hrvatica / croatia

i'm sitting in the airport hours too early, thanks to the paranoic indoctrinations of my lovely parents...so i decided to use the time to write about the fantastic adventure i just had in croatia.

the short of it is that last tuesday i got an email from my friend dunja, a croatian girl who i met through my friend benny two years ago (benny is the guy i stayed with in berlin). dunja told me that she was back in croatia earlier than she had anticipated, and entreated me to come to zagreb, "that night or whenever!" for we were meant to have an adventure...anywhere.

so the next day i went to the train station, purchased a ticket for the 5 o clock train. while there, i met an american girl, who was going to be on the same train as me, so i invited her back to my apartment, b/c the keleti train station is sucky and saunistically hot. later when we got on the train, she headed for the sleeper car, and i headed for the 2nd class - read: lowest class - train car, which was unbearably hot - no A/C no windows capable of being opened!. met these two brits, and b/c the train showed no signs of moving on time, we did what anyone in our situation would do: bought two bags of beer. as we clinked together our wonderful bottles of hungarian dreher, just outside the window we could see the frenchie who had been on our car, sitting on the ground with blood coming out of his head. later we would discover that he had left for a smoke, and seeing that a train car - OTHER THAN THE ONE HIS GIRLFRIEND AND BAGS SAT ON - was leaving, he panicked thinking it was the one leaving for venice (ours), and got on. when he realized that it wasn't his train, he tried to get off. but the doors were closed, and b/c the train was only moving faster and faster, he did what any sensible being would do, which is to push the conductor out of the way, and jump off the moving train.

another forty minutes were spent convincing frenchie and his girlfriend that getting on the train for 12 hours after he had suffered a head injury was not the brightest idea...so they left in the direction of a hospital that had an MRI machine.

and then we were off. celena eventually emerged from the sleeper car. but by then we had also met andy, another brit who later would regale us with stories involving his being court-martialed and spending two years in jail when he was a UN soldier during the Bosnian war, because he killed a Serbian he saw raping a young girl. also explained to us that the reason he had been living in southeast asia and travelling in europe for the past year and a half (with just a tiny backpack no less), was because after his time in prison, he had been in with the london organized crime scene, and his successes in the trafficking of Special K, had warranted a special request from the Ruskis - your life abroad or your death in London.

Rounds of drinks and 6 hours later, we hit Zagreb, where Dunja was waiting for me at the train station! The next day we hung out in Zagreb....I almost got a massive fine for riding public transport without a ticket EVENTHOUGH THERE IS NO TICKET MACHINE AT THE BUS STOPS! and no way for an english speaking tourist to know you have to buy these tickets at bodegas. we got out of the ticket, after the pervy traffic controller made comments in croatian to dunja about how i would just pay the fine because i'm american and evidently "rich", and she told him that i was far from rich and rather a broke ass student on the tail end of a trip....he let us off with an 8 dollar fine...i'm convinced he just wanted to use his position of power to flirt with us, a much of the 15 minutes was spent with him giggling at us, and making eyes....eww....what a fucking creep.


so the next morning, dunja's friend maja and her friend darian came by to pick us up. as darian was headed for the coast, he took us with him, and for the next few days, while the three of us girls rented an apartment in moscanicka draga (on the istrian peninsula) right by the sea, he would meet up with us in the evenings to take us to places you can't get to unless you have a car....! lucky ladies we were. in darian's high-powered mercedes, one night after dinner at a farmhouse/family restaurant in the middle of the woods, where they make their own prosciutto and truffle cheese, and serve wild boar and homemade pasta, he took us to the smallest city in the world - hum - and then we went to the motovun film festival's closing night on the top of a mountain. another night we went out to opatije and rijeka, two larger cities...got to the seafood konoba (little "locavorian" restaurant) just as it was closing...so we ordered a pre-dinner schnibble of octopus salad and marinated anchovies and ate it on the street, while i wore turqouise eye shadow.....jajaja! the day after that, we went to the beach in the morning and then darian took us to a "haunted house" (it burned down a hundred years ago and then someone committed suicide) - it's now a gorgeous hotel that sits on the top of a cliff looking out to the water far below....and then he drove us to the ferry landing - of course driving like my older sister, which meant high speeds on the windy cliffy coastal road and loud loud pulsating music ;), ....once there, the three of us girls got on board headed for cres, a massive island...

since we needed a ride to the main city, forty minutes away by car from the ferry landing in cres, we had to ask people for a ride. maja and i jumped at the opportunity. i think we asked 7 or 8 people....until finally we landed upon a guy with a van that was full and had room for two (but "we are like sooo thin!" dunja said) but three if we sat on each other. and we met an older belgian couple who confessed that they did not as of yet know where they were going, but that they had an RV so if they decided to go to the main city then of course we were more than welcome...

we met up with the two ride options on dry land. dunja helped the belgians with the map. maja and i discovered that van guy was a film director from austria...belgians decided to go to the city, so they took us...coolest hitchhiking experience ever.

when we got to the city, we went to dunja's friend dora's place....maja and i were to stay there for the next few days, and dunja was off to her friend maja's to stay there. and what did we do for the next few days?

1. played lots of rummy 51 with dora.
2. went swimming every afternoon at the nudist beach, which is really just a stream of tiny rocky beaches....this beach is further than the more crowded beaches, and way cleaner and nicer.
3. had photo shoots.
4. went to semana (spelling?), a festival where local vendors sold oils, and grappas, and fresh seafood
5. ate lots of tiny grilled fish - sardines, anchovies, etc. etc.
6. drank medica - honey flavored grappa.
7. ate burek at 2 am.
8. went to SHTALA (barn) the only club on the island, for all of 5 minutes
9. ate cucumbers and tomatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
10. went out wearing hats.
11. woke up hungover.
12. listened to the church bells ring for 30 minutes straight, while sitting in dora's living room.
13. listened to the church bells ring for what seemed like ages, but not quite 30 minutes, every morning at 7 am.
14. got dehydrated heat exhaustion headaches and then nursed them.
15. had danse parties in dora's saunistic apt
16. watched the sunsets.
17. went swimming.
18. taught amie how to read in croatian, and taught her basic knowledge of croatian....HVALA!
19. left the fridge open for 5 minute intervals at one point to "air condition" the room.
20. stuck up for ourselves on the nudist beach when a sexually frustrated croatian man started yelling at us for being at the same beach as him and his girl, DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT WASN'T PRIVATE, and there was an old couple 5 m away!- we weren't moving, so he finally did! JERK!
21. watched someone get in trouble with the police.
22. generally had an amazing time.

i left cres 2 mornings ago by bus and ferry boat ride...got to zagreb, spent a few hours in the city center, then hopped on a train, got to budapest late night....
yesterday, i packed, went to a housewarming part on buda side, and met someone involved in the arts trade and arts management in hungary.

i think i'll be back in the city that never sleeps in like 17 hours or so if all goes well.
much love to you all,

amie

art'ing around london and vienna

first, sorry it took me so long to write a post - i hope the events of the last week of my little jaunt haven't entirely escaped my memory...

so where were we? yes, i was about to run off to get mussels with my friend david and his friend ryan at a belgian place in covent gardens where the waiters are ever so subtly dressed as monks....and where the mussels are shockingly good.

then we went off to the tate modern (yes, again), but this time to see the cy twombly and street & studio photography exhibit. both were great....i really like the tate modern more than the new moma....for a whole list of reasons that i won't get into here, but i'd be more than happy to discuss this with anyone interested, whenever...

then i went back to max's flat in bloomsbury (the west end), and we took a stroll - among other things i saw a BEDFORD square (hipsters eat your heart out) - and then met up with his friends from lse for dim sum & beers. then we went to a bar, but too bad, last call was at ELEVEN THIRTY ON A SATURDAY NIGHT...so then we went to another bar, which had the same policy, but had been swamped by a birthday party, so we were able to order one round...london is great and all, but midnight, seriously?

anyway, next day i went to the markets - spitalfields and old brick lane (or something like that) - i wish all the pound prices were really usd prices, because i would have bought up EVERYTHING at some of the stands. like this one artist who makes ridiculous jewelry - necklaces with rocking horses, 3-D shopping carts, bicycles, etc. in bling gold...lots of very very unique, cool stuff.

after i had spent everything i had just taken out of the atm 3 hours prior, i strolled about and then returned to max's, where we had dinner and watched british tv....aaah, the wonders of british humour.

next day, natalie picked me up in the morning...natalie is a twentysomething lawyer at white and case - hungarian too! - who i met in california during spring break two years back while with my sister, through my sister's friend...and after i had missed my flight to new york for cardozo admitted weekend, i decided to stay in san fran with my sister and the two of them to go drinking around napa, and "hang out" rather than go back to school ;) anyway, so nat and i hung about her flat by hyde park and walked around the notting hill area...at one point we made the mistake of walking into some floral potpourri soap place, which was all disheveled, and english country cute, but not tacky or overwhelmingly nauseating in terms of smell, and this was all a mistake because the woman was off her rocker.

