Graduation Photos
Im too tired and lazy to be blogging for real these days, so this is what you get.
Robing up in the monument building. Stephen says our department's hoods made us look like nuns.
Ola (poland) and Florin (romania), sociology&anthropology.
Marko (croatia, political science). poli sci got cool blue hoods. I might be jealous.
Judit (hungary) and her daughter Sonja. Judit didnt come to the graduation with us, but i did learn that her daughter recently named her doll "Jennifer". Which is way awesome.
Stefan (bulgaria). Sociology&Anthropology. This guy definitely has the best laugh of the whole department.
Brigette (Texas) and Luci (Romania). Sociology&Anthropology
Drago (Croatia) does his best imitation of the Ghost of George Soros
Drago. Sociology&Anthropology
Stephen (Ohio, Political Science) looks way too sharp. I can't handle it.
Man. Those shades were awesome. And I still had the laurels.
Aungo (Kenya. Sociology&Anthropology). He hates these pictures that I take of him, but I love them.
Agi (hungary), Brigette, and Ola. And Artyom (Russia) off in the background.
Aungo, Colin (who is NOT british) and Brigette.
Cera (Romania), Ola, and Brigette. Sociology and anthropology.
Ballav (Pakistan) and Aungo. Sociology and anthropology.
Aungo and me.
Ola and Asa (Israel). Sociology and anthropology.
This is ALMOST all of us. We were missing Gergő and Judit (hungary), Mariya (Bulgaria), Damir (Croatia), Austin (Nigeria), and a handful of professors. Everyone had a rough morning because defenses ended just the day before. I had never seen some of us so hung over. goodness.
And so we stagger into the future!
Labels: Agi, Asa, aungo, Ballav, CEU, drago, Florin, grad school, graduation, Luc, Marko, Ola, photos, stefan, Stephen
3 Totally Excellent Things That Happened To Me This Evening
I went to Batthany Ter with Asa and Ola tonight to start our project for our Fieldwork and Methods class today. There is a group of protesters that gathers there everyday, and we are planning an ethnography project with them for the term. Tonight was our preliminary visit to see the group, and we got F-ing initiated. It was crazy. Some dude, comes up to us and was like, "Hey guys! This is great that you're here! Blahsiblahsiablasdisafskhdfkhjsfalkh!!! Oh you speak English! I'll get someone! I'll get someone!!--here. hold my flag. wave it. wave my flag!--WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH! ENGLISH! SOMEBODY COME TALK TO THE KIDS IN ENGLISH!!"
Omigod it was so awesome.
This was a group of nationalist
Magyars who are SUUUPER excited about
Greater Hungary and Hungarian identity that stretches across Eastern Europe. Greater Hungary is the current name for all the lands that used to be part of the Kingdom of Hungary, till there was some unabashed ass-whoopin' with the
Treaty of Trianon after World War I.
You just lost World War One.
Let me see your pouty face!
They took Transylvania back.
Let me see your pouty face!
Slovakia ran off with Czech.
Let me see your pouty face!
You lost Croatia and the Serbs.
Let me see your pouty face!
Anyway, these guys tonight were super roudy and tons of fun. They told us about another protest that is being planned for Saturday. One guy told us of a good spot on the bridge to sit and watch parliament while they have a hayday on the lawn. There is also going to be another protest action in the morning that will involve cars. Lots of cars. Apparently the city is giving them the run around with protest permits, so they cant march like they want to. Instead, they have opted for plan B which is a caravan down the roads in cars. Now, this is technically illegal, so they are going to dress up the whole event like it is a wedding, just a wedding with a group of nationalist who happen to have brought their banners and theme music with them (O! Magyarorszag!)
Right, but here's the punch. Mr. Super Excited who has been introducing us to everyone who speaks 2 words of English all night fully gives us his phone number and offers to drive all 3 of us around in his car on Saturday during the caravan. He even offers to fame marry Asa and I so we can be the bride and groom at the 'wedding'. The only catch is that Asa has to play the girl.
Awesome.
After this, i went over to Ola's place for a cup of tea, because we had been standing out in the -2 degree cold listening to nationalist diatribes for over and hour, and we coudn't feel our toes. I was so thrilled by this, because I absolutely adore Ola, and I don't often get to hang out with her outside of class. I mean, we only switched phone numbers for the first time this evening, which is totally unacceptable. I went to her place and realized that (a) I am dumb and never realized that she lives with Agnes, a rad girl in my Hungarian class, and that (b) I almost rented her apartment in September, before I moved in with the guys. They are splitting a room that I was going to share with a legal studies student from Croatia named Maria. She eventually told me that two Polish girls had taken the room. Three cheers for me putting two and two together. But anyway, I got to have a lovely cup of tea and hang out with two excellent women, and there was icing on the cake as well. At her apartment, Ola busted out these:
Chocolate covered vodka. These little things are sooo good. We always have them at home too. Stephen and I absolutely gorge on them. But these ones of Ola's are of the cranberry persuasion as well. How freikin incredible are these things?
So incredible.
