this afternoon

mid-afternoon, a thunderstorm is blowing in to compensate for this morning's 30 degree heat...class in an hour and I'm drinking tea and trying to polish up a lesson on future tenses (how many can you name?).
this pre-storm light is really lovely.

trying to decide whether to take advantage of the current easyjet sale and book all my flights for the rest of the summer/fall in advance. which would mean knowing exactly where i'm going to be on specific dates. which gives me a headache.

a conversation from earlier in the day has sparked dreams of running away to south america and learning to dance.

new photos

new photos up on flickr. i've been experimenting with cross-processing slide film but should have done my homework before using Fuji Sensia 100, which makes everything red. oh well.

some samples:
Liberty Bridge (Szabadság híd), Budapest


the roof outside my door


birthday cake


pedal car in the park


Ibolya and her feast


the Hungary/Slovakia border


Esztergom, Hungary

accents and stumblers

it was great to see James and Yasmin on the weekend, we went to some of my favourite bars and drank beer until they succumbed to jet lag (hey, they made it till about 3:30 - that's a trouper in my book). I wish I could say I then went to bed but no, I sat up till 5 am eating tortilla chips in bed and reading a book about wizards.

apparently J and Y have powerful magic as well because a few days later a friend told me that my Canadian accent had "come back". where had it gone? to be honest I feel a bit like Madonna these days, I hear myself speak and think "why the hell did I say it like that? what, do I think I'm English or something?"

on the tram the other day a large elderly businessman fell on top of me. I thought for one terrified moment that he was having a heart attack - then I smelled the booze.

the unbelievable truth

i just read today (in a review for Waitress) about Adrienne Shelley's completely senseless murder last year. I had no idea.
for various Hal Hartley related reasons I have a very soft spot for Adrienne Shelley (see: Trust and The Unbelievable Truth).
i am sitting here on the verge of tears over the death, 6 months ago, of someone i didn't personally know.

completely exhausted, nothing interesting

apologies for the lack of exciting updates but this whole getting-up-at-6:30-thing is really starting to get me down. Maybe I'm getting sick too because by the end of each day I'm completely wiped out. I've been under the covers before 10pm not once, but TWICE already this week. Those who know me know that this is simply not right.
on the bright side one of my classes was observed by my employer and she gave me some really encouraging feedback. i've got a few more classes on my schedule, starting this week, which means i will definitely be able to pay the rent, and eat, and maybe - just maybe - drink some beer next month too.
i am completely at a loss as to what to do after June. stay here for a few more months and teach some more (not gonna save much money though - maybe a little bit, but nothing substantial)? look for a contract elsewhere in Europe? travel for the summer (the thought of living on a Greek beach is appealing)? go home for a little while (probably going to save that for the fall or winter though)?

learning dirty Hungarian words from a middle aged woman

So our housekeeper/cleaner is back this week, frying up some pork balls on the stove. When I got home from class around 10 am she was already finished with the soup and creamy potatoes and I must have accidentally told her I was hungry cause she served me up a big old plate of lunch at 10:15.
Now she's cooking up the aforementioned pork balls - pronounced "fashult"...don't ask me for a spelling because when I looked up the spelling she provided me it seems to translate as "fascist". Fun as that would be, I don't think she's frying up any fascists today.

The entertaining part was when I, trying to pronounce the name of this food, said "fass" (i think the Hungarian spelling is fasz) and she started giggling and waving her arms, "nem! nem!". Clearly this was a dirty word so I would just say it every so often to make her laugh.
Finally she said "puszi, angolul" (puszi means "kiss", but sounds like "pussy"). so I told her, "puszi means kiss".
"igen igen, something something puszi angolul"
"puzsi in english is kiss"

this went on for a couple minutes till it finally became clear that she was saying "yes yes, i KNOW that it means kiss, but...".

I still couldn't figure out what she was talking about. Maybe fasz was a really specific word for some sort of dirty kissing activity?
Finally I turned on the computer and discovered that fasz translates to "prick, pizzle, pintle, dick, cock, pecker" (PINTLE? I have never heard of a pintle).

She brought out the fried fascist balls and we sat at the table and nibbled at them. I said, with a knowing look on my face, "Ah, fasz...nem yo." (ah, fasz is not good). She laughed and said "igen, ferfi" (yes, man) and pointed downward. Then she said "puszi? angolul?".
Aha! Finally I understood. She was getting cats and chickens confused.
I said, "pussy, angolul...two things. meow meow!"
"Nem!" she gasped, a shocked look on her face.
"Igen! meow meow! And also...noi"...and I pointed at my lap. (noi means woman)
"Ah!" she said, laughing again.
Then she got serious.
"fasz, angolul?
"fasz in angolul is..um.....cock."
"COCK?"
"igen. um......also....um...dick."

