And Everything After...
Hello blog.
I am finally back in Chicago. I am living in the Urkainian Village in an apartment with Sean, ever my house-mate-soul-mate of extreme hyphenation. Its good. Its a great place, a great neighborhood. It's kind of nice to be back.
But more about the now, later.
I spent the last month in Belarus, as the previous post implies, as well as road-tripping through the West Balkans, from the northern part of Croatia, down into Montenegro, and through Bosnia and Hercegovina. There are almost too many stories to tell, but many of them are being put together in film, so I will be posting those bit by bit. For the mean time, you can look at some photosets that highlight Belarus here:
and from the West Balkans trip here:
Just click on the photos and it will take you to the flickr pages for them.
More coming on grand adventures later...
Labels: belarus, bosnia, Brigette, croatia, hotlinks, Marko, montenegro, photos, Sasha, Stephen, travel
Group Pics from Rackeve
These are some of the shots that colin took on the dock, mere moments before that storm swirling behind us sent us sprinting for cover and took out a few nearby trees!
Labels: Brigette, CEU, Colin, Damir, l, Luc, Ola, photos, rabble rousing, rackeve, stefan
Rackeve=A Day in the Sociological Life
oh man, half of the department went to rackeve today, a village on the south island and hour outside of budapest, and swam in the danube, diving off of docks in the water, in between cat tails, then saw a thunderstorm start on the other side of the river, and watched lightning from the grass, then took a bunch of group pictures in front of the crazy sky, then ran for it as the temperature dropped like 5 deg celcius in an instant and the rain and wind started, and as we were dashing out of the way, the wind blew down one of the 30' tall trees that we had just been sitting under! and we hauled ass through the rain and took cover in the hotel that was immediately across the street that used to be a castle! and we had beer and hot chocolate in the cellar of the giant castle and had free coffee from a physics conference that was 5n the castle, and the walked all around this city and saw a serbian orthodox church compound that was breathtaking with golden steeples and wells and dogs and tombstones, and we ate cherries off of the trees in the street and then bought bags of them off of two kids who were picking them out of their yard who had this hilarious dog named cameron. thats not even the half if it, and it was awesome and we slept the whole way home. oh man. today was good.
Labels: aungo, Brigette, CEU, grad school, Luc, Ola, photos, rackeve, stefan, thin justification for my existace, travel
The Goings On
So, I have not been blogging because I have been, instead of living life and seeing the sun, writing my thesis and developing the most incredible ass-groove in a chair at Siraly, where Brigette, Stephen, Luc and I have permanently set up residence to kick this pig.
But here are a few small points of note to tide you over until I get my wee little life back
*Artyom used the word "harlot" in his thesis. There is no end to the hilarity that I find in this
*We bought our visas for Belarus. $125. wtf? We should be able to pick them up from the embassy tomorrow. Lord. I'm excited, but I plan on coming back friggin fluent. I won't have just gone to Belarus, I will have DONE Belarus.
*My camera got jacked by some sketchy Hungarian-Transylvanian dude who ended up at my house and made out with some chick on my couch after smoking in Monica's bedroom. Screw that guy. Screw that guy right in the ear. But, this means that I am on the market for a new one. I think I'm going to go for digital video
*Barring any impediments to the previous goal, Stephen, Brigette, Sasha, Marko and I are going to collaborate on "Belarus: The Movie"
*After Belarus, we are going to Croatia to mooch off of Marko's family and sleep in forests. While we are there, it will be Croatian Independance Day (Hooray! We're all still catholic! woo!). On independence day, it is meet for one to eat bear. With berries. Berry bear. Again, wtf?
*My thesis deadline is Monday, but I'm hoping to have it in by Friday. We'll see how it goes.
Labels: belarus, Brigette, CEU, croatia, food, grad school, Marko, Sasha, Stephen, travel
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
[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
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
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY MOM! May God bless you with patience for your daughter's unreliability in the following year.
Oh wow. Ok, so I am actually sitting in class right now, blogging out into my word processor, waiting for a movie that we are watching to recover from its DVD death so that we can finish it. Its called “The Cruise”, and is about this crazy guy who works as a tour guide on a double-decker tour bus in NYC. This is the most hilarious thing I have seen in ages.