I finally headed home cause I needed to call my mom back for like the 6th time that day (I actually had to hang up on her earlier cause she called just as the Magyar Uber-Nationalists were starting to play the Hungarian AND Transylvanian national anthems). And let me tell you, when I got home, I found a bounty of pickled things in the fridge. I am so my gramma's grandchild. I can not get enough of pickled things. Cucumbers, beets, cabbage, anything. And I am saddened by the knowledge that when I say something like "pickled beets" you imagine something totally sad and Safeway-like, like this:
Oh man. It just makes you want to cry. No. No, screw that soggy crap that has been in the glass jar for the last 30 years. I am talking Jew-food fresh, locally encased, giant tub from the elelmiszer for $1.45, massive vat of picked beets that were crinkle cut with love in the last week:
YUM!
Oh, and in addition to a giant thing o beets, we also got some super spicy pickled cabbage. It is somewhere in between saurkraut and coleslaw, with a major punch. I cant stop eating.
Word to the wise: super-spicy pickled cabbage = double plus yum. I even want to take another picture of me eating it and upload that too, but I suspect that might be a little much. I am the love that dare not speak its name.
Ima go get some of those chocolates out of the freezer...
Labels: Asa, Budapest, food, grad school, hotlinks, liquor, Ola, rabble rousing, thin justification for my existace
Day of Indulgence and General Piggery
Today was the most gluttonous day I have had in ages. I am totally wiped out from it, but it was oh, so good.
I woke up at like 11:00 or so next to Brigette, who had been over for a fabulous slumber party at my place the night before. It involved lots of
Israeli juice products,
Polish Vodka,,
Bulgarian transvestite Gypsy pop stars, lots of Turkish food, and an Afro-Cuban dance party. It was a truly international evening that we brought to a close on Stephen's fold out couch somewhere around 3am. Behold:
Anyway, I got up at about 11, made (and drank) a huge pot of coffee, and started by day be cleaning the kitchen. It was amazing. The boys were still asleep, so I didnt have them to navigate around, I just cleared everything out of the room and mopped and scrubbed everything down. I even took a steel wool to the counter tops. Oh my god its so clean. Mwa ha ha ha.
Then we hit the road. We rolled out of the house at about 1:30. I had plans to go to Szecsenyi Baths in City Park with Brigette and Asa, and we managed to talk Luc into coming as well. We also met up with some of the new exchange students from Bard who came along for the ride: Nancy and Alex, who went to the baths and hung out with us for most of the day, and Max and Zoltan (best name ever? yes.) who meant to join us but ended up in a world of snafu and therefore were little seen all day. Anyway, here's a shot of some of my most favorite people ever on the way there:
The baths were amazing. Imagine an entire swimming pool at bathwater temperature. I mean hot, turn your skin red bath water temperature. With bubbles. So awesome.
And in the winter, it gets all steamy:
There was also a steam room that was so thick, that you could barely see in front of you. The steam in there was nearly 50 degrees celsius. You couldnt breath in through your nose, because it burned the inside of your nostrils so badly. Hardly anyone could stay in there very long, because it burned, but I loved it. They kept saying they couldnt breath, and I just had this shit-eating grin on my face the whole time, taking big gulps of hot air. It was an asthmatics dream come true. Seriously. I may have to go back just for the steam room.
We were there until we were pruned up like crazy. And Asa only threw me feet first into some random elderly guy once. Never awkward. Never. And now my skin is so soft and happy. [--Hey, Asa, you remember that time we went to the baths and you threw me into some guy? --Oh yea? Well, shut up.]
After this, we all went back to Oktogon, because we were starving, and all stuffed ourselves on indian food at the Bombay Express by Jokai Ter. And I really want to impress upon you the 'stuffed' part. That was really the only meal I had or even needed all day. And oh yum. Saag paneer had never tasted so good.
Then, we trouped over to Luc's new apartment on Rakoczi Utca to hang out and have some wonderful new shisha that he got as a housewarming present.
Before his housewarming party last night, Brigette and I went roaming through the children's section of IKEA looking for gifts. That children's department, by the way, may be the most underrated shopping experience in the world, which is odd, considering that the rest of hte store sucks the will to live or the restraint not to kill right out of me. In addition to several other things, we got Luc a stuffed rat, which we thought would be a good mascot, as he lives in the eight district (Nyoker, baby).
Stephen also pointed out that we almost rented the very apartment that Luc is now in back in September. Very strange stuff.
So, we wallowed around Luc's futon listening to Flamenco music, drinking wine, eating marshmallows, and generally being decadent for a few hours, then decided that we needed to move on with our evening. By this time it was about 8:30pm. We found a
Cukraszda down the street that was open till 9. We gorged. It was so good. Cake and cappucino was all that was needed to make that evening perfect.
At 9, Alex and Aungo and I headed off to a bar on Kiraly called Siraly [shi-raw-i] (trend?) to a show that Stefan invited us to. We got there to find a group from my department already there. Why are we the awesomest people ever? We just can't stay away. In the basement of Siraly a fabulous band was playing. They were called
Chakra Hacker, which may be the best band name I have heard in ages. They were fabulous, as would be expected. I dont think Stefan has ever suggested live music that hasn't been great. He's got a perfect track record, and I have seen some really good shows that I never would have run across otherwise.
