Corny

hetveget

Julia and I skipped an afternoon of work, in protest, when her goodbye lunch was pushed back from Friday to Monday. Our rebellious ways took us to the Ethnography Museum, which was quite nice. Right across from the majestic Parliament, it was originally the home of the Hungarian supreme court. The traditional Hungarian displays were free, they charged only to see two temporary displays that may or may not have been worth the 400 HUF.

Noemi and I discovered the joys of 499 HUF frozen pizzas, three to a box. Austerity measures and tastebuds both agree that the pizzas are a good find. I don’t have an oven, though, so we can only make them at her house on Raday utca.

Kalli’s cousin inspired our first trip to Rio. It’s wonderful people watching, our personal favorite was the cow-pantsed young man seducing the mini-skirted young lady. After the music and 700 HUF beers got to us, though, we crossed the street to Zold Pardon, back to where we belong.

I made Noemi take her first trip ever to Csepel, an island just south of the city center on Sunday. It was a planned suburb from the 1960s or 1970s, and to this day retains much of the feel. It’s connected to the city proper by a quick and easy section of the suburban HEV rail line. The reason for our visit was the nearly deserted northern half of the island. It’s rumored to be a tentative site for a potential Olympic village down the road, so I wanted to check it out with my own eyes. It looked, truthfully, quiet promising for the purpose. Close the city center, nice views, and absolutely nothing of value to knock down. Potentially really good.

On the way back, we stopped at the National Theatre. It’s an eclectic building, surrounded not only by a beautiful spot on the Danube at the southern reaches of the city, but also by quite a controversy, but I loved it. The boat part of the design is glorious, and the odd-tidbits surrounding it are engagingly fun. In my SimCity world, the Olympic Stadium is right across the road from the theatre. ☺

And the weekend finished with a screech. The almost rusty-screech of a foot-powered air pump at 11:00 Sunday night. Janos brought over a queen-size inflatable mattress that his brother and sister-and-law had bought to sleep on when they were visiting. Slipped underneath my futon mattress, it’s a wonderful addition to my home! I have a bed finally!!!

Glorious...

Eastern European Propaganda

Greetings from Gyongyhaz! Enjoy the show. :-)

Moving Company

Goodbye Imperial Kodaly Korond, Hello Nyugati and WestEnd, my new neighborhood. Four blocks from my new house? The wireless god-send of Central Europe's largest mall.

Highlights of new apartment will, of course, find their way to you via video special real soon!

Fun with Hungarian Bathrooms
Budapest, Hungary
Jeremy Jewett

Up-to-date

I’ve come to realize the reason for the ungodly plug-in air freshener. My bed smells like urine. It’s not good. I tried scrubbing. Hard. But it still smells like old-lady urine. I speculate that bed-wetting may be why the old lady was shipped off to the nursing home. The can’t-wait-to-move countdown is at less than ten days!

Feeling a little underutilized at work. And the work that I’m doing seems more chart-perfecting than a valuable learning experience. Hmm.

Said goodbye to Harpswell on Wednesday at a little good bye party of the old standards (Janos, Kat, Aran, Matt, Noemi) and the law ladies I invited a long (Julia, Melanie, Kalli). Harpswell is headed back to Maine for the summer, than staking out a new life in Chicago. She hopes to go to nursing school there after a year. We toasted the last of her two-years worth of nights with Drehers, watching hot Hungarian salsa dancers and gyros. They’re so good.

Thursday was a wild evening storm. Noemi and I were shoved in from an outside table at the restaurant down the street. We loved the swing in temperature at the crack of the storm. Luckily there's a night bus between my house and Noemi's.

Friday was Zold Pardon, Buda's hot night spot for rockin' music. The teenagers dig it. Melanie and Kalli were skeptical, but Janos and I managed to convince them of the merits of the joint with the 100-forint entrance turnstill, pulsating tunes like "what is love" and "eye of the tiger," and a fantastic blend of merry young hungarians and sketchy Chinese businessmen.

And Saturday morning before heading to Eger? I woke up early to catch the train, but Janos was already up and about, slamming doors at 7:00 am in the morning. I didn't know what he was up to, I didn't open my door until i hear him stomp down the courtyard walkway. I shook my head at his antics, and opened the door to head into the shower.

But then what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a girl. Standing in Janika's room, looking out the window. Her hair, like a dream, was most likely flowing in the breeze. I gaspes a "Szia" before dashing into my room to better clad myself and find my glasses. When i popped back out, capable of seeing this time, she was still there. Redish hair flowing. 20 or so.

