in a valley between two mountain ridges.



We climbed the hills on the first day to get a view of the whole town. We ran across some beautiful old houses and the first Muslim cemetery that I have seen.



We also walked down what is called "Sniper Alley" on the way to Novo Sarajevo. In this area, the 6-700 year old cobblestone roads gave way to the stark efficiency of communist architecture, and the buildings and even the sidewalks still had huge chucks and pits missing from mortar shells and bullets that had been shot into the city from the surrounding hills. I am told that Sarajevo suffered the longest siege in known war history, lasting over 1060 days.



Some of the mortar blasts have been filled in with a bright red epoxy, to mark the remnants of the war. These are scattered throughout the city, and are what is referred to as "The Sarajevo Rose."


We also saw the bridge where Franz Ferdinand was shot by members of the Black Hand. Behold:


And I, being almost wholly ignorant of most of European history, did not realize that Sarajevo is a predominantly Muslim city. (makes sense, though, right? Duh, Jen). Sarajevo is interesting in that it has large populations of Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim persons. There were beautiful churches and temples and mosques everywhere. But the mosques were by far the most numerous.



We were totally unprepared for it when we woke up on our first morning there. We stepped out of the hostel into a brisk sunny day, with busy streets and birds flying in unbelievable numbers overhead, gorgeous mountains all around, hearing the call to prayer ring out from minerets all around us. Here's a brief snippit of some that came in through our window on Saturday:


It was an amazing trip. I can't tell you what a time we had. If you want to see the whole album from the trip, you can see it on flickr.com here. Lots more pics from the train and of peeps that went with us are there.

Now that I am back, though, I totally have my work cut out for me. I got invited to a student conference in L'viv, so now that paper that I told them that I had written about comparative drug policy and disease narrative in the EU and Ukraine...well, I have to write that now. In the next 48 hours. screw. Good thing I'm so capable at bullshitting right? But yea, papers papers papers then another 13 hour train to Lviv on Wednesday night. Who's excited? I think I am. I'm not sure. Its a little much.

Just thinking about it makes me want a nap. AND its going to suck to be buying things all weekend because my bank card fully SNAPPED IN HALF today. wtf, mate? and it will be May before I get a replacement. boo.

Oh, but I get de-mulleted tomorrow by Cristina in the Econ department. It will be glorious. Im so pumped. I'll let you know how it goes :)

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Home Came Out To Me

We are all each others two oldest friends.
Yesterday, we came out with sopapillas and Sauza to represent.
Today, we take Budapest a second time.
Tomorrow, we leave for Sarajevo.




Labels: , , , , ,

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

[Insert Reference to White Elephants Here]

I woke up sick again. My throat hurts and I have a cough and I feel generally terrible. I didnt go to class today. I decided ust to rest, especially since I have a huge pile of work that I want to do before folks get here next week. I know I dont work well at home, so I packed a bag and went down to Siraly, a cafe on Kiraly utca, down the street from my apartment. Siraly means 'seagull'. This bar has been host to countless gatherings, live bands, plays, study breaks, and even thesis meetings with my adviser in the last few months.


It looks just like this, except that the outside has had little blue waves painted on it, so imagine that under the graffiti. Here's a rad little video of the place on the inside and the usual crowd. You can follow the link above if the embedded video runs slowly:



Anyway, at this point I have been at Siraly for about an hour now, and I just had a startling realization.

Here I am, in Eastern Europe, Budapest no less (so romantic) midday in an artsy cafe (intellectual), where peole are downing beers at 2pm and posting listings for the jazz bands that will be playing here this weekend (hipster). I've been drinking long coffee and seltzer water (lavish) at a secluded table by the window (Hemmingway), reading Habermas (pretentions), while listening to Bach's cello suites (fartsy) on my mp3 player (bourgeois). Oh, I am also ill, tired, with rings under my eyes and a rattling cough (afflicted!).

I am a black turtleneck away from the TB stricken artist-intellectual types that Susan Sontag wrote 98-too-many pages about. Oh, how frail am I. My legs are also aching form sitting for so long because I havn't had a chance to take my bike out in months. What the hell has happened to me? I've gone totally soft.
Maybe I should take up boxing or something.

On the upside of things though, I found some of the pictures from the Hummus Bar on my computer, and I offer them here for your amusement. (and check me out in that link. I can leave restaurant reviews in Hungarian. I may not be able to ask for directions, but I can talk volumes about food, cause I have my priorities in line. I'm so cool.)


Entrance on Kertész Utca

The loft, where we gorge.

Alex, Dan, marionette, Marko, and Nancy

Stephen and Brigette peruse the Israeli Cosmo. Its in Hebrew, so they have to go backwards.

Stella, me

The carnage. As soon as we finished dinner, Alex screamed, "Oh my gosh! We forgot to take a picture of the food!" This is the best we could do.

