I'm writing this final post with a time limit: I have three hours until I'm driven off to the Munich International Airport by my cousin and my dad, to make the long trip back to San Francisco. My dad is snoring away pleasantly on a mattress on the floor nearby, and I have opted out of sleep since my flight is at 6:30 am. It worries me that in the past few hours, I've already ajusted to y and z being switched on German keyboards.
I've been rather absent from the whole blog thing in the last month or so, and for rather good reasons. But I'll try to do as much catch up as possible. As I learned from the Hungarian novel Embers, you don't know the truth about everything that's happened until the end. But I also learned from Embers that you can't learn anything that you don't already know from a novel. So hopefully this is good enough, even though I haven't spent 41 years preparing it in my head.
Of our last few weeks in Budapest, highlights include but are not limited to: an all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet courtesy of the study abroad office, at a very fancy and delicious restaraunt (read--drunk Marcel); having Bank buy us two rounds and chat about many things, aliens included (he believes); buying shitty weed from a guy from San Diego who took the time to smoke us out and then tell us his really complicated, unpleasant, awkward life story; going to see a performance at Trafo where a little French acrobat seriously made me doubt the existence of gravity; having one of our mentors cook us a dank meal while serving us bottle after bottle of wine, then make us all take shots of pahlinka (disgusting, 70% Hungarian fruit alcohol); running into the cast of Valami Amerikai 2 (Valami Amerikai is one of the most famous Hungarian movies, and our second favorite after Kontroll) at the premiere of the movie, while on our way to a bar that sells pints for 230 forint ($1.00); Scott and George visiting and our trip to Aquaworld, a crazy new indoor waterpark that looks like the set of Legends of the Hidden Temple; my dad arriving and taking us to nice places to eat in return for us taking him to "sketchy" (his word) bars; going to a party at the Rudas bathhouse with included bellydancers and lots of innappropriate underwater activity; throwing a huge tire (that Carolina and I had stolen a couple weeks before) off our 4th floor balcony into the courtyard and not remembering that we had done it until the evidence made the transgression apparent the next morning; and frequenting Christmas markets where we learned that A) mulled wine is delicious and so are weiners but B)unless you want sausage burps all night, you only need half a wein.
My dad and I left Budapest on the 22nd on a charter bus to Vienna, thanks to the Hungarian railworker strike. Pops kind of flipped out and got all dad-angry when we got lost trying to meet his friend on our first evening there, saying he was "sick of this shit" (meaning snags in plans). I told him that's just what you have to expect when you travel and don't have a cell phone or a sense of direction. I don't even want to think about how pissed he would have been if he had been there on any of our misadventures in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or Berlin. But I think by the end of the trip he kind of got the idea that in order to have a good time en route, you kind of can't expect things to work out. Especially in comparison to my aunt, who's favorite expression is "good grief", he was chill.
Vienna was cool because I got to see another Hundertwasser creation, the Kunst Haus Wein (meaning Art House Vienna, as dirty as it sounds in German). On Dec. 24th we took the train to Munich, where my dad's sister, Sharon, lives. She and my cousin Robert (age 38) picked us up and drove us back to her house in the country about 45 minutes away, where my other cousin Susie (33) was cookin' up dinner. We proceeded to have the most Christmassy Christmas Eve I've had in a while. We opened the presents, drank wine, and sang Christmas carols. *sidenote: In Europe, the Christ child brings the gifts, and sometimes even the tree, on Christmas eve. Santa still exists, but he comes on Dec. 6. You leave your boots out and if you've been good, you get candy in them. If not, according to Hungarian legend, he leaves sticks for...your parents to beat you with. Not kidding.* All this left me to wonder what you do on actual Christmas. Well, we drove to an old castle in a picturesque German village, and then went to see Swan Lake performed by Chinese acrobats in the evening. It was pretty awesome.
On the 26th, we rented a car and all drove to Berlin. Berlin is a really sick city. There is street art everywhere. And because it's so plentiful, a lot of it is pretty good, too. I had a field day taking pictures. It gave me something to focus on and distract me from the fact that I was traveling with the fam. I couldn't exactly say this, but I really would have liked to have just been traveling with my dad. But anyway. We stayed at a really cool hostel that Susie booked (I'm pretty sure everyone else was under the impression we were going to stay at a hotel, but I was stoked). I made friends with the bartenders and they were very generous with the free drinks. On one of our five days there (too many, at least when it's fucking freezing out), I went on the "alternative Berlin" tour which I will begrudgingly but highly reccommend. Take the real one, not the corporate copycat by new europe tours. It was really cool, they took us all over the city seeing some of the coolest street art (including the world's biggest Banksy), and cool shops and art communities. Our guide was a cool, sincere dude, and he said we could take their "anti" pub crawl that night if we wanted to. Well, I met some cool girls who were in my tour group, and we thought it would be fun to take this pub crawl thing later, especially if it was led by the same people that took us on our awesome tour that day. I don't really feel like going into specifics, but basically we did it, and this Australian guy who started or runs Alternative Berlin tours took us to some really cool places. But he just pissed me off. He kept talking about how crazy of times they'd had, how much absinth they went through a week, how they didn't overcharge, how they were fighting the big corporations and I was just like, buddy, shut up and stop trying to sell this to me or something. I paid the €8, I'm on the tour, let's not be all talk and no action here. I just felt like he was a walking advertisement for something that would have actually been cool if he had shut the fuck up.
On to Rome...We only had two nights in Rome, the first of which was NEW YEARS EVE!!! It was crazy. The streets were absolutely packed, it was like being at a concert it was that hard to move. There was a circle that people were just throwing firecrackers into, there was a band playing cover songs, and everyone was drinking. When it hit midnight, fireworks started going off and we got to wash off our travel odors in a lovely champagne shower. Everyone was just so happy, it was awesome. AND IT WAS WARM. Rome was balmy and pleasant, even when it rained the next day. A welcome change from Eastern Europe (normally I would call it Central Europe but I'm trying to conjure an image of a freezing icy, gray, unforgiving Soviet landscape). Put my dad in a great mood. Surprisingly, the food we had in Italy was no more than decent. I really am going to go out there and say that there is no better food in such variety than in California and Oregon. The Italian food we had was good, but nothing special. Pretty uncreative. And if you are in the mood for anything besides pasta, pizza, or foccaicia, you're out of luck. But other than that, yeah, Rome was beautiful. It's like every little apartment building is supposed to be on some cute artsy postcard, and you're walking along these cobblestone alleyways between them and then it's like, holy shit, ancient ruins!
On the second, we took the train to Cinque Terre, five small picturesque villages on the northwestern coast of Italy that were reccommended to me by friend and fellow explorer, Julia Le. Seriously, I couldn't have had any better end to the whole trip. We stayed in Vernazza, the fourth village, and it was incredible. The weather was a bit cold, but it was clear, allowing for two sick hikes. The first day, we hiked from Vernazza to the third village, Corniglia, and back. It was pretty rigorous, but I was determined to prove to my dad that my attitude had changed since I was seven years old and bitched and whined and sulked all the way up and down trails. The towns themselves might as well be crooked rocks sticking out of the coast, painted brilliant yellows and reds, and interconnected by lines of laundry. Also the home of pesto. Bomby pesto. Second day hike I took by myself, up into the hills past the town graveyard with the best view ever (I saw the guy whose job it was to replace the flowers in each vase and take care of the stones, and I actually envied him), zig zagging up to some sanctuary. There was this really cool thing I naively thought might actually be a roller coaster outlining the hills, but it was like a mini monorail the size of a lawnmower that a farmer could use to transport heavy shit to his orchard. I climbed around off the path on little hobo-trails into the bushes and crevices, until I saw a little hideout with clothes in it and realized it may actually be a hobo home. Anyway, I would love to go back to Cinque Terre in summer, though I'm sure there are way more tourists, but it was the first part of this "vacation" that's actually been relaxing and peaceful. It ruled.
So here I sit, doing some good old reflecting. But I'll spare all of you, that shit's meant for a diary or something. I can't wait to get back to San Francisco and Oregon. Some people whose faces I haven't seen in far too long. And a whole bunch of moderately attainable aspirations for 2009. I gotta say though, it's going to be really tough to beat 2008, so thank you to all of who helped make last year so much fun(in retrospect, I think that one word was truly my 08 mantra).
BLAH BLAH BLAH
Monday, January 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A Study In Hungarianness
Everyone else in our program was gone on vacation for our semi-Thanksgiving break, but Carolina and I opted to stay in Budapest and get to know the city better before we are whisked back to the US. This means that we've been going to different bars/clubs every night, some of which we get kicked out of, some of which suck, some of which close at midnight and don't let us in, but most of which are way cooler than anything in the US. It's been a lot of fun, meeting some good characters. Something we've noticed, however, is that Hungarians really cannot understand why anyone from anywhere else would want to come study in Hungary. Their response, when we say we are studying abroad from San Francisco is, "But, why?"