"do you want to smell something-something rose thing?"
huh? "uh, no thanks, just looking"
"well it doesn't cost you anything to smell"
etc. etc. etc.

later we went to see a woman named natasha panas perform - jazzy soul singer who went to nat's high school - b/c her single just got released...quite good, and i got to meet one of nat's best friends who has the same birthday as me, as does her sister, who is two years younger than her - nuts.

next day, among other things, we did a whirlwind tour of the landmark sights, shopped in chelsea, had linner at a wonderful bistro, and went to selfridges (really nice dep't store) because i had to pick up my shoes which were in repair, and we had to see the clothes, chat with the guy at nars, and test all this perfume, like teenage girls. haha.

left for vienna next morning (wednesday). out of luton...liked that experience more than stansted, in case any of you ever need to decide b/w the two. also easy jet makes ryan air look like shit.

anyway, got to vienna....gusts of wind and rain. freezing. my head cold of the past two days had turned into something worse because of the whole flying thing, and b/c of the rain that lasted for the next two days in vienna, by friday, i felt like crap ;(

so i got to the hostel, and met up with felipe there. then we walked in the rain for like an hour... got dinner and then went to a place called 1516 brewing company, where they have beer that they make according to the old beer laws of 1516...good stuff. also drank copious amounts of hard cider.

next day we went to the leopold museum where we saw a huge amount of egon schiele and gustav klimt's work. some kokoschka as well. AND this was interesting...there was an exhibit of the modern art of the faroe islands - an island chain between iceland and the uk. random, no?

then we went to the secession building, where you can see the real beethoven frieze that klimt made...at the neue gallery earlier this year, at their klimt exhibit, you could see a faithful representation of this frieze. it was entirely different seeing it here at the bottom of this building, which feels surprisingly austere on the inside, considering the gold-leaf dome and gilded lettering that define the building's exterior.

later we went to the albertina, where you can see dutch masters, old state rooms - super cool "wallpaper," downstairs there's an extensive paul klee collection....and though we went to the permanent gallery...there was no art on the walls, room descriptions - yes, audioguide numbers - yes, but art - no. you can even see the hooks where the paintings used to hang. i'm surprised we could get in...

we got tea, and decided that since it was 5ish, we would go to this place called Trzesniewski that i had read about. it's a stand-up cafe, where you order tiny open face sandwiches, with like egg or fish toppings, and it comes with a teeny mug of beer (125 ml), and it's awesome. there were all these 40/50/60/70 somethings coming there after work to enjoy this or just getting a box of this toasts to take home....i loved it.

we strolled over to a part of town called "bermuda's triangle" - so-called b/c it's a pub area, and b/c people that get drunk there tend to get "lost" inside it...get it...!!!?! went to a funny little bar called mojo, which had weird decor and red lighting, and still managed to feel like a chain....got rounds of drinks, played mash (my new favorite drinking/bored in class/whenever game), and hangman...after a few rounds we decided to head off in search of a late-night meal...and came upon immervoll, which was very cool - reminded me of westville, but cooler, and different food, but same chalkboard, meets casual white tables, meets gourmand dining kind of thing.

then we headed off in the direction of home, but first stopped off at a bar called Rhiz, which is below the u-bahn (metro), but not in the metro station, just below the rail line....very cool. we proceeded to drink a lot. the music was awesome. we drank a lot. we stayed a while. i think we got home at like 4.

i of course entered my hostel room (3 beds including my own...weird for a hostel)...to find the couple i shared a room with sleeping in the same bed...went to the bathroom, came out, they were in separate beds. this exact thing happened the night before too. straaaange.
next morning, i get woken up by the happy couple, b/c they were fiddling with plastic bags. how many? i couldn't tell you, b/c i'm blind as a bat without my contacts in, and don't have my glasses with me. but it went on for an eternity. and of course, i was hungover, with a head cold (i'm a genius), and i wanted to pick up one of my bags and crumple it over and over again, but i didn't. but really, i think this went on for over an hour. i wanted to shoot them. or suffocate them with their own plastic bags. they finally left, and i finally fell back asleep, of course, hungover, aaagh, feli came in at like noon, by then i felt fine....in our legs exhausted, coming out of hangovers disposition, we proceeded to get ready, get on the u-bahn and go to the summer palace of the hapsburgs....VERY COOL. the audioguide was actually good too.

later, we went to the belvedere, b/c i wanted to see more klimt, including the kiss, which is worth seeing in person, i think, and judith...

i think we went back to 1516 after eating sacher torte at the hotel sacher, which you can't go to vienna and not do...and of course it was great. i think the rest of the night we just drank and got another late night schnibble at a place called stomach - feli was very keen on this name....and then we dipped into a weird weird bar called 3 centimeters...where they were playing johnny cash, and bluesgrass, and we were like the only people there, even though it was friday night...and most of the bars and restaurants were closed, the streets were empty....

next day i went back to budapest....where i've been for the past few days. i know i said i wasn't going to croatia, but i think i might be going tomorrow night. jaja.

kusse,
amie

prague (again), berlin and the first day in london.

so i forgot to mention that i did a tour of the jewish sites in prague. for those who know virtually nothing about jewish prague - like me before i got there - here are some interesting factoids:
according to written records, the jewish presence in prague dates back to the 11th century. according to archaeological findings and oral traditions, the jewish presence may date back even hundreds of years prior to the 11th century.
the jews were persecuted throughout their time in what is now the czech republic, but persecutions depended on the strength of the kingdom...when times were good, jews were left well alone...when times were not so good, jews were treated worse (i.e. increased head taxes, etc.)
the jews lived in a ghetto for hundreds of years. kafka grew up in this part of town, and witnessed the end of the reconstruction of the ghetto, which started in the late 19th century, b/c the ghetto had by then descended into squalor and decay. the reconstruction project was one of the biggest urban reconstruction/planning projects of its day, and was heavily initated/financed/supported by the government.

there are 5/6 synagogues in a very very very short distance from one another (i'm only mentioning 3):
1) the pinkas synagogue, which is now a permanent memorial to those czech jews who perished in the holocaust and the pogroms leading up to it. the names of all the jews found in the records are written on the walls of the synagogue, and are listed according to the town from which they came, with their immediate family members. their respective dates of births, and for most, the day they were shipped off to the camps, are listed as well. a recording of a special mourner's kaddish recited by a prominent rabbi a few decades ago is looped. the names were written on the wall - by hand, you can still see the pencilled line marks - in the early 50's, but when the soviets took over, they painted over the names and closed the synagogue. when the wall fell in '89, the synagogue reopened shortly thereafter, and the names were written on the walls once more.
upstairs, there is a permanent exhibition of drawings that were made by children while they were in thereisenstadt, before they were shipped off to auschwitz and murdered.

behind the pinkas synagogue is a terribly old, terribly beautiful jewish cemetary. despite the fact that you enter it after emerging from a holocaust memorial, and that it is a cemetary which holds dead bodies, it feels quite alive. this is because in the jewish tradition, cemetaries are called "beit chaim" (house of lives)....rather than viewed as houses for the dead, they are perceived as houses of those who are now living something like an "afterlife," but it's a bit more complicated than that, and i can't really explain it. anyway, back to the cemetary. imagine a massive grove of trees, and grassy "mounds," as there are hillier parts. now imagine there are gravestones, of different shapes, colors & sizes emerging out of the earth at various angles. some appear as though they will fall over, some stand virtually erect. there are different types of stones, different types of inscriptions. this jumble is the result of multiple factors: 1. the cemetary represents 600 years of jewish burials. 2. according to jewish tradition, you cannot disturb the dead once they've been buried. so, the jews layered dirt on top of the primary layers, and buried more bodies. apparently there are 6 such layers in the cemetary. archaeologists and art historians can decipher the era that a gravestone represents even when this information is unclear from the inscriptions, b/c of the text used, the ornamentation used, the type of stone used and the way the stone is cut. so, for example, they can tell that one stone is a 14th century gravemarker, and that another came from the mid-18th century. fascinating stuff.