Marko and Kendra

Nancy

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, March 05, 2007

Disappearances

We had a lunar eclipse here on Saturday night. This is what it looked like from my front door at about 11:30


That same night, we also went to the Hummus Bar down the street from Kicsi Szimpla, and took a bunch of pics that my computer just ate. Like, seriously, they just disappeared. I have no idea what thats about. So, ah, I can't post those just yet, which is really tragic, because that is one of our favorite places to go in this city. The Bard kids have been going there so much that a couple of the guys who work there have started referring to them collectively as 'the falafel whores'. Ha. Anyway, more on that to come.

Also, my keyboard is wigging out again. And I just bought a new one a few months ago, which means that its not the keyboard. It is operating as though the FN key is depressed all the time, which is really infuriating. In fact, the only way i have found to fix it is to put pressure on the lower right half of the console, which is totally weird. And when 5 dont, 5t wr5tes 352e th5s, wh5ch 0akes me want to sho6t *e6*3e. GODAMMIT! what a g5ant *ain in 0y ass. gah!

OH, there was also a Purim Party on saturday. It went till 3am. it was at the mall. AT THE MALL! at 3am. crazy. Pictures coming soon...

Labels: , ,

Friday, March 02, 2007

Well, That Was Eventful...

Its friday. Its 3pm, and I am still at home in my pajamas. In fact, I am considering putting htem back on after I get out of the shower in a sec, here. Its totally one of those kinda days. Cause last week destroyed me a little. Lemme just tell you about yesterday.

The weather has been crappy, and i have been tired and cranky. In fact, when I stepped out of hte house on tuesday, I was met with this sight:

wtf? first snow ever, and it melted and turned to slush in hours and made the whole city all gross. It upped my crank factor significantly, which had carried through to yesterday.

I finally got this grant proposal submitted. I have no idea when I am going to hear back, but I have gotten confirmation of intent to participate from 3 different organizations in Ukraine, and I have a partner on the project too--Iryna, who has also been my Ukrainian tutor all year. She's kind of a rock star. She's from Kiev, and has done a lot of work with womens groups in Ukraine already. We are so golden if we get this money, so, I guess whether we get it is all thats left to figure out. I only submitted the think 17 hours ago, but I'm still checking my e mail constantly.

Asa and Ola and I went back to our friendly facists yesterday, and we met this kid. whose name I don't remember, who, when asked to elaborate on his political views, took advantage of the opportunity to show off his english skills and gave us this nice little tirade: "Me? I hate jew. I hate niggar. I hate geepsee. I hate black. I hate homo-fucking-sexuals. I hate america. I am Hungarian! Fuck Gyurscany!...So, where are you from?"

Despite the overt racist tendancies, I have to say that tehre was something that I kinda liked about this kid. But, then again, I have spent years dealing with crazy young'uns, so I am used to picking out the parts of them that are loveable in spite of the parts of them that are willing to stab their 5 year old sister with a butter knife and make their own nose bleed out of spite when they get thrown into the calm room--if only for my ability to make it through a day with them.

But on a lighter note, we went to a new place yesterday nea Csengery and Podmaninczky called Potkulcs, which is Hungarian for The Spare Key. Its a great space with cozy yet cavernous innards, and a big patio with trelises outside. Here's some picks of my lovely company:

Brigette, and Alex's friend who I never remember meeting but still knows my name somehow (last saturday was bad)...


Me and Alex


Max and Kendra


Stevo


Stefan, and that guy...


Fishheads.

Oh, there are a few other things of note as well:
--Sasha is spending this weekend in Belarus, and we miss him.
--My hair is long enough to justify the use of rubber bands now. It was about an inch long in november. That was less than 4.5 months ago. That's f-ing crazy. Who did I inherit this hair from?
--Bill Slocumb is coming out to visit me. He's gonna be here in 9 days.
--Duncan is trying to come out too. If this works, he'll be getting here in 7 days. (cross ur fingers).
--I have been watching a lot of Twin Peaks. Alot.
--They showed An Inconvenient Truth in the auditorium at school, and it totally freaked people out here. Its strange.
--Stephen just bought one of those new dual core macs. It gets here in a few weeks. I can't wait to touch it.
--I have 2 french girls coming to live with us tomorrow. They dont speak any english, and this kinda weirded Marko out. I wasn't sure what to tell him....speak the language of love? French class?
--Brigette and I are going to a North American Ex-pat association gala for bored trophy wives at the Hilton next thursday. Its for research. Seriously. We had to pay 4000HUF to get in, but its 5 hours of hose, heels, highlights, and an open bar. Personally, I am really looking forward to getting toasted, and then going out to Szimpla to meet up with our friends, already drunk and still in our party dresses. It will be like the small town prom experience that I never had. AND I get to take field notes. (Did I mention that I am a research assistant on this little venture? We're, like, so official).

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,