Afterwards, I came back home and watched nearly half a season of Twin Peaks. All I can say, is that I finally get it. I mean, wow. Apparently, this show is central to the early childhood trauma of a whole generation of Croatians. This allegedly has something to do with why Marko will not go into the woods.
Ok, so here's the best part. Because all this happened today, I get to spend all of tomorrow working on fieldwork methods and figuring out what the hell Bruno Latour is talking about. Chains of translation? seriously. I mean, I get it, I just dont get it. Its going to be so interesting when he speaks here on the TBAth of March. I hope he actually makes it, because my notes have been painfully absent of a sea of arrows since I graduated from Reed and left Rob Brightman's charge. I think Latour might just be the man to bring those arrows back into my life. And it will be excellent.
Labels: Asa, Brigette, Budapest, clubs and bars, hotlinks, Luc, music, photos, procrastiation, stefan, Stephen
Chicago Brings the Mayhem.
Oi.
Alexis got here on Wednesday, after a lovely trompe de l'aeroport in London that ended up with her getting here at 11pm out of Gatwick instead of noon out of Luton. Such chaos.
This is a lovely shot of her and Agi at the bar that my whole department descends on every Tuesday evening. We ended up here after a soc department lecture about mega churches in Oklahoma City. It was surprisingly phenomenal. The lecture-and the bar.
And its Christmas season here. Like, officially. They even have a Santa to greet the kids at school and everything. Plus a sleigh for pictures, which we found hilarious. Agi brought her awesome little girl Theodora to meet Santa on Thursday, and she looked at the display and said, "Oh, look! Its Rudolph!"
"No Agi. That's a moose. Why is there a moose pulling Santa's sleigh?"
"Oh what is it supposed to be. He's a caribou right?"
"A reindeer yea."
"Oh, we Hungarians don't make these distinctions. We just call them all 'szarvas'."
Here is a picture of Stephen driving the moose:
It made him so happy...
So, yea, post moose, we went to the bar down the street. Most of us kept ourselves busy with more stories about Agi being killed one time by an italian tiger on a boat filled with monkeys.
Aungo savored Hungarian bar food:
And Asa, before he had had a single drink, shifted out of his earlier melancholy into his usual state:
After this gathering dissolved, a few of us decided to crash a poli-sci/IRES gathering that was happening at a place on the north side of Szent Istvan krt, but it was such a mess there that our group became divided and lost almost immediately, and the few of us who got out alive (namely, me, Alexis, Aungo, Agi, Brigette, and Colin) went back to the 7th district to a rad little shisha bar. I cant remember the name, but it reeked of authenticity and is right behind the KFC. yea.
Lots of fun.
Oh, I have to add one more thing, though. Brigette, Marko, Alexis and I wandered down to Szimpla for David Berliner's goodbye party on Friday night. We were hungry before hand, and some of us had mentioned pizza. The guys have been known to go down to this place called Pizza King. Marko swears that its totally good.
Exhibit A:
Marko also apparently drinks Bacardi Breezers. If only we had known how screwed we were at the time. The pizza, after OVER AN HOUR, finally hits our table, and is way sad looking. And the damn Hungarians put the dreaded corn on it. They put corn on everything. Marko, enthusiastically digs in, and says "This stuff is really good." While simultaneously smearing ketchup all over his slice.
Exhibit B:
We tried it, and this was quite possibly the grossest pizza I have ever had in my entire life. Like, ever. Even worse than that one that Sean and I ordered from JoBo's on Clarendon that had adhered itself to the box. Even grosser than that. Raw dough. No sauce. Yellow peppers. Corn!
Veni, Vidi, No Likey
So, we did the only thing that we felt was appropriate with the remains, after we had picked through all the slightly edible peices. We made a diarama.
Labels: Agi, Alexis, Asa, aungo, Brigette, CEU, clubs and bars, Colin, Marko, photos, rabble rousing, thin justification for my existace
Halloween!
Mom, Dad, I live with these people. Send peanut butter and money
Pirates.
Becoming a zmobie
Making Sasha dead.
Yar.
Brigette got mad skills.
Damir, Mariya, and Colin. or: creepy count, nymph, mormon elder.
Christine = best assasin ever
Trouble.
Brigette and I being totally awesome to Sasha, after he passed out in my bed.
Jen, Kate and Brigette.
Nada and Peter playing with blood in the bathroom.
Um, yes.
Elder Delmore gets down with his bad self.
I never managed to figure out who that guy was.
dead love claps.
You dont even want to know what my apartment looks like right now. Oh God. So many people crashed here...I slept in a chair. and Brigette's arm still says "knob". Ha. We rule.
Labels: Asa, Brigette, Colin, Damir, house, Kate, Marko, Ola, party, photos, procrastiation, Sasha, Stephen, Wyatt