Good question, I suppose. It's not like I got out a map, settled down with an encyclopedia on European history, and chose Hungary as the most worthy, while sipping on some brandy. In fact, I mostly chose it because USF made it mega easy for me to sign up for last minute, and because my tuition and credits just transfer over. I really knew nothing about the city or country itself. Which has made our classes here, which would probably bore anyone well-acquainted with the region to (shall I go for the cliche?) death, really fascinating. I'll forego my fear of sounding obvious or ignorant and just say that I never really thought I would be taking basic world history classes that just put a completely different perspective on things. And the country itself has some fucked up history. The more I learn about the transition from Socialism, the current government and economy, and prevailing individualistic attitude of the population, the more depressing it is. People here aren't interested in building a community, they're interested in self-preservation. The American dream whispers to the little man that he can do anything and be as successful as he wants if he works hard enough, and is honest and moral. However little truth may be left in this, it is at least the presented ideal. In Hungary, everyone had everything taken from them by communism. There was no success because everyone was poor and miserable. When the country transitioned to its altered form of capitalism, there was a false hope that the livin' would get easier. However, this was only the case for a few well-positioned people, and everyone else just went about their lives, doing what they've always done for as little as they've always done it. So Hungarians see successful people as those who cheated, lied, or were simply lucky. Laws are things that are to be followed at one's own discretion--people are not going to change just because their government does every four years. "Customer Service" is non-existent, which can be a little jilting at first, but then it's like, yeah, why the fuck should they smile at me and be nice to me? People don't give a shit about your problems, they've got themselves to worry about.
One busy night, Carolina and I got on the tram, only to be backed into a corner because it was so packed. Very unfortunately, but not surprisingly, we were trapped in our crevice by not one, but two couples mackin hardcore on either side of us. This is a common occurrence here in Bootypest. Not only do most girls seem to have nothing better to do than spend hours on their outfits, hair, makeup, and taking mirror-cellpone-camera pics of themselves, but, as would logically follow, they want nothing more than to have a boyfriend. It doesn't really seem to matter who this boy is--as long as they can make out in front of everyone all the time. I hope I don't sound too bitter, these beezies amuse me more than anything. Just making some cultural observations. Even our program director, Andi, who is really cool, was giving me a ride one day (to the police station, lolz), and she was looking for a place to park. There was a space that was most definitely big enough for her tiny compact car, and she passed it saying, " oops, not big enough for a girl!" Well, I suppose I'm used to trying to park between driveways that are smaller than my actual car on hills in the dreaded inner richmond, but I still thought I must of heard her wrong. Then she goes, "Oh, that one is big enough," indicating a spot that would most definitely fit two cars at least. "You know, in Hungary they are thinking of making special parking spots just for girls. Some people think that is sexist, but I think it would be nice." Ooookay Andi, comparing women to the handicapped and implying their inferiority at a simple daily task definitely isn't sexist....
Well anyway, can't wait to get back to you people and do a lot of good Hungarian accent impressions. It seems like everybody has a different accent here. It's funny. Speaking of "funny", this is the word Hungarians use for "fun". That's because they don't have a word for fun. How fucked is that? So, last week Carolina and Kelsey ran into Marcel. They were like yo, Marcel, what's up man? and he was like "Oh, I am sorry. I have TWO candies in my mouth right now!" ( I love Marcel). Later that day, he showed up to our class, and asked if we all wanted some of his candy. He proceeded to pass around a pack of original flavor Halls cough drops. God I love Marcel. So you can understand the magnitude of his "child trapped in a giant man's body" syndrome, here is a picture of him:
So, Hungary is different. It's not warm and welcoming and it doesn't give a damn whether you're there or not. But it's got soul. We found about eight really really legit bars, met some hilarious and cool people, and I know I'm going to be missing them, the 24 hour liquor stores (Hungarians are second only to the Irish in alcohol consumption), the every-two-minute trams, and the cheesey bread. Oh god. The cheesey bread will be in my dreams forever.
Good question, I suppose. It's not like I got out a map, settled down with an encyclopedia on European history, and chose Hungary as the most worthy, while sipping on some brandy. In fact, I mostly chose it because USF made it mega easy for me to sign up for last minute, and because my tuition and credits just transfer over. I really knew nothing about the city or country itself. Which has made our classes here, which would probably bore anyone well-acquainted with the region to (shall I go for the cliche?) death, really fascinating. I'll forego my fear of sounding obvious or ignorant and just say that I never really thought I would be taking basic world history classes that just put a completely different perspective on things. And the country itself has some fucked up history. The more I learn about the transition from Socialism, the current government and economy, and prevailing individualistic attitude of the population, the more depressing it is. People here aren't interested in building a community, they're interested in self-preservation. The American dream whispers to the little man that he can do anything and be as successful as he wants if he works hard enough, and is honest and moral. However little truth may be left in this, it is at least the presented ideal. In Hungary, everyone had everything taken from them by communism. There was no success because everyone was poor and miserable. When the country transitioned to its altered form of capitalism, there was a false hope that the livin' would get easier. However, this was only the case for a few well-positioned people, and everyone else just went about their lives, doing what they've always done for as little as they've always done it. So Hungarians see successful people as those who cheated, lied, or were simply lucky. Laws are things that are to be followed at one's own discretion--people are not going to change just because their government does every four years. "Customer Service" is non-existent, which can be a little jilting at first, but then it's like, yeah, why the fuck should they smile at me and be nice to me? People don't give a shit about your problems, they've got themselves to worry about.
One busy night, Carolina and I got on the tram, only to be backed into a corner because it was so packed. Very unfortunately, but not surprisingly, we were trapped in our crevice by not one, but two couples mackin hardcore on either side of us. This is a common occurrence here in Bootypest. Not only do most girls seem to have nothing better to do than spend hours on their outfits, hair, makeup, and taking mirror-cellpone-camera pics of themselves, but, as would logically follow, they want nothing more than to have a boyfriend. It doesn't really seem to matter who this boy is--as long as they can make out in front of everyone all the time. I hope I don't sound too bitter, these beezies amuse me more than anything. Just making some cultural observations. Even our program director, Andi, who is really cool, was giving me a ride one day (to the police station, lolz), and she was looking for a place to park. There was a space that was most definitely big enough for her tiny compact car, and she passed it saying, " oops, not big enough for a girl!" Well, I suppose I'm used to trying to park between driveways that are smaller than my actual car on hills in the dreaded inner richmond, but I still thought I must of heard her wrong. Then she goes, "Oh, that one is big enough," indicating a spot that would most definitely fit two cars at least. "You know, in Hungary they are thinking of making special parking spots just for girls. Some people think that is sexist, but I think it would be nice." Ooookay Andi, comparing women to the handicapped and implying their inferiority at a simple daily task definitely isn't sexist....
Well anyway, can't wait to get back to you people and do a lot of good Hungarian accent impressions. It seems like everybody has a different accent here. It's funny. Speaking of "funny", this is the word Hungarians use for "fun". That's because they don't have a word for fun. How fucked is that? So, last week Carolina and Kelsey ran into Marcel. They were like yo, Marcel, what's up man? and he was like "Oh, I am sorry. I have TWO candies in my mouth right now!" ( I love Marcel). Later that day, he showed up to our class, and asked if we all wanted some of his candy. He proceeded to pass around a pack of original flavor Halls cough drops. God I love Marcel. So you can understand the magnitude of his "child trapped in a giant man's body" syndrome, here is a picture of him:
So, Hungary is different. It's not warm and welcoming and it doesn't give a damn whether you're there or not. But it's got soul. We found about eight really really legit bars, met some hilarious and cool people, and I know I'm going to be missing them, the 24 hour liquor stores (Hungarians are second only to the Irish in alcohol consumption), the every-two-minute trams, and the cheesey bread. Oh god. The cheesey bread will be in my dreams forever.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
tragic consequences
yo!!! Something really shitty happened!!! On Saturday night, we went to this awesome club/bar, the DJ was spinning the jams, we were happy, we were dancing. We got back home at about 4:30am, and Baber left to go catch a flight home. Carolina and I stayed up for another hour, made some roasted veggies, danced on sofas and chairs, and sang loudly. Around 5:30 or 5:45 am, we passed out. Now, Baber always goes to bed last, and is the one who always chains the door. So, unfortunately, since we were drunk and out of the habit, we forgot to chain the door. At 10am I woke up, and walked out of my bedroom to see a strange pile of my belongings in front of the front door. It included: two sweaters, my gloves, my sunglasses, my hungarian dictionary, and a dance program pamphlet, and my coin purse. I knew that these had certainly been in my messenger bag the night before, so obviously I was confused as to why they were now in a neat pile in front of the door. My only thought was that Carolina had woken up and for some reason needed to use my bag, so she'd taken everything out and left. I walked over to her room to see that she was soundly sleeping in bed. Then I turned and looked at the place on the table in the living room where my laptop should have been. And obviously, it was gone. I yelled words I never thought I would yell: "We were robbed!".
