Pestilog

Best Birthday Card Ever?

Labels: Alex, house, kendra, Marko, Stephen, video

posted by Veruka2 @ 2:10 PM 1 comments

JBOP-BP

Rowan and Mina came into Budapest this weekend. What a rad f-ing time that was. I adore both of these people, and it's been ages since I've seen them, because Mina moved to London a few years ago, and Rowan has been in Paris basically since college. We did quite a lot but also did very little. It was a great weekend, and having Reedies in as guests is always so easy, because they are always so danged rad, and, of course, get along with everyone here so well cause we're all liberal artsy, leftist, slightly jewish intellectual types who really love cartoons, so its a great scene from start to finish.

I managed to leave my camera at home for most of the weekend, so I don't have any footage of our time out in the city, at the park, at Szimpla or West Balkan, or of the countelss hours spent nesting with like 5 other people in the living room. But we did spend easter out on Margit Sziget with some fabulous people, picnicking in the sun, and I managed to get some photos of that event.


Alex and his mom and step dad spent the morning at a wine festival, and brought over the goods. Alex, by the way, just got an internship working in fiction for The New Yorker, this summer, so we are way pumped for him :).


Sasha had an aunt and uncle in town too, and was on 'gorging with the family' mode.


Mina and Monica.





Oh, and I am sitting in my living room right now because I missed my train to Zahony this morning. Bahn.de totally gave me the wrong times, and I got to the station just in time to see the train that I wanted to be on pulling away. Bastards. So I came home and mopped, and am about to go to sleep cause I only went to bed at like 5 am yesterday, and then run all the errands that I DIDN'T get to do before "train ride to Odessa: first attempt."

But I am taking the same route to Odessa tomorrow, and should be there by noon on thursday, instead of tomorrow. And then, I come that on step closer to having a clue from god as to what I am doing.

Labels: Alex, Brigette, mina, monica, odessa, photos, Rowan, Sasha

posted by Veruka2 @ 2:16 PM 0 comments

[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: Alex, Brigette, Budapest, clubs and bars, food, hotlinks, kendra, Marko, Nancy, photos, Stephen, thin justification for my existace

posted by Veruka2 @ 6:40 PM 0 comments

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: Alex, Brigette, Budapest, clubs and bars, grad school, kendra, max, photos, stefan, Stephen

posted by Veruka2 @ 2:59 PM 0 comments