“Looking at this building, I feel like I am running through a meadow. Naked. Chasing after a strange woman, who is also naked. Its like an evil, primordial chase of man…As you look up the building, can’t you feel the undulation of her curves?”
“Then men who designed Central Park were transcendentalists….No sweating allowed in Central Park. Those people you see playing baseball, roller blading, jogging—they are not historically accurate.”
“H.G. Wells said that to tell the history of New York City is to tell the history of the world. Fasten your seatbelts.”
Its brilliant.
I have had a crazy week so far, but last night was one of the most random and completely fun nights I have had in a long time. So, I am going to revert to one of my most tried and true formats and provide you the run down of my evening with lists of things that are awesome.
*There are two girls from Bavaria staying with us right now. They came in from Germany early yesterday morning after taking the night train. They are way cute hippie types, and they juggle. Excellent.
*We have another guy from Patagonia coming tomorrow. He lives in the place that the company that makes those backpacks is named after. I can't seem to get off of that fact. Yay cultural sensitivity! Gold star, Jen.
*I have heard back from 5 different groups in Ukraine now, all of whom seem interested in writing this grant. I am sending out another e mail today. We'll see what happens. This is all happening really fast, but money talks. So, I hope we can get something pulled together in the next week. I may have to call the woman at the OSI office in NY to see if we can't get an extra few days for this proposal. Do people do that? Blah. We'll see.
*I finally made it to the post office in Joszefvaros to pick up my Mp3 player. Its a little Creative Zen V. Its rad. Its my new favorite thing ever ever. I have been listening to the Murder City Devils all morning in the library. I am so in love with myself this morning.
*Both Tyler and Brigette came over last night (again). We went out to Szimpla to meet up with Sasha and a friend of his from Belarus who is visiting for the week. What a blastie.
*Budaman made us wait, but he came through, as usual.
*We actually managed to find a table that would sit all 8 of us. In the back too. We rule.
*Tyler, it turns out, is a sucker for Rock Paper Scissors for Pain. Do you know how long it has been since I have played an honest game of RPS4P? Since I last saw Kasia or Ligaya. It was so much fun. We started playing double throws, two on two, and then at one point, we had an 8 person 1-on-1 table wide game going, with 16 hands throwing at once. There was spitting. There was slapping. It was mayhem.
*Tyler and I have also started on a new social experiment. Sometime around 1am yesterday, we decided that it would be a good idea to sign up for a Hungarian online-dating service, and see who we get matched with. We will be keeping detailed records of all ensuing events. Tyler insists that he can get a diary of random Budapestian dating published in a poli sci journal. Whatever. Its still brilliant.
*Despite being out at the bar till super late and blowing off all my homework yesterday, I actually got to bed about 2 hours earlier than I have any night in the last 3 or 4 weeks. Even though I had class at 9 this morning, I am so super energetic from sleeping more than 4 hours. Holy crap last night was so much fun. I have been wigging out over this grant. I really needed it. But now I dont want to start working again. Its a vicious cycle.
*I have finally FINALLY found a way into iWiW.hu, the invitation-only Hungarian myspace-like online thingy. Did that sentance make any sense? I dunno. But check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwiw
*Bill is coming out in like 3 weeks. I am so F'ing excited. I can't even tell you.
*I just found out about a student conference in L'viv at the end of March. It is actually taking place over 3 days in which I do NOT have friends or family coming into BP, which is nothing short of a miracle. The cost is only 5 euro for participating (did I say
student conference?) which includes accomodation and food. The only thing I would have to cover is travel, which by train to L'viv is about $25. Sweet. I am trying to talk everyone I know into applying. It sounds super rad.