2) the Old-New Synagogue - the OLDEST synagogue in the world. insane. the bimah, the ark look ancient, but very much intact.

3) the Spanish Synagogue is wonderful. gorgeous patterns, colors, and a pretty ridiculous collection of jewish objects that were suprisingly guarded by the nazis, for reasons that "historians still argue about." and then the soviets wouldn't allow for the work to be showcased (shocking)....

alright....on to BERLIN.
berlin is AWESOME. i can't wait to go back.

i stayed with my friend benny in kreuzberg, which is a part of town that has a massive turkish population and a bunch of great parks, cafes, bars, boutiques....young, not gentrified....gentrifying, yada yada....everyone knows the end of this story, but the point is, kreuzberg is still very cool and not yet gentrified.

so on monday, i met benny and some of his friends for late lunch at a russian place in prezlauer berg....really cool as well. to be honest, i expected berlin to be this kind of dark, glib, industrial sort of city. but it's quite the opposite. huge, wide streets - streets, not avenues. tons of trees, green spaces. interesting facades. color. great street art. better dressed people.

did a very cool free tour of berlin on tuesday morning...this organization comprised of young students, etc. believes that everyone should get a great tour of a city regardless of their budget....and it was great. for four hours we walked around, and this really really brilliant, young australian woman who reminded me of my european history teacher in 7th grade (a norwegian jewess named ingrid) told GREAT stories about everything we saw, and everything i probably wouldn't have noticed. we went to the brandenberg gate, learned about the statue on top of it that napoleon stole and then the prussians later carried back from the louvre after defeating him....we saw the memorial to the murdered european jews...and stood above the bunker where hitler auf'd himself...and saw the place where the nazis burned over 30,000 books, and learned about the tv tower - an idea drummed up by the east german government to show off its commie technological and scientific knowledge, which ended up almost failing, but succeeded once the government smuggled in some swedish engineers to finish the job.... !!

anyway, stumbled about, daytime beer drinking, b/c it's berlin and summer...reading "zeno's conscience" by italo svevo...pretty intense memoirs, which start off with his recollections of the first cigarettes he ever smoked and his inability to quit, and his furious imaginative jealousies involving his wife.

another highlight of the week: benny had plans one night, so his roommate paul and i had some of his friends over for dinner....i made ratatouille mom! lol. it was great.

thursday morning i had a meeting at the deutsches musik archiv (the german music archives), which is part of the german national library....awesome meeting. the woman i had been in correspondence with invited two of her colleagues to the meeting and we all chatted for like 2 hours or so about copyright law, and their attempt to create really cool interactive search engines for music...

also went to the neue national gallery - saw the hiroshi sugimoto exhibit, which i missed when it was in san fran last year. very very cool.
then i went to the jewish museum, which was designed by liebskind...interesting building - in parts. but the exhibition was so awful, it actually made me feel physically sick and fiercely annoyed, so i left.


got to london yesterday (friday) morning....met up with my friend max, who i met during the program in budapest and with whom i'm staying with for the next few days....then ran over to the tate to meet up with david bae from wash u, and then later met up with patrick also from the budapest program, to see marc & sara, the two founders of the street art site wooster collective give a presentation also at the tate. met this guy named devin while waiting in line. after the talk, devin, patrick and i, and a few other people joined marc & sara for drinks nearby. then patrick, devin and i walked by the thames, got some beers & walked to the cannes tunnel which the government recently set aside for stencil artists to post their work - it's AWESOME. banksy, blek le rat, faile, toaster, etc. etc. etc. all have work featured there.

then we had chicken "doners" (schwarma?!/) b/c this is apparently what everyone does anywhere in europe now ;) except budapest, lol, where pizza and ketchup or pogacho (little baked things with cheese or cabbage) are still in vogue for late night schnibbles, and i headed off to kensington/notting hill with devin where we met up with some of his friends and then went to a very cool place called the notting hill arts club, where a dj was spinning motown/soul/funk/surf rock....;)

it's very cool finally being in the city where buses are red and double deckered, and telephone booths actually look like that - as opposed to being placed in random places like novelty items (telephone bar in the east village, disney world) - and people sound utterly sophisticated and academic even when asking questions at a street art talk, and being on the tube watching a man vomit between cars, and realizing that it's called the tube b/c it really is a claustrophobic sort of tube nestled far below the earth (@ one station, i walked down almost 200 steps on a chinese staircase to get to the platform!). all of this is great and all, especially the realization that the us dollar is really worth quarter-pound(ers) here.

anyway, off to meet up with david and his friend ryan to get mussels and have a second go at the tate....
cheers,
amie

berlin

in berlin. left prague. prague was awesome. i'll write about it when i have some time. but highlights:
1. GIANT metronome in the park.
2. huge 6 floor contemporary art museum hosting a trienniele,
3. mucha museum
4. walking around til my legs fell off
5. kafka museum
6. the sculptures/art around town (see 1 also).

hope all is well in the states,
love,

me

metronome.



men pee-ing in front of the Kafka Museum.


at the art museum.

leaving budapest...

going to prague in the morning.

spent mid-day sunday at the jewish synagogue - biggest one in the world, 2nd biggest in terms of seating (first being Temple Emmanuel in New York). The tour guide told us about what happened to the synagogue during the second world war. though it wasn't bombed, buildings not too far away were, which caused the stained glass to break, and for rain and snow to come into the synagogue. nazi officials used the benches for fire, but surprisingly left a lot of the torah scrolls in tact. they put cots for soldiers in the sanctuary...and at other points stuffed hordes of jews in there before taking them to auschwitz and other concentration camps in neighboring countries. there is a cemetary on the synagogue grounds, which runs directly counter to jewish tradition, but it is the burial grounds for some 5,000 jewish people who perished in the ghetto (modern day Jewish quarter). The last winter of wwii was the coldest of the war, and when the soviets liberated budapest, jewish survivors and some soviet soldiers buried the bodies there: 1) because there was a raging typhus epidemic, and the sooner the bodies were buried the quicker they could mitigate it, and 2) because roads were destroyed, they were extremely low on fuel, and so it would have been impossible in terms of resources and infrastructure to transport the bodies elsewhere. behind the synagogue there are a few memorials. one is a metallic tree of life, and embedded in the sculpture is another meaning - if you flip it upside down, it is a menorah, and the branches stemming out of the tree, can be perceived as light. at the end of the metallic strands are tags bearing the names of thousands of jews who died in the holocaust - one strand = one jewish name. another memorial commemorates those non-jews who helped save jewish lives. four pillars are marked with their names, and they look inward on to a stone in the ground engraved with Raoul Wallenberg's name, a non-Jew who saved tens of thousands of Jewish lives during the war. next to this memorial is a stained glass piece that depicts flames, commemorating those who were cremated during the war - something else that runs directly counter to jewish tradition, as jews are traditionally buried, not cremated. within the flames, a serpent winds its way to the top right. it represents fascism.

the synagogue interestingly enough, was built in the 1850's, and even then was not an orthodox synagogue, as there are multiple sets of organs in the synagogue, and these were used on yom kippur, and shabbat (musical instruments are not played in orthodox synagogues during these days). franz liszt and others played concerts in the synagogues, and apparently they had christian people playing the organs during the high holidays and shabbat.

something else i found interesting, the whole church-state thing. first of all, the government pays for the electricity, the salaries of the rabbi and cantors, and others who work in the synagogue. this is apparently so that no one has to buy tickets to attend services (as is typically the case in many synagogues). *but* there is no national census taken of religious groups, because here, it is apparently rude, and very politically incorrect (especially given the history) to ask someone their religion, but perfectly alright to ask them how much they make an hour.

then i went to the jewish museum, also on the synagogue compound. really incredibly heart-wrenching exhibit on the uprising of the warsaw ghetto, supplemented by photographs taken by someone who had press access and was able to take 4 rolls of film before the SS made him stop.

after all of that, i darted off to the ludwig museum (the contemporary art museum), 3 bridges south. 2 temporary exhibitions there were so so, but there was a really cool one about a bosnian conceptual artist from the 60's/70's who was interested in authorship and the idea of shifting conceptions of celebrity/passerby in the public space.