Well, things turned out much better than they could have. Or would have, had this happened in the US, probably. My laptop, bag, student ID card, metro pass, keys and about $7 worth of forint were the only things taken. LUCKILY I had taken my atm/credit card and put it in my pocket that night, even though it's usually in my bag. Same story with my ipod. Carolina had taken her laptop into her room with her. Whoever came into our house didn't come into our rooms at all, since they probably didn't want to wake us us. We think it was someone who lives in our building since they were probably watching us and noticing our habits, and could see that Baber left with a suitcase, and could see when we went to bed, and probably didn't want to wake us up and have us see who they were. We called our landlord and he called a locksmith to change our locks, since they got my keys. However, since it was Sunday, they couldn't do anything until Monday morning, which led to the most terrifying night of my life. We chained the door, set up a booby trap of three stools and a chair in front of it, and knew they probably wouldn't even be returning at all, but still, every single noise I heard would jolt me out of any sleep I was sliding towards, and send my heart racing incredibly fast.
Now I get to go to the police station!! Luckily, my comp was insured for $600 so that's really good. The worst part of it all is really just the idea of some anonymous person coming into our house while we slept. Moral of the story, lock your doors and sleep with your valuables.
Well, things turned out much better than they could have. Or would have, had this happened in the US, probably. My laptop, bag, student ID card, metro pass, keys and about $7 worth of forint were the only things taken. LUCKILY I had taken my atm/credit card and put it in my pocket that night, even though it's usually in my bag. Same story with my ipod. Carolina had taken her laptop into her room with her. Whoever came into our house didn't come into our rooms at all, since they probably didn't want to wake us us. We think it was someone who lives in our building since they were probably watching us and noticing our habits, and could see that Baber left with a suitcase, and could see when we went to bed, and probably didn't want to wake us up and have us see who they were. We called our landlord and he called a locksmith to change our locks, since they got my keys. However, since it was Sunday, they couldn't do anything until Monday morning, which led to the most terrifying night of my life. We chained the door, set up a booby trap of three stools and a chair in front of it, and knew they probably wouldn't even be returning at all, but still, every single noise I heard would jolt me out of any sleep I was sliding towards, and send my heart racing incredibly fast.
Now I get to go to the police station!! Luckily, my comp was insured for $600 so that's really good. The worst part of it all is really just the idea of some anonymous person coming into our house while we slept. Moral of the story, lock your doors and sleep with your valuables.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A Day of Not Understanding
Well, I wish I had written the last post in a more stable mental state, but so it goes. Essentially, we went to a futbol game for a team (Ferenc Varos, in case you didn't get that), that is rather controversial. Bank happens to be the VP in his free time (which I don't imagine he has much of considering he teaches 6 days a week--yes, Saturdays--in different cities, is a political scientist, and Sundays are, surely, entirely devoted to the games), which, as we found out more about the team, seems to fit right in with his personality. We called him when we got to the stadium, because we couldn't find him at the corner (embarrassingly enough for us, when we found him at a different corner he said "sorry for the confusion. but really, is that a corner?" pointing to the "corner" we had been at. It was not, in fact, a corner.), then, when we told him we wanted to sit "as close as possible for as cheap as possible" he did the classic "obviously" Bank head nod and led us past security, for the small fee of free ninety-nine.
I guess you have to understand, to fully comprehend why we were so excited to spend a day with Bank, why our whole class is so obsessed with Bank. And I don't really know how to explain it. It certainly has a lot to do with his name, and the fact that we can insert it easily and humorously into conversation. It also has to do with his weird voice/accent. I guess I would call it a combination of a crow and a beaver? Like, it's very deep for his small body, but it's oddly nasaly too. Like, he pronounces "to" as "tyew". I suppose it is exactly the voice you would expect to come from a Hungarian who looks like this:
actually, he looks too gentle in that one. Try this:
(thank you google.hu image search)
Also, it has to do with the fact that we all know that he is way smarter than us. This is made particularly apparent when he will mention a historical event (e.g. the Prague Spring) in class that we should all know. When we all sit there silently, he will respond with either: "seriously?" "really?" or "oh my god". At this point, we all just laugh. Basically, the idea of "Bank" is fascinating to us all.
Anyway, we found out that our team (green and white, mascot: the green falcon[or actually some hungarian bird with a funny name]) used to be first division, but because of financial reasons, they are now second division. This means they win all the time, which is a plus. With Bank's guidance, we learned that the "hooligans" sit on the sides of the stadium. We laughed when he said this, imagining a bunch of fun drunk fans, but Bank said, "No, seriously, they are really hooligans." After the game, which included a halftime full of cheesey pretzels and hot wine, and Kelsey receiving "the best text message of her life" which said "had to go outside be back in 10" just when we thought Bank had ditched us for good, the three of us bought green and white Ference Varos scarves. Today, to please our prof, we wore them to class. However, our Lit professor who we had beforehand, informed us that we should be careful wearing the scarves around because the team represents extreme right values, and has a reputation for getting in fights. They later told us about riots caused by the "football hooligans" who burned buildings. Okay, so I guess they really are hooligans.
Our Contemporary Issues class was pretty cool because the ex-president of Hungary came to speak! He was president from '89 to '90, during the transition from communism to democracy. Apparently he is a very respected figure, but was kicked out of his party (socialist) a few years ago because he voted for FIDESz (a right wing party)'s budget plan. Yeah, shit's fucked up over here. He "only" speaks Russian, French, and German fluently, so one of our professors, Marcel, translated.
Let me take a minute to talk about Marcel, for he is a wonderful, wonderful human being who we have developed an almost Bank-like adoration for. He is very tall, about 6' 5", but he looks and acts like an 8 year old trapped in a very big man's body. He is always beaming from his childish face, and despite his sometimes broken English, has fully mastered the phrases "okey dokey artichokey," and "see you later, alligator". He led us on a tour of Krakow while we were there this past weekend, and though he was the only real adult among a bunch of international students, had to be constantly reminded to wait for people, and that we were hungry, or needed tickets to the museum, etc. He also made a hilariously horrible joke that he was still apologizing for today-- at a church he said "Yes, and every country has a different saint. Do you guys know what yours is? (everyone looks blank) Yes, in the U.S. it is St. Bush." Basically, Marcel makes bad jokes that we laugh very hard at because of the way he says them, and the giant smile on his face as he does.
But, the ex-Pres, who helped draft the new democratic constitution after 50 years of a socialist dictatorship, and delivered it to the people from the windows of Parliament, was really cool. One of my favorite quotes, after he told a story of getting wasted with Kadar and Brezhnev at a hockey game, was "God save the human race from the leaders who want to push buttons". Amen.
Then we went to the Hungarian National Theater and saw a three hour play in Hungarian. The sets were great!!! That's about all I can say about that.
Just for funsies, this is Bank circa 1998
Hopefully that can bring you only a fraction of the joy I feel everytime I look at it.
I guess you have to understand, to fully comprehend why we were so excited to spend a day with Bank, why our whole class is so obsessed with Bank. And I don't really know how to explain it. It certainly has a lot to do with his name, and the fact that we can insert it easily and humorously into conversation. It also has to do with his weird voice/accent. I guess I would call it a combination of a crow and a beaver? Like, it's very deep for his small body, but it's oddly nasaly too. Like, he pronounces "to" as "tyew". I suppose it is exactly the voice you would expect to come from a Hungarian who looks like this:
actually, he looks too gentle in that one. Try this:
(thank you google.hu image search)Also, it has to do with the fact that we all know that he is way smarter than us. This is made particularly apparent when he will mention a historical event (e.g. the Prague Spring) in class that we should all know. When we all sit there silently, he will respond with either: "seriously?" "really?" or "oh my god". At this point, we all just laugh. Basically, the idea of "Bank" is fascinating to us all.
Anyway, we found out that our team (green and white, mascot: the green falcon[or actually some hungarian bird with a funny name]) used to be first division, but because of financial reasons, they are now second division. This means they win all the time, which is a plus. With Bank's guidance, we learned that the "hooligans" sit on the sides of the stadium. We laughed when he said this, imagining a bunch of fun drunk fans, but Bank said, "No, seriously, they are really hooligans." After the game, which included a halftime full of cheesey pretzels and hot wine, and Kelsey receiving "the best text message of her life" which said "had to go outside be back in 10" just when we thought Bank had ditched us for good, the three of us bought green and white Ference Varos scarves. Today, to please our prof, we wore them to class. However, our Lit professor who we had beforehand, informed us that we should be careful wearing the scarves around because the team represents extreme right values, and has a reputation for getting in fights. They later told us about riots caused by the "football hooligans" who burned buildings. Okay, so I guess they really are hooligans.
Our Contemporary Issues class was pretty cool because the ex-president of Hungary came to speak! He was president from '89 to '90, during the transition from communism to democracy. Apparently he is a very respected figure, but was kicked out of his party (socialist) a few years ago because he voted for FIDESz (a right wing party)'s budget plan. Yeah, shit's fucked up over here. He "only" speaks Russian, French, and German fluently, so one of our professors, Marcel, translated.
Let me take a minute to talk about Marcel, for he is a wonderful, wonderful human being who we have developed an almost Bank-like adoration for. He is very tall, about 6' 5", but he looks and acts like an 8 year old trapped in a very big man's body. He is always beaming from his childish face, and despite his sometimes broken English, has fully mastered the phrases "okey dokey artichokey," and "see you later, alligator". He led us on a tour of Krakow while we were there this past weekend, and though he was the only real adult among a bunch of international students, had to be constantly reminded to wait for people, and that we were hungry, or needed tickets to the museum, etc. He also made a hilariously horrible joke that he was still apologizing for today-- at a church he said "Yes, and every country has a different saint. Do you guys know what yours is? (everyone looks blank) Yes, in the U.S. it is St. Bush." Basically, Marcel makes bad jokes that we laugh very hard at because of the way he says them, and the giant smile on his face as he does.