*I totally failed to call my mom on her birthday. It was yesterday. I suck. I made 20 different plans to set aside a time to do it, and something just came up. By the time I got home at lke 10, it was all I could do to figure out where the couch was in my house. Major boo on me. HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY MOM! xoxo
Labels: Brigette, Budapest, clubs and bars, hospitality club, procrastiation, rabble rousing, Sasha, thin justification for my existace, Tyler, ukraine
Glorious Day of "American Food"-like Food
Yesterday, I woke up on the couch in Stephen's room next to Brigette, wondering if Tyler was still asleep with his shoes on in the living room. This has all been known to happen before, and is always a sign that last night was a good night and today will be a phenomenal day. Seriously.
So, I may not have mentioned this earlier, but Brigette brought back a bunch of goodies from Texas after Christmas break. Its fabulous. I love the fact that she is from Texas and knows all the right things to buy. When Stephen is on the phone with parents and friends in Ohio who are sending care packages, he always asks what I want. Brigette and I scream out a slurry of "Oh! Oh! Masa! and corn husks! chipotles! and nopalitos!" Stephen usually tells us to go stick it and to order something that is American and that the average suburban can find in Canton OH. So so sad.
But Briga brought back a few excellent things, not the least of which is a prayer candle with the Virgin of Guadalupe on it, which totally makes me nostalgic for our old house in Portland with the Revelation and Our Lady of Guadalupe themed bathroom (coolest domestic space I have ever had the privilege to inhabit). She also brought back a can of chipotles, and can of jalopenos. So, this morning, for breakfast, we made a huge batch of scrambled eggs with onions and sour cream and jalopenos. And it was SOOOO GOOOOOOOD.
Look, Stephen's camera phone was able to reach out and capture my joy:
(All these images are really low res because my digital is in Berlin with Ben right now, so all we had was Stephen's Razr to capture the moments as they came.)
Brigette gasped when she ate it and said, "Oh my gosh. Its hot. I forgot what hot tastes like. Oh my word I love it. Real hot food!" In Hungary, 'spicy' generally means 'not creamy'. Its a sad state of affairs if all you want is some chili. Marko couldn't even handle a single bite of mild heat. We are just made of spicier stuff I guess. I miss hot, spicy food so very very much. And tamales. I miss those too.
Later in the evening, I tagged along with Stephen and Sanida, who were had plans to go to this Burger place that Petya had found sometime last term. I was skeptical, but this place allegedly had really really good burgers, and even though I don't eat meat, sheer curiosity and the hopes of some honest french fries lured me along on their adventure. We were also able to recruit Zoltan at the library. I mentioned the burger plan to him, and I watched him hover over his feet, eyes glazed over for a moment, then, with a sudden rush of blood to his face, say, "I think I'm going to invite myself along..." Ha.
So, the burger place is called "Gyros es Burgers" (original) and is just be Keleti Palyaudvar. I was astonished by what they offered. They had a menu of like 20 different burgers with bacon, cheese, fried egg, goose liver, cabbage, mushrooms, anything you could think of. They even had one called "fitness" which was a burger doused in every drippy, oily, cheesy thing they had, but with out meat. And here's the kicker. They even toasted the bun. It totally kicked the In n Out Burger grilled cheese sandwhich's ass.
Stephen and Zoltan each got a burger called The Lenin:
And I don't even remember what Sanida got, but it was gone fast.
This place also had Lowenbrau
which is totally not that great, but which I will forever defend as the only reliable beer in a can in this city (take that Borsodi!).
The food was nutritionally useless and totally good. Stephen and I trucked home after this, curled up around our pot bellies, and watched Twin Peaks. And it was a very good day.
Course, I am failing to mention the long hours of work I pulled during the day and after all this nonsense that had me up till nearly 5 am. I am really starting to stress about the phenomenal amount of work I have to stay on top of. Its kind of blowing my mind. But I am meeting with Yuriy (Юрій!) tomorrow to go over letters that I am sending out to harm reduction clinics in Ukraine, and Russ has been schooling me on how not to freak out over this grant, which I have no idea how to even start, and I got my funding for April, or at least some of it. 200 Euros is better than no Euros, and thats enough to float me through April for my field work. So, things are happening, just not in a very steady or timely fashion.
Ok, enough of this. I got stuff to do....
Labels: Brigette, Budapest, CEU photos, food, procrastiation, Sanida, Stephen, thin justification for my existace, Zoltan
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
