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.
Ok, so I have been told that I have been seriously letting people down with my general absence from the pestilog in the last few weeks. I'm sorry. I was way busy. In fact, I only turned in my last paper from fall term on monday. MONDAY! And on Tuesday, I was very involved in the project of lying around the floor on pillows drinking Soproni and smelling the anise scented tobacco of water pipes like a freikin harem at a shisha bar down the street from our house. In fact, the same one that can be seen down at the bottom of this post. So, that's what I have been doing with my time. Mostly.
We also had Christmas. That was nice. And another house guest from Turkey. I went to Germany for 5 days to see Kate, our hospitality club guest from October. Lots of stuff has been going on that I need to write about. But hopefully I will satiate those who have chided me for my inactivity of late with the story of my evening today.
Brigette and I have decided that we are going to go out and do more this term. Cause, last time we checked, we live in Budapest, and its pretty fabulous here, and there is lots to do that we havn't done. So in that spirit, I went down to A38. A38 is a club that is on a boat on the Buda side of the Petőfi Híd. And not just any boat. Its a Ukrainian stone-carrier ship.
Tonight, Szilvási was playing. They are a fabulous Gipsy band that plays around town. You can listen to some of their songs here: Kutyamnak a Laba Kothe Besjom Zsav Po Lungo Drom Kana Ando Foro Gelem The show was phenomenal. This band attracts a crowd of dancers unlike any I've ever seen. I worked up a sweat that soaked through two shirts and a sweater while I was there. I ran into Gergő, who was there with the group, and met some German Erasmus kids at the bar.
On Monday, the same club is hosting Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. I may just have to go. Have to.
Anyway, at the moment, I am home, and finally back in my PJs. And Stephen and I have some Twin Peaks to watch. So, more stories for later.
Kasia offers her "truthy" accounts of my previous "truthy" account of the truth.
basically, i came to the u.s. in 85. i went back once in 86 and once in 87. after 89, i went back every summer until college. in the 7 years since i started reed, i've been back (i think?) 4 times, but never for more than a month.
Also, it's not that Marko and I have the same taste in music. As his friend put it, I have no taste in music. I listen to all kinds of stuff. I am kind of musically retarded. So I'm really, really blown away by people who have very specific tastes in music, and know a lot about it. I'm also intrigued by this "indie rock" thing, because it's a classificatory genre of music that is based around the economics of the music, not the actual quality of music. So Marko offered to edumacate me. And so far, it's working out great.
Finally, I can't believe you tried to front like all we were drinking on that park bench was wine. Trying to make us sound all classy. FESS UP DUDE. WE WAS DRINKIN WEE LITTLE BOTTLES OF HOMELESS HOOCH. AND LOVING IT.
We went into the Buda hills today: Me, Stephen and Marko.
The whole anthro department was supposed to go, but the trip got postponed till next weekend. We discovered this when I called Agí to confirm directions. We had already left the house and it was a beautiful sunny day, so we went anyway. We took the tram on the körút around to Moskva Tér, and then from there took another bus to the fogaskerekű vasút, or cog wheel train which went up a valley on the north end of the buda hills. There were tons of kids on mountain bikes waiting to go up the fogaslerekű, and even one moutain unicycler...the first I have seen since I left Oregon. I was hoping that the kids wre going to bomb down the hill (and there is even a zoo up there! Budapest zoo bomb!) but the vast series of trails at the top were hardly a disappointment.
The train pulled up a hill with a slope of about 15% in the residential XIIth district for quite a ways, and dropped us off at the top of Széchenyi Hegy (Setsenyi Hill). There was a woman making old fashioned cotton candy out front. She had a huge bowl in front of her and she was pouring in sugar straight from the grocery store, making gobs and gobs of this sticky white goodness. We paid 300,HUF for a huge bundle the size of a pony keg. From there, we walked along a small road, past all the gorgeous restaurants and shops in buda, to Gyermekvasút (Children's Railway). This place was crazy. Its a rail way that is run and operated entirely by children under 14. The kids who worked the cash desk, the conrollers, conductors, even the kid who stamped our ticket, all looked about 10. It was like being in children of the corn, except they were excited about trains instead of killing Linda Hamilton. Also, it is entirely unclear where they get the kids to do this job. Are they from a school program? Some sort of tourist industries magnet? Is this volunteer? Compulsory? No one knows...
If you dont let me do my job, they're gonna kill my dog...
Ok, so maybe I'm over doing it. But it was totally weird, none the less. We took this train to the top of the hill, and were supposed to take a chair lift (did I mention that Budapest has a ski resort? hehe. yea) down the east side of the hills to see the city, but we got there late and were distracted by a huge frikin castle on the next hill over.
So, we read the sign out front. Our hungarian is getting better, so we were able to determine that Hungary's Queen Elizabeth (Erzsébet Királynő) was coronated here in, I believe, 1867. We hiked up this big hill, and climbed up to the top to get this awesome view of the whole city. It was not a clear day, and we could not see forever, but parliament was visible from where we were. You can kind of see the Danube behind Stephen, though the haze.
After we came back, we scarfed some dinner, and I headed out to meet Brigette, Asa, Gergő, Mariya, Stephan, Luc, and Drago at the Gödör Klub in Erzsébet Tér for the TransitFestival, a but international music event hosted by a slew of NGOs that were raising awareness for several causes in the area. The Gödör Klub is underground in one of the main squares downtown. Its a really gorgeous entrance, with these massive marble steps and fountains leading down to the glass doors. on the roof is a pond, that actually sits about a foot deep at ground level, but it is lined with panes of class, so from the dance floor, you can look up and see the water rippling over head. It's pretty fantastic. There are some really neat pictures on their website.
While there, we saw some fabulous music, including a Hungarian Roma band called Parno Graszt. Even though I have the worst cold ever known in the history of ever, no one if the club, including me, could stop jumping up and down like mad for these guys. Click here to listen to a short mp3 on the band's website. They rule.
Ok, so I'm dumb. I have a ton of reading still to do and a paper to write that I was *technically* supposed to e mail in 3 hours ago. But its ok, because, instead of working, I spent the evening hanging out with the boys and Emrah, watching hours of his video footage of the G8 protest in Athens, learning about and listening to lots of turkish pop music, and learning about the geneological history of Turkey's radical Left. We also ate some wicked good Turkish lentil soup that Emrah made us for dinner. He's a really rad guy, and it has been great having him here. Too bad that we've been so busy. But I found a solution tonight eh? I still have delusions that I will not be totally destroyed tomorrow, because I slept for a few hours this afterno6n, so I am still rather awake. But this is gonna be bad news no matter how you cut it I'm sure.
So, to help myself feel justified in making the decisions of priority that I have made in the last 8 hours, I will leave you with a video or two of a beautiful Turkish group named Kerdes Turkuler, given to me by Emrah.
Location: Ukrainian Village, Chicago, Illinois, United States
I am addicted to donuts.
I love running around after dark.
I am a beer snob and a vodka nerd.
I change my hair color alot.
Sometimes junior highers make more sense to me than anyone else in the world.
I am really good at finding neat things in dumpsters.
I can fix your bike for you.
I people watch.
I keep plants.
Whatever I am doing, I would rather be in the water.