But, the ex-Pres, who helped draft the new democratic constitution after 50 years of a socialist dictatorship, and delivered it to the people from the windows of Parliament, was really cool. One of my favorite quotes, after he told a story of getting wasted with Kadar and Brezhnev at a hockey game, was "God save the human race from the leaders who want to push buttons". Amen.
Then we went to the Hungarian National Theater and saw a three hour play in Hungarian. The sets were great!!! That's about all I can say about that.
Just for funsies, this is Bank circa 1998
Hopefully that can bring you only a fraction of the joy I feel everytime I look at it.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
gooooooo ferencvaros!!!!!!!!
Today was the best day ever. woke up, played power hour, then went to the stadium for the soccer game. Bank (do not forget, this is pronounced "bonk"), our european integration and the EU professor, is the vice president of the fan club. this makes him a huge celebrity. we met him (me, kelsey, and carolina), and he got us in for free, got us free beer, and they opened about 7 gates so we could get where we were going. it was awesome. then we just stood there and got drunker with Bank. Our team won!!!! They're called Ferenc Varos I guess. Ferenc means prince, and I don't know what varos means, but after the game we bought team scarves, then people kept trying to talk to us about it,, unforuntaely we stil don't speak Hungarian. Sorry, I am still drunk. Bank is my hero.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Big Trip
Well, I've been putting off writing this entry on our grand tour of Europe for a while, so now that I have some homework due tomorrow, I think the time is right. First off: London!
We arrived in London and delighted in our ability to order food in English without feeling like total dicks. While passing through King's Cross Station, I got to take a picture with the sign and cart for Platform 9 and 3/4. It was a big deal for the secret Harry Potter lover inside me. Carolina and I checked into our Hostel, and immediately went to look for a big red double decker tourist bus to ride. We found one quickly and spent a retarded amount of pounds on a ticket. I'm not even going to tell you how much it cost, but it was really fun, and we saw pretty much every big deal building in London. This includes: Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Globe theater, the London Eye, and a whiole bunch of other shit. Then we napped for a while. I recently was able to contact my best friend growing up, Amber Strellis. I've known her since we were wee babies, but her aversion to any kind of technology has left me unable to keep in touch with her for the past few years. I hadn't seen her since winter of 2006. Turns out, she's studying in London right now. So Carolina and I navigated the Tube and met up with her at a pub/restaurant called Shakespeare's Head, where we drank Strongbow's (cider is the best thing ever, both more delicious and higher alcohol content than beer), and ate fish and chips. It was awesome to see her, she's the funniest person ever, but unfortunately she was leaving for a trip to Rome the next day, so it was a brief, hour long reunion. But she told us to head off in the direction of an area called "Shorditch" (not "Shortage", as we thought everyone had been saying), which was supposedly where all the young people go out.
We finally found it, after asking a million people for directions, and following those directions until we ran into someone else to ask. Apparently, it's considered common courtesy to give people directions if they ask you, and rude not to, so people will tell you something even if they have no idea where your destination is. This resulted in us having to ask almost everyone we saw, which we also probably did because we were so happy to be in an English speaking country. We finally got there, and discovered is surely is where the young people go out--hipster centraaaaal. We met up with Baber and Kelsey and her sister, who lives in London, and we started to look for a bar or club. One of the first ones we passed was blasting MGMT, so that was our obvious choice. We pushed through the THICK crowd of hipsters to the dance floor, where no one was really dancing. Between shots of Beam and a few trips to the "off-license" (read: liquor store) to chug Strongbow (chanting "it's apple juice, it's apple juice"), we got a pretty legit dance party going on the dance floor. There wasn't an actual DJ at the DJ station, presumably he had gone to get drunk and left a mix CD to do his work. We had no problem with this, as it played more MGMT, Arcade Fire, Bro-Hymn by Pennywise (I'm not kidding), What's My Age Again (we were probably the only ones excited about this), London Calling, and some other good stuff. We somehow managed to get a bus back to our hostel, but it was a 45 minute ride with some Indian dudes from San Jose who were way more interested in us than we were in them.
The next day we walked around, took a boat cruise tour that came with our bus tour, and then went to sit in the park near Buckingham Palace. We thought it looked lovely and scenic, and there were tons of nice folding chairs in the sun, which we found out cost 2 pounds to sit in. Carolina found a tupperware full of rice that someone had left behind and scattered it into the grass. Twenty thousand pigeons started feasting on it, and Carolina was delighted until we all realized that rice expands in pigeon's stomachs and kills them. Hilarity ensued. Luckily we did not see any pigeon genocide, but a few of them had to lie down. We met up with our friend Claire, and then Lexi came into the city to meet us, and we all went to see Avenue Q. It was great, just some good old puppet sex and musical singing. We walked around forever trying to find someplace near there to get a drink until we realized it was futile. Carolina, Claire and I went back to the Shakespeare's head for the best deal on food/beer we'd seen in that insanely expensive city. Claire went home, and Carolina and I headed back to Shorditch to try and find some fun for the evening. After drinking some cheap vodka on a bench and hipster-watching, then chugging more Strongbow, we realized that all the clubs have huge lines or cover charges on Friday nights. We decided to play the pretentious game, where you go up to the most pretentious looking person you can find, and ask them where the least pretentious club around is. In this way, we ended up talking to four really cool guys. We chatted and goofed around with them for about forty-five minutes (actually I have no idea. I was pretty drunk), and a few people had come up and talked to the guys, but we thought nothing of it. Then some girl came up and was like, "Oh my god, Dave, I love you! You were my first crush!" or something, and then to Carolina she was like, "Oh my god, you guys are so lucky to be talking to them. Do you even know who they are?" and Carolina was like uhhhh no and the girl told her they were a famous band who had been at the top of the charts a couple weeks before. But we still have no idea what band they were. So if you've heard of a British band with a bassist named Carl and a drummer or guitarist named Dave, please let me know. Then they left, and we caught the bus back to our hostel.
The next day, before leaving for Dublin, we went to Portabello Road, where there were a bunch of touristy souvenir tables and a mean old racist bitch who's table Caro stole five brooches from. That was lovely. Then we went to Dublin! I for, some strange reason, booked myself a flight that was on the same airline, at almost the exact same time, but from a different airport than everyone else. Though my compadres had doubts that I would make my flight when left to my own devices, I managed it no problem, and met them at the Dublin airport. We shuttled into town and met up with Lara!! It was so nice to see her. We went back to her International student dorm in Blackrock, and bought ourselves some cider, then met all her friends and took the bus into town to a pub, and then what I like to call a "plub", a pub with a dancefloor playing shitty US top 40 hits. I even got to dance to "I Kissed A Girl and I Liked It" so needless to say it was a good night. We then experienced the bane of Lara's existence--trying to catch a cab back home. It took us over an hour, seriously. I don't know how she does it all the time. The next day we walked around, went to the museum of art (museums are FREE there... wow), walked through the park, and got some dank Irish food. Basically the conclusion we came to, which Lara backed up, was that Dublin is just some city that's not really that special, and that it's only cool once you get out into the country, where it's beautiful. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time there to do that. C'est la vie. I was just glad that I got to see and hang out with Lara. We woke up early to head to AMSTERDAM the next day.
Well I gotta say, Amsterdam is pretty awesome. And seriously, not just because of the weed thing. It is an incredibly beautiful city built mainly on canals, with really picturesque tall houses lining them. And EVERYONE bikes. Seriously, everyone. It was so cool, because you just see everyone going about their normal day the way people in America do in cars, but they're on bikes. Old people, businessmen, people doing their errands. Everyone just does them on their bikes. All the streets are lined with bike racks and there are at least a hundred bikes on each block. Plus, they're all perfect looking. It's like they don't have jobs, they're just hired for their natural beauty and paid to cruise around the city like they just rode right out of a J. Crew catalogue. And, you can smoke weed. So, a freakishly perfect society. We had a good time. The first day, we went to a coffeeshop and smoked huge joints to our faces. Then it got a little creepy because there were these trippy mushroomy paintings on the walls and all these mirrors reflecting them everywhere, eeeeugh. So we left to go find a canal. This led to the first of a many, many part series called "We Are Lost". We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out where we were on the map, and how to get where we wanted to go, which was complicated because we didn't really know where we wanted to go. The evening ended with us finally finding a movie theater and selecting from the large selection of bro-flicks. We chose "Wanted" but left the theater because it sucked, and going to see "The Bank Job", which was probably a worse choice. Don't go see it.
