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
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