....

don't remember what i did after that...think i went somewhere for drinks and food on an outside square...was still reading Free Culture (which i'm done with now, and it's awesome)...

spent the rest of the week ambling about, reading, doing research on digital libraries, and law firms....dorian (my roommate) and i cooked dinner and drank a bottle of cheap white tokaji every night this week (;))) , since the food here sucks to put it mildly...;)

leaving for prague in like 8 hours.
puszi (kiss in hungarian - haha!)
amie

booked some flights, here's the plan.

as soon as my friend feli and i work out the logistics, the plan is i'm meeting him in prague sometime this week...then i'm going to berlin....from there i'm flying to london, from london i'm flying to vienna. then i'm coming back here for a few days, then hopefully i'm off to pula, croatia to go "fishing" at my friend tomislav's house on the shore, and then it's back to the city.

didn't make it to gay pride parade today b/c i was too busy climbing all the hills on buda side...but from what i heard, it was nothing like the one in new york. meaning, some jerks threw eggs at those parading...and i don't mean just a few, i mean a lot. and there were a lot of police about apparently...not just for show, but really there for security reasons. come to think of it, there were quite a many police officers at the gay club we went to a few weeks ago. seems budapest has a far way to go in terms of accepting gay people and gay culture.

other than that, spent time this week doing research...walking around in the heat until i couldn't take it anymore...went to lake balaton for the day on thursday - two and a half hours away...got a lot of sun....met some dutch girls, went to dinner with them, and then rode the train back together. lake balaton is massive, and could easily be a weeklong trip - wine tastings and the like, but i didn't really want to stay....had to figure this trip stuff out, etc.

also, met up with a street artist earlier in the evening...we didn't talk long b/c he barely speaks english and i clearly don't speak hungarian - which is starting to wear on me!!!! no one understands me! this is insane. how does no one speak english here?! i mean, english isn't the enemy anymore?! the wall fell like 20 freakin' years ago!
but anyone, friedrich is on the national fencing team, and he is also a street artist - very talented, i think - and he makes clothing, etc. which sells very well in the shops around here.

finished the kertesz book, reading Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig - brilliant! It's wonderful having time to actually think again!

Well I'm off,
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me suggestions of things to do in those cities!
Also, I got skype: my im name is: amie.sapan, easy enough, no?
beijoux,
amie

acciones en casa...

that was the title of the best video art piece i saw at the video art festival this past weekend...by marc vives, and david buestue....imagine two twentysomething guys doing the oddest ODDEST absolutely oddest things in their apartment....hundreds of things....the video went on for over half an hour, and it was incredible. no dialogue either, just one-line scene numbered scene descriptions. so in "pyrotechnics", one of them gets all of the liquids out of his fridge and cleaning supply cabinet, puts them on a table and performs a pyrotechnics show by squeezing all the bottles ! ketchup, milk, soap, mustard and on and on. in another scene "risk your own life", he puts two bars of soap on the floor, takes off his slippers, and stands on the soap, while pouring water out of a flowering can onto the floor and then trying not to crack his head open while cleaning the floor and "dancing" on top of these soap bars and slip sliding around....and then of course in "cross the living room without stepping on the floor" he jumped from object to object and then used the mop as a pole to get across....if you want to see it,: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNXP1qu5RQA i think that's the longest fragment you can find on the web.

other than that, went to WAMP, the monthly fashion/design/crafts fair on sunday....alright stuff, wicked overpriced. didn't really get anything. hung out at a cafe reading "the journey of man" which anat sent me a while back - about what genetics can tell us about our shared heritage....

yesterday was rainy, so dorian - my roomate - and i went to school, and then i met up with a friend for dinner. started reading "free culture" by lawrence lessig. it's really worth reading if you're interested in any or all of the following: IP law, the "rip, mix, burn" culture us 'young kids' are participating in, copyrights, the Internet, media ownership in the US, 'piracy'....I've spent the past few days researching organizations that engage in archiving, digital libraries....

Today, I met with one of the founders of ARTPOOL (www.artpool.hu), the leading archive on underground Hungarian art during the Communist era and beyond. It was INCREDIBLE. First of all, Julia, one half of the founding couple - her husband being the other half - was wonderful. For almost two hours she took me on a tour of the place and told me stories about art during communism in Hungary, the story of the "Bolgar chapel", which was an art space by Lake Balaton (about an hour outside Budapest), developed by her husband...the idea was to convert it into an artist's colony. But then the authorities caught wind of what was going on there, and after two years of struggling with how exactly they would shut it down: 1. the church was a very delicate matter in those days, 2. there were no laws per se about art exhibitions in non-official, non-public spaces, and since this was a private space.... the state finally shut it down in '73. Then in '79, Julia and her husband founded Artpool, made a newsletter, by utilizing the black market (i.e. bribing the few with access to xerox machines to make some copies) and their contacts with foreign institutions, they told artists about upcoming exhibitions, where they could send submissions, and asked artists to send Artpool their art, music, etc. so that it could be archived. As time passed, the newsletter turned into a samizdat (self-published) zine. Julia laughed as she told me that the political samizdat of the time was so ugly, and so unreadable, that she and her husband just wanted to create something that was designed better, that samizdat didn't have to be ugly....But the magazines weren't just designed better, they were extremely valuable. The zine was published monthly, and each issue would contain articles about the underground art scene in Hungary: happenings, exhibitions, artists, etc. And they contained articles about foreign art trends; for example, she showed me this issue from 84 about Scharf and Keith Haring, and then she said, this was the first issue about graffiti and street art, and it was the first source available to Hungarians to present this culture/movement. The zine also contained removable art books - one called Imaginable Music, contained clever drawings constructed out of a simple musical note.


Now almost 30 years later, the archive is MASSIVE. Artpool has the largest art stamp collection in the world. One of the largest Correspondence Art collections. A massive room in the back contains International material. And everything is organized VERY WELL - so you can pull out a folder about a gallery from a certain year, and then all of their pamphlets, exhibition catalogues, etc. are right there. I spoke with Julia about the digital library movement, and how the archive has been digitizing aspects of its collection. To date, they've transferred their entire VHS collection onto DVD, and their cassette collection on to CDs. But she criticizes the move to digital libraries as an inefficient use of money and resources. For one, she asks, who knows whether any of these digital libraries will hold up in terms of technology in even three years. Secondly, she thinks that many of the people employed to do archival work probably don't know the ins and outs of the collection, so likely spend more time then they need to. She says that Artpool has been invited to join in these projects, but that they have declined. For now, she says it's not urgent. What is urgent? Organizing the material and the database in a way that is most beneficial to researchers.

I also asked her whether they had ever had any legal issues b/c some of the art is posted on parts of their page, and she said that she is anti-copyright laws, that most of the artists are, and that if someone sends something to them, she assumes this means that she can post it, and that if they didn't want it posted, they shouldn't have sent it. But, she also told me about how when they were putting together an anthology/exhibition catalogue to complement their recent exhibit on Fluxus in Central/Eastern Europe, they asked all of the artists for their permission to reprint some of their texts - because printing/publishing is "different." A few of the artists said they didn't want their work published "in that context," which Julia thought was strange considering as how their work had been published in other Fluxus contexts! And one of the artist's wives - the artist is deceased - demanded some sort of payment....