The next day we rented bikes. This was a pretty good decision, but I have to admit I rode in constant fear that I was breaking the bike laws of the road that all the inhabitants knew so well. We biked through the beautiful Vondelpark, found a coffeeshop called Kashmir that was pretty cool, we tried to go to the Planetarium but it was expensive and you had to buy a zoo ticket too, and so we went to the Hash and Hemp Museum which was the biggest piece of shit waste of money ever. Seriously, talk about some uncreative stoners. Then we went to a windmill/brewery and got a beer. All this took the entire day since we continued the many installations of "We Are Lost". I am pretty sure I spent more time looking at a map bewilderedly in Amsterdam than doing just about anything else. We got back to the hostel and met some nerdy Canadian guy who wanted to go look around the Red Light District. We walked around with him and saw the hookers in their windows. It was pretty cool. The Canadian guy was waaay to into it, but really weirded out when a prostitute waved and beckoned him. He said he could never sleep with a prostitute because it would be too hard "emotionally". We ate some bomb falafel/kebab and then went to sleep.
The next day Baber went back to Hungary for the anniversary of the 1956 revolution, and we headed to Paris! We got there at night, ate dinner, walked around, drank wine, and ended up drinking wine while walking down the Seine River. We ended up at the Eiffel Tower, which was beautiful. I was too drunk at this point, and feeling sick, so we caught a cab back to our hotel. That is probably the only time I will sleep on a real mattress between arriving here in August, and going home in January. Because our Ikea mattresses at our apartment are basically hostel beds. The next day we walked through Luxembourg Gardens, went to the Luxembourg museum, which was basically like MOMA if it were four rooms big and had shittier, less well known of the artist's pieces. Then we met up with Kelsey and this guy Adrien who is from Paris, but we met him in Budapest. And his little shuffley leprechaun friend Gregory. He was oh so precious in a gingery, butt-chinned way. We went to the Sacre Coeur Church, which has an amazing view of Paris, where we witnessed a beezy who apparently had come alone, and was taking pouty-face, lip bite myspace style pictures of herself in front of the view. It was highly amusing. Then we tried to find a vintage store where Adrien told us we could "maybe find the hot fashions" and that he hoped we would find "quality products", but we were unsuccessful in our hunt. So we met up with our friend Claire, went out to a nice dinner for Carolina's birthday, and then did all we could do--bought a bottle of whiskey and drank it on the sidewalk. Then we tried to find a fun club, but just ended up at a shitty one somewhere we didn't know where we were. Then we followed some boys back to their place because they said the magic word "marijuana" but they turned out to be pretty cool and we danced to Justice. We left to find that we were very, very far from our hotel, and in the Red Light District. We made it back circa 5:30 am, and since our flight was at 9 am, and we had to be there at 7, we went to sleep for half an hour. Then we flew to Copenhagen.
Copenhagen is awesome. It's a lot like Amsterdam, except less touristy, and it seems like it has a really legit artsy, underground, bohemian deal going on. Also lots of pretty houses and people riding bicycles. It is where all the real blondes come from. On our one real day there, we rented bicycles from this really cool place. It's a charity that takes donated bicycles, repairs them, and then sends them to Africa to be used as ambulances, etc. It just started in May, and they've already donated 1200 bikes! Plus, he was so friendly. When we came in, he asked if we wanted coffee, made it for us, and we chatted for like, and hour. Then he gave us a map and drew a path with different cool things to do on it. So we had a lovely ride through Copenhagen. We saw Hans Christian Anderson's grave (he wrote Ugly Duckling, Emperor's New Clothes, Thumbelina, Little Mermaid, etc), lots of cool street art, cool shops, a little skate park, a graveyard, a beautiful park with a free elephant zoo, and finally arrived in Christiania. Christiania is a Freetown, started in old military ramparts by a bunch of hippies in the 70s, and there are no laws there. I guess. I dunno. But it was so cool! There's art everywhere on every building, all the buildings are really unique and homemade looking, there are stray dogs wandering around everywhere (really clean, cute ones too), fires in trashcans, homemade playgrounds, and stands selling, among other things, weed and hash. We bought some, went to a bar, rolled joints and drank whiskey. It was awesome. But when it got dark, the crazies started coming out. Or rather, they congregated at one bar we made the mistake of entering, where they stumble around drunkenly to songs about being wild American men and leer at stoned girls who didn't know what they were getting into. We left, tried to find an electronic club but were too drunk at this point, and ended up participating in the final chapter of "We Are Really Lost", before we finally found the club. We paid 80 Kroner to get in, then left immediately because it sucked and no one was dancing. Then we sat outside our hostel room wasted, trying to figure out the time change, and trying to set Carolina's watch alarm clock for our 7am flight back home to Budapest.
Needless to say, we woke up in a hostel room of 14 beds at the very moment our flight was taking off. We hustled off to the airport anyways, where we discovered that our airline's next flight to Budapest was three days later, and the other airline's flights were really expensive. So we did some quick thinking and ended up renting a car from Avis to drive to Berlin (so we wouldn't get charged a one-way fee, since the car was from Berlin), with the plan of taking the train back from Berlin. Carolina, being 21 and feeling much healthier than me at that point, rented the car and got in the driver's seat, only to realize that it was a manual, which she couldn't drive. So we switched seats, and I got to drive a VW Golf all the way to Berlin! We went the wrong way at first and ended up in Sweden, then drove back through the Danish countryside (which was beautiful), then took a ferry to Germany. Three countries in one day! It was dark as we got into Berlin, so we found an internet cafe, then tried to get to the train station to catch a late train home. Unfortunately, Berlin is nearly impossible to navigate, as all the streets change names all the time, and the smaller ones weren't even on our map. We finally made it, right after the ticket office had closed. We now had the task of finding the Avis, then sleeping in our car all night before returning it. Sleeping in a car seems like it would be warm, but it isn't at all. At 5am the next morning, we woke up, returned the car to the rental agency we had slept in front of, and caught a cab back to the train station (which is the most futuristic train station ever), where we finally got on a train bound for home at 6 am. We slept for 10 of the 12 hours of the ride. And we were finally home.
And now Obama is president!! (Or actually, he will be after Bush has a few more months to further decrease environmental protection, make getting an abortion more difficult, and make it easier for the government to spy on it's citizens!) Wahoo!! Obama-rama-ding-dong! Everyone in Europe is very happy about this, and I am finally not ashamed to admit my nationality. This is great. Let's get drunk and then go to Krakow tomorrow.
We arrived in London and delighted in our ability to order food in English without feeling like total dicks. While passing through King's Cross Station, I got to take a picture with the sign and cart for Platform 9 and 3/4. It was a big deal for the secret Harry Potter lover inside me. Carolina and I checked into our Hostel, and immediately went to look for a big red double decker tourist bus to ride. We found one quickly and spent a retarded amount of pounds on a ticket. I'm not even going to tell you how much it cost, but it was really fun, and we saw pretty much every big deal building in London. This includes: Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Globe theater, the London Eye, and a whiole bunch of other shit. Then we napped for a while. I recently was able to contact my best friend growing up, Amber Strellis. I've known her since we were wee babies, but her aversion to any kind of technology has left me unable to keep in touch with her for the past few years. I hadn't seen her since winter of 2006. Turns out, she's studying in London right now. So Carolina and I navigated the Tube and met up with her at a pub/restaurant called Shakespeare's Head, where we drank Strongbow's (cider is the best thing ever, both more delicious and higher alcohol content than beer), and ate fish and chips. It was awesome to see her, she's the funniest person ever, but unfortunately she was leaving for a trip to Rome the next day, so it was a brief, hour long reunion. But she told us to head off in the direction of an area called "Shorditch" (not "Shortage", as we thought everyone had been saying), which was supposedly where all the young people go out.
We finally found it, after asking a million people for directions, and following those directions until we ran into someone else to ask. Apparently, it's considered common courtesy to give people directions if they ask you, and rude not to, so people will tell you something even if they have no idea where your destination is. This resulted in us having to ask almost everyone we saw, which we also probably did because we were so happy to be in an English speaking country. We finally got there, and discovered is surely is where the young people go out--hipster centraaaaal. We met up with Baber and Kelsey and her sister, who lives in London, and we started to look for a bar or club. One of the first ones we passed was blasting MGMT, so that was our obvious choice. We pushed through the THICK crowd of hipsters to the dance floor, where no one was really dancing. Between shots of Beam and a few trips to the "off-license" (read: liquor store) to chug Strongbow (chanting "it's apple juice, it's apple juice"), we got a pretty legit dance party going on the dance floor. There wasn't an actual DJ at the DJ station, presumably he had gone to get drunk and left a mix CD to do his work. We had no problem with this, as it played more MGMT, Arcade Fire, Bro-Hymn by Pennywise (I'm not kidding), What's My Age Again (we were probably the only ones excited about this), London Calling, and some other good stuff. We somehow managed to get a bus back to our hostel, but it was a 45 minute ride with some Indian dudes from San Jose who were way more interested in us than we were in them.