She spun and smiled. She stuck out her hand. She introduced herself as Monika. As if to explain her magic apperance, she said she was Janos' niece. She spoke a beautiful English lacking in communiation between Janos and I.

Her t-shirt, I kid you not, I swear to god: "Porn-Star-In-Training." Branded across her chest.

She's headed to Debrecen next yeat to become a translator. She was in town with her mom - Janos's sister - to see the Night of the Museum festivities. (All the city's museums stay open until 2 am with special programming, the Saturday night closest to the Summer solstice.) And she came, apparently, to stuff my freezer full of meat. More meat than I've ever seen in my life. Certainly more meat than our little kitchen can handle...

The Second Badger

Melanie arrived safe and sound Tuesday, the anticipated arrival of Wisco law student #2 to hit Budapest this summer. We didn’t have any classes together last year – and she knows a whole different law school crew than I know – but we got to know each other a little through the Wisconsin International Law Society and pre-Hungary excitement. I failed in an attempt to give her a Hungarian-language base before she arrived, but I’ll do a better job of being an on-the-ground tour guide.

Noemi and I met her for supper her first night here. I was so full afterward that I could hardly make it home, but it was a good intro to Hungary. By Friday, I was helping her and Kalli, a Brooklyn Law Schooler rightfully proud of her Greek heritage, look for an apartment.

They lucked into a beautiful place, recently renovated, no more than six blocks away. Kalli’s parents started talking to a man on a train and he knew a friend who had a friend with a solution to the problem. The Serbian man now works with an Irish invest who renovates flats in Budapest. (And I learned a trick that’s happening across the city. Building “associations” are selling the rights to renovate the 4th or 5th story attics that have gone unused since the building was built decades or a century ago. They use the proceeds to renovate the entire courtyard/outside entrance, etc.)

They’re both working at the European Roma Rights Centre this summer. I enjoyed, tragically, Melanie’s reaction when she talked to her first Central European about the Roma. At a cozy courtyard bar after the ladies signed a handwritten contract Friday night, the Serbian-born landlord treated Melanie to the traditional tirade of Roma stereotypes and disdain. Melanie was shocked, I think, to walk into the uphill battle of public opinion in these parts of the world. But of course I should be cynical, I used to teach at a segregated high school…

Since then, the ladies have hardly stopped shopping, pausing just long enough for a dusk-lit tour of Castle Hill and the Fisherman’s Bastion. They took loads of pictures, maybe someday they’ll land online. Occasionally they call in to evening gatherings as too tired to arrive, but we’ll see if a short stay in Eger next weekend can jumpstart their late-night performance!

Just Like a Prayer

After a meandering Friday night with the teachers and Noemi, I started to weave my way through the 6th district, homeward bound, about 2. A block from Szinyei Street, I was surprised to hear Madonna pulsating through the empty streets. The closer I got, the more I started to wonder what kocsma was played the song. How had I missed a neighborhood bar, at first glance, that would have been willing to blast Like a Prayer late on a Friday night?

I debated investigating the sound, but decided against it, resigned to tiredness after a long day of work/play. Instead, I slipped the blue key into the keyhole of the big double door that guards the 3 Szinyei courtyard. A funny thing happened, though, when I opened that door: the music got louder.

At first I was worried, disconcerted that a neighborhood bar could be so loud that the sound would permeate the walls and invade my tranquil little courtyard. Two sides ivy, two sides balconies. But as I walked up the steps, the music only got louder. That’s when I saw the young man passed out on the stairs, that’s when I knew for sure: I have young neighbors and they were having a party in my little building!

Momentum was pushing me toward bed, but I figured I had to take advantage of the opportunity to meet my neighbors. I started in Hungarian to the first person I met when I walked into the open door. But I quickly switched to an English “Who lives here?”

The man pointed to a couch in the corner with an accusatory “Andras.” I introduced myself. Under the threat of German, he admitted to knowing English, and quickly apologized for being too loud. I laughed and promised I hadn’t come to complain. He brought another neighbor into the conversation, and a bottle of homemade wine. They both were artists of sorts in their spare time. I never learned what their jobs are, but they were both out of school.

We talked a while, then the police knocked on the door, telling Andras to be quieter. People across the street had complained. He obliged and I went home not long after, still amazed at having young neighbors in what had seemed to be such an inactive, almost elderly, building.

I also am proud to report that my room is beginning to smell less like old woman, a fragrance that had begun to suffocate me in a sort of asaematic clenching of the lungs. A Glade Plug-In, or however they brand it in these parts, was the culprit, injecting its rotting stench into my precious 14 square meters (an approximation) of living quarters. Now that it’s been removed, I’m starting to breath a little better, and apologizing less to myself and visitors.