Well that's all....sorry for the longer post...but I think this stuff is very cool.
I'm off...

beijoux,
amie

instead of words, i'm sharing some videos today

This band played at the CEU graduation party we crashed ;) They played a lot of music from the area, and we had a good time. I was really surprised by how Jewish the music sounded...how much the dancing resembled the hora. The guy in the video was really interesting to watch...too bad nothing is a perfect substitute for the real thing....;(



mom ! here's your city ;) maybe you can find your house????




the streets of brasov after romania tied with italy....!

i met easy e tonight...

or at least his hungarian wanna-be....easy e and good old eeshu (istvan, steven)....two breakdancers, who have hung out with wu tang, and know about noriega, and speak like borat, and say it's nice a lot....and before that, weirdo germans, and before that we were all at cafe csiga (snail cafe), where oren, the owner, had cooked a big, FANTASTIK (the most enjoyable meal i've had in a restaurant since slanted door...and comparable to my mother's food, which is saying A LOT), farewell feast for us...and then we watched spain slaughter russia....and the rain that soaked that game, is currently falling upon the streets in front of my window.

tomorrow is the last day of the course. it's been truly incredible. i've never been in a room with so many people from different places. even the american group is variegated - there's the egyptian-american, the taiwanese-american, the serbian-american, the hungarian-israeli american (that's me), and then the good ole fashioned southerner from texas.

i made some important decisions today: namely, what it is that i'll be doing here after the program is over. instead of being a research assistant, i'm going to do my own research: some things i'm interested in: artist's rights, new media, digital libraries...etc. i'm interested in the EU project 2010: Digital Libraries, and also in seeing how the Balkans (not in the EU) are dealing with these kinds of quandries....

So, I'm going to go to Sarajevo, where my friend Aida lives and has contacts...I'll likely also go to Belgrade, and Vienna, Prague, Pecs (south Hungary), Zagreb, and then! to round out the summer: PULA, CROATIA, where our friend Tomislav has a house. See left for a photo of Pula ;)!


Other news: moved into the bigger room. Went to the baths on Sunday, to work on my tan....The baths here are fantastic. This one was Szechenyi, it's in the city park, and it was a completely different experience than Gellert. Pools of water outside....one of them - on the :45 emitted these crazy "massage bubbles" from the floor of the pool in certain spots....It was great. Also, Saturday Night, we went to Night of the Museums, and then ended up on Margaret Island, which is cool, b/c it's in the middle of one of the bridges, and there's all these garden bars there. So we watched Russia beat Netherlands, and went to a shitty gallery-bar event, and then walked alll the way back to the seventh district - it was more a night of walking at one point than one of drinking ;)...and we were meeting some people in the group at a place called Alterego...and only when we showed up and saw the rainbow lights outside, did we realize it was a gay club! Which was fantastic and ultra euro-trashy cheesy....

Other highlights from the week: Went to a Roma community radio station today, met a bunch of academics earlier this week...We've been speaking about rights, freedoms of expression, access to information, alternative media, etc. quite a bit, which has been really great. It's been really refreshing to be back in academia.

Other side notes: I've been reading Imre Kertesz' "Fatelessness" and also "One Minute Stories" by Istvan Orkery....while I'm here, I decided to read Hungarian lit, which is one of the most respected lit scenes in the region.

We've decided the greeting system is weird....Szio (see ya!) is often said at the beginning of conversation, and halo is often said at the end!

Also: SKIPPED (yes, i skipped class!) the session at MTV (Magyar TV, or national hungarian tv), to go shopping with Irena (my Macedonian friend). There is some really cool alternative art/fashion here (some def not however)....

Last: The Studio for Young Artists, arguably, one of the most important arts orgs here....due to lack of funding, and the government's desire for the property - well, their primary art space is being closed tomorrow. So I'm going to the demonstration - or planning to at least - with Marzi, Kate's boyfriend, who works at the Museum for Fine Arts. Tonight he was telling me about the lack of subsidies for the arts....

Okay, I must get to bed now, as I have to wake up in like 4 hours for our last session.

Halo!
amie

posted photos

here are the links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095493&l=e62c1&id=3100738

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095491&l=dbf7b&id=3100738

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095490&l=f02e7&id=3100738

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095388&l=212bd&id=3100738

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095386&l=c2fcf&id=3100738

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095290&l=e7c40&id=3100738

hungarian healthcare (& the week in review)

Last night I got to go to a real Hungarian hospital! I'm feeling fine - I don't want anyone freaking out...but the experience was so david lynch-ian that i just had to write about it.

After a long day of class, and a visit to SEENPM, a consortium of professional journalist organizations in central and southeast europe, a few of us went out for drinks - first at a very cool serbian bar, and then at an even cooler rooftop bar called corvinteto. and guess what?! the hike up the stairs to that bar made getting to my apt look like a joke!

beers later...with the exciting turkey-croatia match on a huge screen before us, and after hours spent talking about free press and media distortia in romania, armenia, and the u.s., i got up off my stool, and as i walked to the toilette, realized that my left leg felt totally weird...then i realized that my left calf was swollen, and then i realized that this was exactly the sensation i felt two aprils ago in st. louis, when i had to go to the hospital b/c everyone was worried i would get an embolism. fuck.

so i walked on it a bit. wasn't even buzzed, so i knew it wasn't some paranoic fantasy...asked the others, and they all confirmed, that yes, my left calf was more swollen....was it painful? no. it just felt like someone was giving me a calf-lift - meaning, that they were pulling my skin taut...and it was weird.

so kate coyer, one of my two wonderful course directors (more on kate later), who i had been chatting with this whole time, turns to the resident budapest-ian at the table, and asks him if he knows where the nearest 24 hour pharmacy is, or if it were to get worse after i got home, where the emergency room was (since i don't have a landline or a cell phone)....and he had no idea. then he made a quick phone call, and came back with news that there was a 24-hour clinic a few blocks away from my flat...and as kate and i were going that way, she came with me.

this is when the adventure started.

so we get to this 24 hour clinic - and we only know that it's that b/c we had the numeric address, and because it was the only faintly lit place on the whole street. so we rang the door and two "emt's" in yellow polos tucked into red chinos came to the door, and looked at me dumbstruck as i said "angolul?" ("english?") and they shook their heads, but motioned for us to come in.

then i played charades, and attempted to explain that i was worried about blood clotting, and that my leg was swollen, but that it had gone down a bit...and then he nodded because he measured, and i was right...but since he had no idea what i meant by blood clot or anything else, kate called her hungarian boyfriend, marzi, who kindly relayed the message....and then the guy said: "passport? insurance?" and i was like - uh, florida ID....insurance on internet - which i explained by pointing to the computer and air-typing...

and then he started filling out a "ticket" which is when we realized that the 24 hour clinic, was really an ambulance depot, although i only saw one ambulance outside and no patients waiting or already inside, and even so it was bizarre at that, b/c the rather heavyset emt had an unlit cigarette in his mouth and i think that if i wasn't there it would have been lit...
and then this guy went to his black box, filled with stetoscopes, and medical gizmos, and he pulled out - A STAMP. i was beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that they were into stamping documents here (train station, etc.), which was confirmed by marzi today over brunch.

then they told us to go to a hospital i can't pronounce, let alone spell...which we found on the map, and since it was close by, and i wasn't feeling pain, but just concerned, and at this point, confused, and totally interested in the things to come....kate too....so we get to the hospital - which sans sign, sans lights, is hard to find...plus all the entrances were locked. even the main one.
but then we saw this one opening - for ambulances i think, and the guardhouse was empty except for a security guard asleep across four chairs, and since i felt too bad and didn't want to wake him up, we just walked onto the compound, and found to the left, a light on....we rang the bell, and an old man came to the door. i handed him the ticket, and he walked into his office - taxi - but then motioned for us to follow him, and he walked us across the eerily empty compound, to a building in which we rang the bell, and waited a few minutes for someone in white exercise-like pants and a white polo (a nurse) to get to the door....i handed her the ticket and she led us to the waiting room, turning the lights on as we went....

so kate and i sat in this BIZARRO waiting room by ourselves for ten minutes, after the woman had said a lot of stuff to us in hungarian and briskly walked away (i think she meant i'll be right back)....and then she returned with the doctor, who thankfully spoke some english. so i explained the problem and then

he said something like: uh huh. and when this happened one ear ago they give you ultrasound? injections? pills?

me: ultrasound, no injection, maybe aspirin. and he said uh huh, we must to begin the therapy right away. the ultrasound no until tuesday.