The next day we walked around, took a boat cruise tour that came with our bus tour, and then went to sit in the park near Buckingham Palace. We thought it looked lovely and scenic, and there were tons of nice folding chairs in the sun, which we found out cost 2 pounds to sit in. Carolina found a tupperware full of rice that someone had left behind and scattered it into the grass. Twenty thousand pigeons started feasting on it, and Carolina was delighted until we all realized that rice expands in pigeon's stomachs and kills them. Hilarity ensued. Luckily we did not see any pigeon genocide, but a few of them had to lie down. We met up with our friend Claire, and then Lexi came into the city to meet us, and we all went to see Avenue Q. It was great, just some good old puppet sex and musical singing. We walked around forever trying to find someplace near there to get a drink until we realized it was futile. Carolina, Claire and I went back to the Shakespeare's head for the best deal on food/beer we'd seen in that insanely expensive city. Claire went home, and Carolina and I headed back to Shorditch to try and find some fun for the evening. After drinking some cheap vodka on a bench and hipster-watching, then chugging more Strongbow, we realized that all the clubs have huge lines or cover charges on Friday nights. We decided to play the pretentious game, where you go up to the most pretentious looking person you can find, and ask them where the least pretentious club around is. In this way, we ended up talking to four really cool guys. We chatted and goofed around with them for about forty-five minutes (actually I have no idea. I was pretty drunk), and a few people had come up and talked to the guys, but we thought nothing of it. Then some girl came up and was like, "Oh my god, Dave, I love you! You were my first crush!" or something, and then to Carolina she was like, "Oh my god, you guys are so lucky to be talking to them. Do you even know who they are?" and Carolina was like uhhhh no and the girl told her they were a famous band who had been at the top of the charts a couple weeks before. But we still have no idea what band they were. So if you've heard of a British band with a bassist named Carl and a drummer or guitarist named Dave, please let me know. Then they left, and we caught the bus back to our hostel.
The next day, before leaving for Dublin, we went to Portabello Road, where there were a bunch of touristy souvenir tables and a mean old racist bitch who's table Caro stole five brooches from. That was lovely. Then we went to Dublin! I for, some strange reason, booked myself a flight that was on the same airline, at almost the exact same time, but from a different airport than everyone else. Though my compadres had doubts that I would make my flight when left to my own devices, I managed it no problem, and met them at the Dublin airport. We shuttled into town and met up with Lara!! It was so nice to see her. We went back to her International student dorm in Blackrock, and bought ourselves some cider, then met all her friends and took the bus into town to a pub, and then what I like to call a "plub", a pub with a dancefloor playing shitty US top 40 hits. I even got to dance to "I Kissed A Girl and I Liked It" so needless to say it was a good night. We then experienced the bane of Lara's existence--trying to catch a cab back home. It took us over an hour, seriously. I don't know how she does it all the time. The next day we walked around, went to the museum of art (museums are FREE there... wow), walked through the park, and got some dank Irish food. Basically the conclusion we came to, which Lara backed up, was that Dublin is just some city that's not really that special, and that it's only cool once you get out into the country, where it's beautiful. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time there to do that. C'est la vie. I was just glad that I got to see and hang out with Lara. We woke up early to head to AMSTERDAM the next day.
Well I gotta say, Amsterdam is pretty awesome. And seriously, not just because of the weed thing. It is an incredibly beautiful city built mainly on canals, with really picturesque tall houses lining them. And EVERYONE bikes. Seriously, everyone. It was so cool, because you just see everyone going about their normal day the way people in America do in cars, but they're on bikes. Old people, businessmen, people doing their errands. Everyone just does them on their bikes. All the streets are lined with bike racks and there are at least a hundred bikes on each block. Plus, they're all perfect looking. It's like they don't have jobs, they're just hired for their natural beauty and paid to cruise around the city like they just rode right out of a J. Crew catalogue. And, you can smoke weed. So, a freakishly perfect society. We had a good time. The first day, we went to a coffeeshop and smoked huge joints to our faces. Then it got a little creepy because there were these trippy mushroomy paintings on the walls and all these mirrors reflecting them everywhere, eeeeugh. So we left to go find a canal. This led to the first of a many, many part series called "We Are Lost". We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out where we were on the map, and how to get where we wanted to go, which was complicated because we didn't really know where we wanted to go. The evening ended with us finally finding a movie theater and selecting from the large selection of bro-flicks. We chose "Wanted" but left the theater because it sucked, and going to see "The Bank Job", which was probably a worse choice. Don't go see it.
The next day we rented bikes. This was a pretty good decision, but I have to admit I rode in constant fear that I was breaking the bike laws of the road that all the inhabitants knew so well. We biked through the beautiful Vondelpark, found a coffeeshop called Kashmir that was pretty cool, we tried to go to the Planetarium but it was expensive and you had to buy a zoo ticket too, and so we went to the Hash and Hemp Museum which was the biggest piece of shit waste of money ever. Seriously, talk about some uncreative stoners. Then we went to a windmill/brewery and got a beer. All this took the entire day since we continued the many installations of "We Are Lost". I am pretty sure I spent more time looking at a map bewilderedly in Amsterdam than doing just about anything else. We got back to the hostel and met some nerdy Canadian guy who wanted to go look around the Red Light District. We walked around with him and saw the hookers in their windows. It was pretty cool. The Canadian guy was waaay to into it, but really weirded out when a prostitute waved and beckoned him. He said he could never sleep with a prostitute because it would be too hard "emotionally". We ate some bomb falafel/kebab and then went to sleep.
The next day Baber went back to Hungary for the anniversary of the 1956 revolution, and we headed to Paris! We got there at night, ate dinner, walked around, drank wine, and ended up drinking wine while walking down the Seine River. We ended up at the Eiffel Tower, which was beautiful. I was too drunk at this point, and feeling sick, so we caught a cab back to our hotel. That is probably the only time I will sleep on a real mattress between arriving here in August, and going home in January. Because our Ikea mattresses at our apartment are basically hostel beds. The next day we walked through Luxembourg Gardens, went to the Luxembourg museum, which was basically like MOMA if it were four rooms big and had shittier, less well known of the artist's pieces. Then we met up with Kelsey and this guy Adrien who is from Paris, but we met him in Budapest. And his little shuffley leprechaun friend Gregory. He was oh so precious in a gingery, butt-chinned way. We went to the Sacre Coeur Church, which has an amazing view of Paris, where we witnessed a beezy who apparently had come alone, and was taking pouty-face, lip bite myspace style pictures of herself in front of the view. It was highly amusing. Then we tried to find a vintage store where Adrien told us we could "maybe find the hot fashions" and that he hoped we would find "quality products", but we were unsuccessful in our hunt. So we met up with our friend Claire, went out to a nice dinner for Carolina's birthday, and then did all we could do--bought a bottle of whiskey and drank it on the sidewalk. Then we tried to find a fun club, but just ended up at a shitty one somewhere we didn't know where we were. Then we followed some boys back to their place because they said the magic word "marijuana" but they turned out to be pretty cool and we danced to Justice. We left to find that we were very, very far from our hotel, and in the Red Light District. We made it back circa 5:30 am, and since our flight was at 9 am, and we had to be there at 7, we went to sleep for half an hour. Then we flew to Copenhagen.
Copenhagen is awesome. It's a lot like Amsterdam, except less touristy, and it seems like it has a really legit artsy, underground, bohemian deal going on. Also lots of pretty houses and people riding bicycles. It is where all the real blondes come from. On our one real day there, we rented bicycles from this really cool place. It's a charity that takes donated bicycles, repairs them, and then sends them to Africa to be used as ambulances, etc. It just started in May, and they've already donated 1200 bikes! Plus, he was so friendly. When we came in, he asked if we wanted coffee, made it for us, and we chatted for like, and hour. Then he gave us a map and drew a path with different cool things to do on it. So we had a lovely ride through Copenhagen. We saw Hans Christian Anderson's grave (he wrote Ugly Duckling, Emperor's New Clothes, Thumbelina, Little Mermaid, etc), lots of cool street art, cool shops, a little skate park, a graveyard, a beautiful park with a free elephant zoo, and finally arrived in Christiania. Christiania is a Freetown, started in old military ramparts by a bunch of hippies in the 70s, and there are no laws there. I guess. I dunno. But it was so cool! There's art everywhere on every building, all the buildings are really unique and homemade looking, there are stray dogs wandering around everywhere (really clean, cute ones too), fires in trashcans, homemade playgrounds, and stands selling, among other things, weed and hash. We bought some, went to a bar, rolled joints and drank whiskey. It was awesome. But when it got dark, the crazies started coming out. Or rather, they congregated at one bar we made the mistake of entering, where they stumble around drunkenly to songs about being wild American men and leer at stoned girls who didn't know what they were getting into. We left, tried to find an electronic club but were too drunk at this point, and ended up participating in the final chapter of "We Are Really Lost", before we finally found the club. We paid 80 Kroner to get in, then left immediately because it sucked and no one was dancing. Then we sat outside our hostel room wasted, trying to figure out the time change, and trying to set Carolina's watch alarm clock for our 7am flight back home to Budapest.
