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.