so kate said: so we'll come back tuesday?

doctor: no. she must stay here over the night. we begin injections. two times a day. testing the blood. one whor (hour).

when we had been waiting for the doctor we had to keep ourselves from laughing, and try not to get caught taking pictures of the place. now, as a cross-eyed older woman in a purple robe with her breasts sagging to godknowswhere emerged from her room to walk to the bathroom, and as kate told me later, an older skinny guy emerged in just small striped underwear, and i was being told that i would need "injections" and to stay for "4 nights" and that there was "therapy" that needed to begin, i was like - uhhhhhhh, what the fuck is going on / /// trying to keep from cracking up. so for the next ten minutes we had to explain that i did not want to stay overnight, and that i just wanted to make sure that i wouldn't die of a spontaneous embolism, and that i just wanted it checked out....and then he said okay, but if it get worse, she come back. and when i asked if i should take ibuprofin - he started laughing and said: you americans think ibuprofin is good for everything! and you take it all of the time!

and then he said he needed to check if i could get aspirin over the counter or needed a prescription...so he went to his colleague's office to check the pharmacology index...and then returned without the answer, so then we went to his office, in the oncology dept, and he wrote me a prescription for something other than aspirin......and by now we had decided i would crash at kate's on buda side, and he directed us to the 24 hour pharmacy there... and he was really very nice, and we left, and then i realized i hadn't paid anything for this consultation, and i guess that's how it works?

so we grabbed a cab, went to the 24hour pharmacy, where you stand outside, buzz the buzzer, and you put your prescription in a turnstile window, then the woman reads it and a few minutes later you leave with drugs in hand! went to kate's....passed out on a carbon copy of my old futon/bed! feeling fine today....we had brunch this morning....and tonight we'll go to the "night of the museums."

earlier this week, we crashed the ceu graduation party....at a place called Godor Club, which is under a shallow pool of water in a city park, and there are tables on the stair landings, and outside (like a pool without water), and then the club is physically under the little pool of water... party began with a local band playing music from this region! which was appropriate b/c i had been hanging out with the "balkans crew" all evening. the bulgarian dance-around-in-a-circle dance, called the huro, looks so much like the hora...and kate and i of course joined in, which was great - b/c two guys did the real traditional dancing in the middle - one of them was even wearing a red bowtie....weird!

when the shitty dj played old justin timberlake, gwen stefani, and gloria estefan, we went outside....

hope you're all well,
beijoux,
amie

back in buda.

made it back safely...with a minor cold and a bit achy from curling up on two seats (no booth car this time) on a freezing cold traincar, in which the bright lights never shut, for 8 hours or so! funny incident on the local bus to get to the train station: i wanted to ask how many stops til the train station or something like this, so i did so in spanish, since that had proved useful over the course of the previous days - and the driver, 50/60 something, said no no no understand, and then from what i gathered in his romanian, he only speaks romanian and russian b/c of the soviet presence during the cold war! and hence that he was always taught that english was bad!

anyway, sunday -- shitty weather, so ursa and i stayed in, made soup, and watched movies on her laptop....four of em.

monday morning started class....33 participants and almost 10 professors for the next two weeks. very diverse group - not like uni pamphlet diversity bullshit - really a diverse group. people are from: uzbekistan, afghanistan, kazakstan, china, india, pakistan, mexico, guatemala, slovenia, croatia, bosnia, turkey, canada, poland, russia, germany, hungary, romania...and then four americans - myself and two phd students from penn's school of communication (one, a taiwanese-american, and the other egyptian-american), and one from american university from texas.

some journalists, one person who manages the million dollar media accts for UN in Central Asia...someone who studies gypsy rep. in film, mostly people that are highly media-involved phd students...had classes on civil society, media, conceptualizations of democracy in post-authoritarian regimes, and the role of media, and intl organizations in combating aids/hiv in africa, etc. etc. etc. I'm presenting my work on graffiti in buenos aires tomorrow as part of the alternative & minority media group...should be interesting...another person is speaking about minority rep. in guatemalan media, another about radical, indpt filmmakers in mexico, and another about internet censorship in china. i think the most interesting aspect of these classes has really been when the lecturers get interrupted by student discussions, since everyone has so much to contribute. The two chinese phd students have presented work at conferences about internet censorship in China, and today they explained to us the ways in which people circumvent the google filters, etc. to post controversial blogs, and other news media by using ancient Chinese, or reconfiguring the layout of script via specialized software (i.e. vertically, rather than horizontally)...Also, there has been much talk thrown about concerning media ownership (i.e. US v. BBC, which is paid for out of taxes).


tonight: france-italy, and romania-netherlands .... very excited.

hope all of you are doing well,
amie

brasov (bra-shov, not "bras off")

we got here mid-day friday, as chronicled by the "romas are just like us: not" post. a quick addendum: what i find fascinating about the roma conundrum is that they are a people still apparently united by a penchant for nomadism, and their own language, which no one else seems to understand. the romanian we met on the train - we'll call him vlad (same as dracula), b/c that was his middle name, and i can't seem to remember his first name - informed us that many believe they came from india centuries ago, and that they continue to be treated as an under-class across central/eastern europe. though they have no real nationality, and live apart from society in the sense that most do not have passports, do not attend school or speak the same language, vlad told us that romania has the largest population of romas in the world - to the point that when they are found in neighboring countries, or found on trains outside of romania, they are swiftly sent back to romania...even if they have never even been there before. vlad also told us that romania, more than the other countries in the region, has made earnest attempts to integrate the roma into society.

back to brasov. so we got here in thursday...went into town to find a new camera for jack, who had sat on his on the train and fucked up the lens. started pouring so we found cover under one of the many outdoor cafes lining the main street. the square is absolutely breathtaking...brasov, particularly the old city, is nestled beneath gorgeous mountains...at the top of one is a hollywood-esque sign: "BRASOV" - it even lights up at night. the old city is dreadfully old - a medieval town dating back to the 1100's...and brasov is romania's second largest city after Bucharest, which we are not going to, for good reason. Everyone we met at the hostel had another nightmarish tale to tell of their time in Bucharest plus the only reason I wanted to go was to see where Ceausescu (the nasty commie dictator) got shot. And when I learned that he was shot in another city, (b/c he escaped the riots in front of the palace after all), that incentive was entirely trashed.

By the plaza is the Black Church (gothic style), which has one of the largest organs in the world - 400 pipes...too bad we never saw it, b/c we got there after it had closed on thursday, and we were late by five minutes today.

We also walked through the narrowest street in europe - 4 feet wide...found some cemetaries, walked through one...most of the plots contained 4/5 bodies, which we thought was an interesting custom. as we walked to the cable car stop, we saw some really really nice houses and expensive european cars....so there is money in romania. Took the cable car up the hillside, and just as we were about to walk to the BRASOV sign, the guy said we had ten minutes cuz they were closing soon...! argh.

friday we went to bran castle and sinaia, where pels castle is. bran is where dracula spent some time ---> major tourist trap. but i'm glad we went because the countryside is absolutely beautiful, huge mountains, quaint houses in all different colors - think cuba more than you would eastern europe - blues, turquoises, oranges, yellows, greens, limes...at sinaia we saw pels castle, which was the summer home of the first romanian king and constructed in the last decades of the 19th century through 1910-ish. we weren't allowed to take photos, but the interior (as well as the exterior) were "sick." gustav klimt even painted a frieze in the elaborate "theatre" room....the library had a secret passageway behind some books...and there were hundreds of different kinds of wood, multiple kinds of marble, and various styles of architecture featured (oriental, germanic, italian....), murano glass chandeliers, crystal mirrors, silk rugs, harps....went to a monastery too, which was beautiful. the catholic church has a strong presence in romania - not shocking - rom-ania, plus romanian sounds sooo much and looks so much like latin, i was really surprised. language has been a bit easier to get around here than in budapest surprisingly enough...i feel like more people speak english, and even those that don't, i can communicate with by speaking spanish.

last night we watched the romania-italy game...town was PACKED - couldn't find a seat in ANY bar, restaurant, cafe, until we fell upon a scottish pub and snagged two b/c a reserved party of drunken romanians said we could...it was wild! can't stand the italian national team, so i was very very pleased that the romanians drew (1-1) with the italians. after the game, honking horns, flapping flags, and shouting/screaming/cheering houligans ran through the town.