Needless to say, we woke up in a hostel room of 14 beds at the very moment our flight was taking off. We hustled off to the airport anyways, where we discovered that our airline's next flight to Budapest was three days later, and the other airline's flights were really expensive. So we did some quick thinking and ended up renting a car from Avis to drive to Berlin (so we wouldn't get charged a one-way fee, since the car was from Berlin), with the plan of taking the train back from Berlin. Carolina, being 21 and feeling much healthier than me at that point, rented the car and got in the driver's seat, only to realize that it was a manual, which she couldn't drive. So we switched seats, and I got to drive a VW Golf all the way to Berlin! We went the wrong way at first and ended up in Sweden, then drove back through the Danish countryside (which was beautiful), then took a ferry to Germany. Three countries in one day! It was dark as we got into Berlin, so we found an internet cafe, then tried to get to the train station to catch a late train home. Unfortunately, Berlin is nearly impossible to navigate, as all the streets change names all the time, and the smaller ones weren't even on our map. We finally made it, right after the ticket office had closed. We now had the task of finding the Avis, then sleeping in our car all night before returning it. Sleeping in a car seems like it would be warm, but it isn't at all. At 5am the next morning, we woke up, returned the car to the rental agency we had slept in front of, and caught a cab back to the train station (which is the most futuristic train station ever), where we finally got on a train bound for home at 6 am. We slept for 10 of the 12 hours of the ride. And we were finally home.
And now Obama is president!! (Or actually, he will be after Bush has a few more months to further decrease environmental protection, make getting an abortion more difficult, and make it easier for the government to spy on it's citizens!) Wahoo!! Obama-rama-ding-dong! Everyone in Europe is very happy about this, and I am finally not ashamed to admit my nationality. This is great. Let's get drunk and then go to Krakow tomorrow.
Monday, October 13, 2008
i love the wien
Wien is what people in Vienna call Vienna. Makes sense. As my dad informed me after receiving an enthusiastic email about the wonders of Vienna, the delicious phallic baseball snack "wiener" was invented there. Well, I really do love Wien. Carolina and I headed out there early on Thursday morning aboard a train. Now, as much as I will try to make this entire post sound like we aren't stoners, I feel it's rather futile. That said, we aren't stoners. But we've been seeing all these posters around for Eastern Europe's first "hemp festival"and it's sponsored by the growshop around the block from us, and we thought, ya know, might as well check it out, seeing as its only a 3 hour train ride away. So we booked a hostel and headed out, forgoing a University planned trip to wine country in favor of Cultiva. We arrived at Westbanhof station around noon, bought some picnic food and coffee to delay until check in time at two, and then made our beds alongside our Australian roommates. The hostel we stayed at, Wombat's, was definitely nicer than some actual hotels I've stayed at. We bought some cheap(ish--nothing's cheap when you're dealing with euros) whiskey called Ranch Wood which was allegedly brewed in the heart of Kentucky. Then we hit up the bar at the hostel, which one would expect to be full of world travelers and, I dunno, interesting people? Instead we were treated to a gaggle of teenage mutant ninja drunkards playing pool and hitting on each other. Well, I guess you can't win them all. So, we just got really drunk, and took a video of a 17 year old with a long braid dancing, alone, to Sean Paul's "Get It On". Then we passed out.
On Friday, we stopped by the Belvedere museum. It's split into two levels--the upper level is filled with really boring medieval paintings of Jesus being crucified, etc, but the lower level was basically devoted to the "Secession" art movement in the early 1900s under the reign of Franz Josef, most famous of which is Gustav Klimt's
The Kiss, which, along with all his other works, were incredibly beautiful. I'm really glad I got to see his paintings, I was impressed and inspired.
Then we tackled Vienna's impeccable public transportation system, which took us out of town to the "Pyramid" Expo center, where Cultiva was going down. We didn't know how easy it would actually be to get weed here, especially since kids at the hostel had told us Austria's laws weren't too lenient, so we bought some disgusting rum in beer-sized bottles to bring with us. Because we had no idea what to expect, and what could be worse than wandering totally sober amidst a bunch of stoners in an expo center?
But we were in for a... treat? Rather than a bunch of stoners, it was a bunch of businessmen stoners! It was more about growers, seed companies, vaporizers, grow boxes, and hemp products than anything else. We found the booth, or really more like balcony-patio, of Bushdoctor, the growshop around the block from us in Budapest. They also have two stores in Vienna and Berlin. We found our friend Andras, who is a really funny, tall, bespectacled dude. He has a pretty good English vocabulary, but he isn't very good at structuring sentences, and when he talks (which he does A LOT of) it sounds like he's using a thesaurus. So in order to understand what he's talking about, you have to pay close attention and keep re-orienting yourself to what he actually is trying to convey. It can be hard not to start laughing while he talks. He was really excited to see that we came, and suggested we go down to the bar. On the way there, we wandered around all the booths, and were treated to Andras's extensive knowledge of marijuana and the process of growing it. Also, all the Bushdoctor guys, who were outfitted in a weird safari type costume they were all quite proud of, were like celebrities there. Everyone kept coming up to them and shaking their hands and asking them questions. It was hilarious. Because as we found out later, Andras is like, fucking crazy.
Somewhere along the way, we lost him to a friend who made hemp clothing, and we sat down on some couches at a booth to rest our feet. Immediately, the woman and man who are working there--both dressed up and clean cut--offered us a beer. They were Irish, and their 64 year old father invented one of the first handheld vaporizers, which is just a weed (hahaha I meant to type week) out on the market. It's a crazy little invention, full of catalytic conversions and looking basically like a walkie-talkie. They were complaining that they didn't have anything, like lavender, etc., to demonstrate it with, so another Irish friend suggested he take us outside and use marijuana. We gladly accepted. Wow, that thing is crazy!!! If I spent my money on drug paraphernalia, I would totally buy one. If only to support the cute Irish siblings and their father.
We returned to the expo with a new sense of wonder, saw some cool shit, got a LOT of free shit (two grinders, six lighters, grow solution, a t-shirt, a beanie, endless rolling papers, a bottle of honey hemp liquor, keychains, stickers, and munchies), and ended up meeting two people (who I SWEAR I didn't even know existed before our Irish friends pointed them out like giggling groupies) who are quite important in the world of marijuana growth and distribution. One is Jorge Cervantes, who literally and figuratively wrote the book on growing marijuana, and who apparently was "the inspiration" for our Irish friends to start growing. He was very sweet and old and we smoked a spliff with him. We also got a photo opp with Howard Marks, Mr. Nice, who was responsible for about 80% of the marijuana in Europe in the 80s, and had ties to the CIA, IRA, mafia, etc etc. He was also very friendly. We got a bunch of free beer, met really cool people, acquired free goodies, got smoked out.... it was a smashing time. Went back to our hostel, had a picnic on the floor, and passed out.
The next two days were actually just as wonderful. On Saturday, we rented bikes along with a dude from Holland that we met at the hostel, and rode around. We saw the Palace and St. Stephen's Church, and all those tourist attraction buildings. Then we picked up a GIANT bottle of wine for only 2.50 euro and some picnic supplies, and headed to Stadtpark. The weather was, there is no better word, lovely. Thus, the park was packed with people, including a couple crazies worthy of San Francisco. We lay on the grass and taught Holland how to play King's Cup. He got drunk and napped on the grass while we befriended some German architecture students who did nothing but roll and then smoke cigarettes, and then start rolling another as soon as they finished. We definitely park-seshed it for hours, it was like being back in GGP. The rest of the night involved some bold bike trips and map reading to an Irish bar called Charlie P's, where we bought some homegrown from one of our charming Irish friends from Cultiva, and then an "international" bar called Shebeen where we basically sat catatonic, slurping our Stiegl beer (delicious), waiting to bike home to our boring german roommates and uncomfortable hostel beds.
On Sunday, we woke up and and walked for (I do not exaggerate) two hours before finding any sort of food that was in English, open, or didn't make us want to vom. The city really shuts down on Sundays, it's bizarre and inconvenient for the hungry. We ended up getting some $12 pasta because we were so relieved to even see a restaurant that was open. Then, we walked to the Hundertwasser Haus, which was seriously the coolest building I've ever seen. Maybe I'm just goofy, but why can't every building in the world be as awesome as that? It was designed/built in the 80s (I think) by Friedensreich Hundertwasser for free, because he didn't want anything ugly being built there instead. And apparently it's a low income housing block. While we were there, bright red ivy was crawling all over the roof, and the neon leaves started raining down around us when the wind blew. So wonderful.
Our next trip, and adventure with public transportation, took us to Zentralfriedhof Cemetary, where legendary composers such as Ludwig Van Beethoven and Franz Schubert are buried. Now, you might not think that a trip to a cemetery would be wholly uplifting, but while I was there I felt, with only a stab of irony, that I was in heaven. It is a MASSIVE place, with a total of about 3.3 million dead peeps chillin under its fresh green grass. The leaves of all the trees were changing colors, and we were there in those afternoon golden hours where everything looks beautiful. Some of the gravestones were more like tiny, intricate churches than anything else. You could get lost in there. And not even be scared. As long as it was during the day. We found the dark, scary section where nothing was cared for. Ivy had taken over completely then died, leaving heavy brown tangles across all the rows and headstones, which were flanked by walls of dark, low hanging trees. In this spooky, sad section, we smoked a joint and dedicated it to the forgotten we sat amongst. Tired from walking miles for food and more miles in the maze of graves, we headed back to the hostel to check out, and take the train home.
