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.