and the finale of brasov...MY MOTHER'S HOUSE.
so after carefully analyzing the town's layout and the details contained within my mother's many emails (thanks mom!) i regret to inform everyone that i could NOT find my mother's house. i found her street, but not her house. i was told that she lived directly adjacent to green, and just parallel to the black church, and that there was a cemetary...and a courtyard. no.6. was on the wrong side of the street, and i couldn't get in, b/c it's an abandoned apt building, but i walked into some courtyards on the side of the street that directly abuts the green hill and woods that the white tower and black tower (both white) are on...(pictures to be posted soon). so i took pictures of a bunch of courtyards, and the streets, and walked up to the towers and took pictures of the houses below, so i'll post these, and maybe mom you can tell me which it is? i found the temple my family belonged to, but it was closed ;(. and i never found the jewish cemetary where my great-grandfather is buried. BUT, i do have some sense of the kind of place that my mother spent the early years of her childhood in...which is worth something. brasov is a lot nicer and bigger than i thought it would be. and i didn't see any chickens running around, or strictly walk on dirt roads...;)

tonight i leave for budapest. i plan on sleeping on my bags, and pray that none of my stuff gets jacked.

pax,
amie

romas are just like us: not.

just got to brasov, my mother's hometown. a few brief remarks about the train ride over.
we got to the station at 11 pm last night after having a great hungarian-jewish meal at a place by my house. since it's not glatt kosher, and apparently in the tradition of the assimilated hungarian jewish population of budapest, they slipped some ham into the veal my aussie friend was eating ;)

anyway, we boarded the train...second class (lowest class there). got a "sleeper car" - 6 seats booth style, train started rolling around midnight. the roma (politically correct term for gypsies) family we had spotted on the tracks, we now learned, was seated in the booth right by us. there were 9 of them...some kids, a middle-aged man and some older women. the kids started crying...this would continue for the next hour...then sam came into the booth and told us that the train staff had kicked the roma family out of their booth b/c they had no tickets, and now the older women were walking after these children crying about and hitting them. this went on til 2 am or so, til the train stopped somewhere and forced them off. til then we were being very vigilant of our things b/c it's well known here that roma train thefts are common...

met a funny romanian guy around this time, who told us about his stints working in vienna and budapest, and this one time that he and a friend drunkenly decided to buy plane tickets to amsterdam --- 560 Euro....then they ran out of all there money while there, and hitchhiked back to romania....at one point they were left out on the autobahn (germany)- which was bad b/c it's illegal to hitchhike there, and the autobahn is not pedestrian-friendly...then he got searched for drugs, which were in his shoes by his toes, but they only checked by his heels...

slept pretty well across three seats....woke up in bits, beautiful countryside, quaint little villages...gorgeous mountains. no announcements for stops, but i had a hunch we were coming in to brashov and threw on my shoes about 30 seconds before we got there and had to get our shit together and run out.

going to try to find my mom's house now...through a gate, by a church...and a cemetary.

pictures to be posted when i get back to budapest.

much love,
amie

gellert.

gellert hotel's indoor bath. off to transylvannia in a bit to see where my mom's from! that and dracula ;) hope all is well with everyone. chau!

p.s. today, we didn't make it to the commie sculpture park but we went to the park and saw a real castle...my first. lol. getting the train tickets for tonight was quite the ordeal....so we picnicked in the park...and stumbled upon a hippie-ish bar garden in the process of looking for a toilet.

p.p.s. did anyone hear about the divers who got lost and then stranded on a komodo dragon island ?

ham on rye.

rained all last weekend. so we didn't go to margaret island in the end or the baths. read ham on rye (bukowski) ....the beginnings of his alcoholism....not as many women as women. but boils, fights and a messed up adolescence. hung out in a cool cafe while doing this, then went to their downstairs to see a hungarian jazz band play...then went to kuplung, cool bar in an abandoned auto parts factory, very very commie era meets early 90's grunge....watched the portugal-turkey game....

sunday: rained. ursa and i made good "linner"(lunch + dinner). hung out.....orsi came over...went to the buda side** to see Szex es New York! (sex and the city) b/c it was the only theater that didn't dub it. theater was in a shopping mall. weird: shopping mall is an 18 letter word with countless accents and umlauts. movie features full frontal nudity and explicit sex scenes here - is it the same in the states?

waited for the bus to get back to pest for like 20 minutes. practiced my hungarian by reading ads outloud to orsi. felt like a 5 year old. got on the bus, which took us down the road. walked home across the bridge. budapest is a really really beautiful city by night. for those who don't know it's really two cities: buda and pest, with the danube running straight between them. also, there are like 4/5 bridges connecting the two cities, and they were all (re)built after WWII b/c the Nazis bombed them all while retreating.

monday: went inside st.istvan's basilica - the biggest one in budapest. in one of the chapels in the back they have st. stephen's mummified hand encased in gold enshrined in a glass/gold box. if you put a coin in the machine it lights up! apparently in august on st. stephen's day, they march the hand around the square in front of the church too! also interesting - Construction of the church was disrupted by wars and the death of its two principal architects...the original dome collapsed during a storm. allied bombing also wreaked its havoc on the building.....

walked by the danube headed for parliament when it started drizzling....got to parliament, closed. but very beautiful to gawk at nonetheless. cut through to the train station...then it started pouring....went to the opera house....took a tour....really great. among some interesting tidbits (read on if this bores you to pieces): first we had to put on this funny little blue nylon elastic slippers over our shoes. in the auditorium learned that the orchestra pit houses up to 80 musicians...so they can play wagner. franz josef - hapsburg emperor - despite his dislike for the hungarians, commissioned the creation of the house, but on the condition that it not be bigger than the one in vienna. apparently when he got there opening night he left after the first act b/c it was more beautiful, and he never returned. but his wife did. and since she couldn't sit in the royal box w/o her hubby, she selected another one, directly above stage right, where she couldn't see a thing, but everyone could see her. in the "diva room" a room full of paintings of opera diva's a painting of carmen features her ciggy in hand. smoking was never allowed in the theater, though it is allowed pretty much everywhere else here...but there was a smoking corridor off the intermission bar area - and 'legend' has it that the smoke was so thick that 'secret lovers would go there to exchange words.'

got home.....ursa and vera cooked a feast. then we went to szimpla til late again. met some aussies and a new yorker. met up with them today - went to the baths at the gellert hotel on buda side all day - the oldest baths in the city. and there's a WAVE POOL outside!!!! went to a mongolian bbq in district xxii (middle of nowhere).......

tomorrow we're going to transylvannia, and then bucharest on friday, just in time for the romania-italy match (euro soccer tournament is going on now) but before that hopefully the commie sculpture park.

szio!!! (seeya!)
amie

p.s. more things that get lost in translation!!! asked for a glass of water at a cafe the other day...though i was drinking coffee, she brought me a teacup and a mini teapot of hot water. b/c i knew the word for cold i said it and rubbed my arms like i was cold at the same time....
she then brought me milk.

utca means street.

Arrived a few days ago via London-Heathrow. Wandered around Heathrow a few hours beyond exhausted and absolutely dazed after not sleeping at all on the “red-eye” over. Passed out on the tarmac on the way to Budapest. Came to when we landed. . Took a tram to a metro. Nothing was in English except the Exit sign . Wandered around in circles above ground when I got out of the metro station. Found two Spaniards who finally directed me to my street. Couldn’t even pronounce my street name, still not sure if I can. Didn’t know which apartment it was. No payphones. So I asked a guy in a bodega to use his cell and phoned Ursa (read: Ursha). “17, third floor.” So I hopped in the elevator [yes!!!!] pressed three and found myself on the fifth floor of the building. Walked down two floors til I reached the floor marked 1, despite the fact that it was really the third floor. Found the apartment. Vera greeted me at the door. Ursa was at the kitchen table with Orsi (Orshi) talking political philosophy. Ursa had her oral phd exam on Thursday, so she was flipping out and I told her I could fully relate when she apologized in advance if she acted like a bitch.