I would like to say this is where the excitement ends, but our luck would not allow this to happen. After passing out in a first class cabin of the train (which we had not bought tickets for), we were suddenly awakened by a loud, flailing, happy, gangly Bushdoctor known as Andras. Apparently, he hadn't even seen us through the window--we just happened to be in the first booth whose door he flung open. He went on to chug my honey hemp liquor, talk passionately about the Netherland's government, peel and stuff a whole kiwi into his mouth, and generally spaz the fuck out before (and I don't know why this hasn't packed much punch when I've related it to others, so let me capitalize it to stress the seriousness of the situation) ROLLING, LIGHTING, AND SMOKING A JOINT ON THE TRAIN. So not cool. I mean, maybe on Muni in San Francisco, CA. But on a train, in a country with zero-tolerance drug laws, in a first class booth that we didn't pay for, and with a window that refused to open? NOT COOL. Carolina and I flipped the fuck out (which doesn't mean we declined the joint when it was passed to us). I think he freaked out then too, because he started throwing all his shit (that he had spent the past hour unpacking and flingling around the cabin) back into his pack, then stood up, told us his stop was coming up, and then declared that he was "fucked up". This really only gave us a great sense of relief. I think he only seemed like Spazzy McCrack #1 because of the alcohol and the language barrier. But it sure gave us a scare. We were left un-busted, and managed to lie there in terror with the lights off until we arrived in Budapest.
Vienna is a beautiful, open, light city, with a lot of friendly, interesting, generally helpful people. If you get the chance, please go there. We had an absolute blast.
On Friday, we stopped by the Belvedere museum. It's split into two levels--the upper level is filled with really boring medieval paintings of Jesus being crucified, etc, but the lower level was basically devoted to the "Secession" art movement in the early 1900s under the reign of Franz Josef, most famous of which is Gustav Klimt's
The Kiss, which, along with all his other works, were incredibly beautiful. I'm really glad I got to see his paintings, I was impressed and inspired. Then we tackled Vienna's impeccable public transportation system, which took us out of town to the "Pyramid" Expo center, where Cultiva was going down. We didn't know how easy it would actually be to get weed here, especially since kids at the hostel had told us Austria's laws weren't too lenient, so we bought some disgusting rum in beer-sized bottles to bring with us. Because we had no idea what to expect, and what could be worse than wandering totally sober amidst a bunch of stoners in an expo center?
But we were in for a... treat? Rather than a bunch of stoners, it was a bunch of businessmen stoners! It was more about growers, seed companies, vaporizers, grow boxes, and hemp products than anything else. We found the booth, or really more like balcony-patio, of Bushdoctor, the growshop around the block from us in Budapest. They also have two stores in Vienna and Berlin. We found our friend Andras, who is a really funny, tall, bespectacled dude. He has a pretty good English vocabulary, but he isn't very good at structuring sentences, and when he talks (which he does A LOT of) it sounds like he's using a thesaurus. So in order to understand what he's talking about, you have to pay close attention and keep re-orienting yourself to what he actually is trying to convey. It can be hard not to start laughing while he talks. He was really excited to see that we came, and suggested we go down to the bar. On the way there, we wandered around all the booths, and were treated to Andras's extensive knowledge of marijuana and the process of growing it. Also, all the Bushdoctor guys, who were outfitted in a weird safari type costume they were all quite proud of, were like celebrities there. Everyone kept coming up to them and shaking their hands and asking them questions. It was hilarious. Because as we found out later, Andras is like, fucking crazy.
Somewhere along the way, we lost him to a friend who made hemp clothing, and we sat down on some couches at a booth to rest our feet. Immediately, the woman and man who are working there--both dressed up and clean cut--offered us a beer. They were Irish, and their 64 year old father invented one of the first handheld vaporizers, which is just a weed (hahaha I meant to type week) out on the market. It's a crazy little invention, full of catalytic conversions and looking basically like a walkie-talkie. They were complaining that they didn't have anything, like lavender, etc., to demonstrate it with, so another Irish friend suggested he take us outside and use marijuana. We gladly accepted. Wow, that thing is crazy!!! If I spent my money on drug paraphernalia, I would totally buy one. If only to support the cute Irish siblings and their father.
We returned to the expo with a new sense of wonder, saw some cool shit, got a LOT of free shit (two grinders, six lighters, grow solution, a t-shirt, a beanie, endless rolling papers, a bottle of honey hemp liquor, keychains, stickers, and munchies), and ended up meeting two people (who I SWEAR I didn't even know existed before our Irish friends pointed them out like giggling groupies) who are quite important in the world of marijuana growth and distribution. One is Jorge Cervantes, who literally and figuratively wrote the book on growing marijuana, and who apparently was "the inspiration" for our Irish friends to start growing. He was very sweet and old and we smoked a spliff with him. We also got a photo opp with Howard Marks, Mr. Nice, who was responsible for about 80% of the marijuana in Europe in the 80s, and had ties to the CIA, IRA, mafia, etc etc. He was also very friendly. We got a bunch of free beer, met really cool people, acquired free goodies, got smoked out.... it was a smashing time. Went back to our hostel, had a picnic on the floor, and passed out.
The next two days were actually just as wonderful. On Saturday, we rented bikes along with a dude from Holland that we met at the hostel, and rode around. We saw the Palace and St. Stephen's Church, and all those tourist attraction buildings. Then we picked up a GIANT bottle of wine for only 2.50 euro and some picnic supplies, and headed to Stadtpark. The weather was, there is no better word, lovely. Thus, the park was packed with people, including a couple crazies worthy of San Francisco. We lay on the grass and taught Holland how to play King's Cup. He got drunk and napped on the grass while we befriended some German architecture students who did nothing but roll and then smoke cigarettes, and then start rolling another as soon as they finished. We definitely park-seshed it for hours, it was like being back in GGP. The rest of the night involved some bold bike trips and map reading to an Irish bar called Charlie P's, where we bought some homegrown from one of our charming Irish friends from Cultiva, and then an "international" bar called Shebeen where we basically sat catatonic, slurping our Stiegl beer (delicious), waiting to bike home to our boring german roommates and uncomfortable hostel beds.
On Sunday, we woke up and and walked for (I do not exaggerate) two hours before finding any sort of food that was in English, open, or didn't make us want to vom. The city really shuts down on Sundays, it's bizarre and inconvenient for the hungry. We ended up getting some $12 pasta because we were so relieved to even see a restaurant that was open. Then, we walked to the Hundertwasser Haus, which was seriously the coolest building I've ever seen. Maybe I'm just goofy, but why can't every building in the world be as awesome as that? It was designed/built in the 80s (I think) by Friedensreich Hundertwasser for free, because he didn't want anything ugly being built there instead. And apparently it's a low income housing block. While we were there, bright red ivy was crawling all over the roof, and the neon leaves started raining down around us when the wind blew. So wonderful.
Our next trip, and adventure with public transportation, took us to Zentralfriedhof Cemetary, where legendary composers such as Ludwig Van Beethoven and Franz Schubert are buried. Now, you might not think that a trip to a cemetery would be wholly uplifting, but while I was there I felt, with only a stab of irony, that I was in heaven. It is a MASSIVE place, with a total of about 3.3 million dead peeps chillin under its fresh green grass. The leaves of all the trees were changing colors, and we were there in those afternoon golden hours where everything looks beautiful. Some of the gravestones were more like tiny, intricate churches than anything else. You could get lost in there. And not even be scared. As long as it was during the day. We found the dark, scary section where nothing was cared for. Ivy had taken over completely then died, leaving heavy brown tangles across all the rows and headstones, which were flanked by walls of dark, low hanging trees. In this spooky, sad section, we smoked a joint and dedicated it to the forgotten we sat amongst. Tired from walking miles for food and more miles in the maze of graves, we headed back to the hostel to check out, and take the train home.
I would like to say this is where the excitement ends, but our luck would not allow this to happen. After passing out in a first class cabin of the train (which we had not bought tickets for), we were suddenly awakened by a loud, flailing, happy, gangly Bushdoctor known as Andras. Apparently, he hadn't even seen us through the window--we just happened to be in the first booth whose door he flung open. He went on to chug my honey hemp liquor, talk passionately about the Netherland's government, peel and stuff a whole kiwi into his mouth, and generally spaz the fuck out before (and I don't know why this hasn't packed much punch when I've related it to others, so let me capitalize it to stress the seriousness of the situation) ROLLING, LIGHTING, AND SMOKING A JOINT ON THE TRAIN. So not cool. I mean, maybe on Muni in San Francisco, CA. But on a train, in a country with zero-tolerance drug laws, in a first class booth that we didn't pay for, and with a window that refused to open? NOT COOL. Carolina and I flipped the fuck out (which doesn't mean we declined the joint when it was passed to us). I think he freaked out then too, because he started throwing all his shit (that he had spent the past hour unpacking and flingling around the cabin) back into his pack, then stood up, told us his stop was coming up, and then declared that he was "fucked up". This really only gave us a great sense of relief. I think he only seemed like Spazzy McCrack #1 because of the alcohol and the language barrier. But it sure gave us a scare. We were left un-busted, and managed to lie there in terror with the lights off until we arrived in Budapest.
Vienna is a beautiful, open, light city, with a lot of friendly, interesting, generally helpful people. If you get the chance, please go there. We had an absolute blast.
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