Moved into my room. Three times bigger than my old room, with an armoire, some shelves, a nightstand and a nice view of the courtyard. Really high ceilings in the apartment. Moving into Ursa’s room in two weeks – that room is like 5 times bigger than this room (really massive). Vera moved out to her boyfriend’s in the hills. The other roommate is Dorian. He’s from Albania. Ursa is Slovenian. And Vera is Montenegran. We live in the Jewish district, which was the Jewish ghetto during WWII. There are two massive synagogues nearby. Since tonight is the beginning of Shabbat, I saw a few people in ultra-orthodox garb walking about, but I’m told that most Jews don’t live around here. There are many Jewish bookshops in the area. There are also some Koser restaurants (s = sh). It’s a really beautiful district, replete with cobblestones, balconies, etc. Also close to all the bars, “posh” restaurants, etc.

I passed out at like 9 and woke up like 13/14 hours later. I don’t have a watch yet. And without a cell or a clock in this apartment I really have no conception of time anymore, which is great.

Next morning, had morning tea with Vera and Ursa. The torrential downpour stopped by 9/10ish. Walked to Central European University (CEU) - where Vera and Ursa are phd students and where I’ll be taking the summer course – with Vera. CEU is in a beautiful part of town right by St. Istvan’s (Stephen) Basilica. Really nice building. Even has a roof terrace, and a Japanese Garden. Then we met Orsi and Ursa for coffee at Terv – a cute place full of kitschy Communist items and photos.

Discovered that utca means street after asking Vera. Felt pretty sheepish, yet for some reason I’m telling all of you about it. Found my way home after walking down Andrassy Ut (the “Champs Elysee” of Budapest). Marge – we will never escape the ugliness that is Louis Vuitton. There is a massive store here. Right by the Opera House and the Gucci store and the Nike store and the Omega store. Dropped in at an electronics store on my block looking to get a converter for my US plugs. “Nem irtem” (I don’t understand…you…) said the woman and so began my first game of charades. My tiny dictionary also supplied the words “plug”, and “conversion”. Five minutes later I walked out with a converter in hand. Getting toiletries was a blast. Took me ten minutes to figure out which was shampoo, and which was conditioner.

Next day torrential downpours again. They ended by tenish. Walked to the Museum of Applied Arts. Beautiful building. Went to the Great Market Hall – a very old very massive building, with a great glass ceiling. TONS of fruit, vegetable, meat, and baked goods vendors. As much if not more meat than Argentina, which is saying a lot. Tried something called egres (egresh) – sour grape?? – sour, tough, neesh nit (not good). Upstairs, TONS of uber-kitschy souvenirs, tablecloths. Those Russian dolls with more dolls inside of them – instead painted with GW’s face, Osama’s face, and Tony Blair’s face. Downstairs, underground – putrid odors. Pickled goods. Too many to name. Fish. Fish. More pickled goods. I quickly escaped. Back on the ground floor: Lots of paprika. In a can. In a box. In clear plastic vials. In tubes. Beautiful produce. The cherries here are awesome. Again, lots of older people. Generally, I have not seen many little kids. Vera says this is because of the negative mortality rate. Not unusual by Western European standards, but here the rate has been like this since the 70’s (longer than usual). Also, this country has one of the highest rates of depression. Great.

Walked up Vaci Utca . It parallels the Danube. Touristy nonsense. Walked around the Jewish quarter a bit, passed by Budapest’s idea of “Broadway”. Shopping and Fucking. Romeo es Julia. Café Eklektika. Walked through Liberty Square. Really nice massive buildings. At some point saw a word with 4 accents and 3 umlauts. Yup. This is a goofy language. At three ish, met up with Ursa and some of her colleagues at Terv. Ursa just got out of her exam, and each of the phd Philosophy students went straight to Terv after their oral, to drink beer and wait to hear whether they were going home or staying another 2 years. Vera’s in PoliSci – her dept sent home 3 out of 6 students two days before. By fiveish the last person – Gergur (I’m not making these names up) – came out. It was another hour before David, an American professor dropped by to tell them they had passed. Another student – not there – had failed. Then the rest of the professors dropped in and we drank for another few/many hours. Lots of beer. Lots of cigarettes – a 6th and primary food group here. Some pizza was ordered. It came out with Ketchup and I watched as Gergur and Agy adorned their pizzas with Ketchup – EEP.
When I said I was cold, Katy, a professor, instructed me to order plum-flavored palinka – clear, tastes like alcohol, rubbing or otherwise. But I started feeling warmer instantly. Then we headed to Szimpla kert (read: Simpla, b/c Sz is like “s”, but s alone is like “sh”). I think kert means courtyard bar. Here in the spring/summer established bars take over abandoned buildings, and typically leave after a summer. This kert is different and klas, meaning “cool.” Szimpla is hidden, like most of the bars are here. Meaning its on an uber-side street and you would never find it unless someone told you where it was. Didn’t take photos b/c my camera died. For anyone from WashU, it’s like Joe’s bar, only cooler. There’s a movie screen in the back in the garden. 7 different spots to get alcohol. Good music – although at times beyond kitsch – think Motown/reggae/house all at once. Walking through to get to a W.C. looked to my right, saw two people sitting in an oldschool bathtub sawed through. Foosball. Wire and vines dividing the floors (so above the courtyard). Food upstairs. Food downstairs. Graffiti on the stairwell walls. Lots of sitting/standing room. Lots of people. The streets are empty during the day. I couldn’t figure out where all these people came from. Talked to Mike – a philoprof from VT for a while. He’s been here for years and doesn’t speak Hungarian. Though most locals don’t speak English he says he gets around just fine.

Learned some more words, like Kerak (please), pezgo (pejguu), c-veshem (yourwelcome)….Talked to Adam for a while – He’s Hungarian. His name has an accent over each A and sounds not too much like Adam. We spoke for a while which is surprising considering that he doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Hungarian. When we got hungry at 1am he asked the bartender if they had anymore bread with duck or goose fat. They had no more bread, cheese or duck fat. So we had palacintash (somewhere between a crepe and a pancake) with nutella. This is bar food.

Went to bed at 4. Woke up at 2 something. Left the house by 4ish. Walked to some galleries. Closed. Closed. Open. Got to a tiny museum. Didn’t know that it was a museum solely about the work of Miklas Roth – a mosaicist and stained glass artist who lived and worked in the latter half of the 19th century. The museum is in his old family home. I was the only one there. The lights were opened and closed for me alone.
Walked by some second-hand clothing stores. Not good. Boutiques. Not good. My wardrobe is unlikely to expand while here, which is very good news for my closet and my wallet.

Some odd news: saw three black people today. It was the first time I’ve seen anyone who wasn’t Caucasian all week. Buenos Aires was a more diverse city. And that’s saying a lot.

Haven’t really been using any public transport since the day I got here because I prefer walking. Vera says the bus is preferable b/c no one ever checks your ticket. On the way home from a bar/party last night Ursa and I took the bus. No ticket. No problem. We rode the metro earlier in the night, which was funny, b/c Bratislav had a packet of tickets he handed to each of us like candy, which we then inserted into these funny machines that cut a piece out of them as 7 police officers looked on. After we rode the escalator down to the track, which moves like four times faster than any escalator in the states, someone else approached us ordering us to show our tickets.

The bar last night was attached to an alternative arts center. I think one of the phd students rented the courtyard out for us to drink in. Tried this bizarre herbal liquor with tonic, great. Leaving heard a Hungarian speaking to an American about how Sunset Park was his favorite park when he lived in NY because it was fun to get high in. Also liked Washington Square Park. Delivered food to a wrong address once and found people scrubbing a floor on their knees. Said he felt paranoic because 6 mos. prior in Budapest he had been arrested for shaking cars one night while he was drunk.

Grey out today. We might go to Margaret island later in the afternoon.

Sorry if this was a rather dull post. Shorter more exciting ones to come hopefully soon. But I am fully enjoying sleeping and lazing about. I think this is Ursa's doing.

Likely going to Vienna and possibly Prague next week.

vistlat! (later!)
amie

P.S. mom - tried the stuffed peppers here. yours are much better. what's with them sweetening tomato sauce to the point that it tastes like candy here? blech.