I was deliberating whether to also provide the more formal "penis", but decided that two new vocabulary words were good enough for one day.

good. soup.

yesterday our housekeeper (a very nice lady who comes in once a week to clean, so I guess housekeeper is a good enough word, that or cleaning lady) made an enormous Hungarian feast - goulash soup, vegetable soup, pork schnitzel or something, french fries, fried cauliflower, rice, noodles with lard. the common ingredient is lard or oil. i came home from a class to find her halfway done everything but I got to help out with the dumplings for the soup.

we had a long conversation while I rolled out the dumplings. unfortunately since I don't speak Hungarian, I have no idea what we discussed. but at the appropriate pause I would say something like 'jo leves!' or 'uborka?' or 'ah, paradiscom!'.

to put this in context, imagine you have a foreign visitor. conversations consist of you saying intelligent things, and your companion responding with 'soup good!' or 'cucumber?', or 'ah, tomato!'.

mother may i? duck duck goose?

tonight i begin tutoring two little boys (6 and 8). i don't even know what a 6 year old is. as in, I couldn't pick a 6 year old out of a line up that included a 4 year old and a 5 year old.

and I can't remember ANY children's games.

they lived in Canada for a couple of years so they should have some language, my job is to keep them from losing it. and, today at least, it's to make sure the parents ask me to come back for a second lesson!

it's not that i don't respect you...

dear Slovakia,

i'm sorry about the way i keep using you and then throwing you away.

love,
a

bird meets head

yesterday a bird flew into the side of my head.

this morning I got up at 6, to go to a 7:30 lesson in the middle of nowhere. the guy didn't show up so I spent 90 minutes sitting in the lobby of an insurance company.

this afternoon I'm going to Slovakia. again.

imperium

spent most of this beautiful weekend reading Ryszard Kapuscinski's wonderful Imperium, about the Soviet Union. Imperium in one hand, a small atlas in the other...you can now add Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the list of places I want to visit.

wanderlust also triggered by Gina's recent blog entries....that passport! those photos! my god. what am I doing in Budapest, working for The Man?

because that's what I'm doing now - freelance english teaching, for anyone with any sort of 'business' background in their previous life, means Business English. and that is all about going into oil companies, insurance and finance corporations and government agencies....

my eyes!

this afternoon i think i saw a man...um...touching himself as he walked down the street. and when I say street, i mean extremely busy major street. and when i say touching, i mean it looked like he was trying to milk a cow. but fast.
i didn't see any flesh but he had that "i'm a pervert, you wanna see?" look in his eyes as I passed.

in other news, my schedule is practically full although I probably won't make enough money this month to cover my expenses, and I had another interview today with a school who wanted to know if I had my bachelor's degree handy. like here in Budapest. like the physical piece of paper.

like I keep that in my backpack?

not much else of interest. i am trying not to spend any money. therefore, I am very boring.
also, addicted to stupid facebook.

oh, forgot to mention....

...I'm staying in Budapest for at least 3 more months. probably.

boring dream blog entry

this morning i dreamt i was late for a flight - i was going somewhere like Brazil and just stuffed a bathing suit and towel and a few other things into a bunch of bags. for some reason ending up with three different bags of stuff.
then i realized i had 30 minutes before the plane left and i was still at home. so i called someone and changed to a later flight.
i woke up and checked the clock; it was 5:30 so went back to sleep.
unfortunately, in my dreams i still had to catch that plane. i now had 3 or so hours to get to the airport. it took an hour to get out of the house and another hour to get to the place where i could catch the bus to the airport.
i tried to ask someone at the bus station which one would take me to the airport, but they didn't speak english. i did know the bus number though. Bus number 134.
things were falling out of my bags. it was snowing heavily. i walked into the bus station and
saw that there were hundreds of bus stops, in no particular order.

by this time the plane was leaving in 40 minutes and the airport was 45 minutes away.
i sat down on my bags.

then i woke up again because it was time to go teach my very first real lesson! the stupid plane dream being some fairly obvious anxiety about sleeping in and not getting to class on time (class is at 8:00).

turns out what i should have been worried about instead was where to go. i went to this huge office building, arrived a little early, but then realized that i didn't know which floor the class was on or who to ask for. it was in an email that i had forgotten to print out. the receptionist let me in to the first floor where i wandered around looking for something that looked like a class. (something like wandering around looking for bus 134).

a guy tried to help me out (also i'm sure he was somewhat concerned about this
random stranger wandering around the office), and then the receptionist let me use her computer to check the email.

i finally made it to the right floor.

late.


the class is great though.

lots and lots and lots of new photos

because the digital camera died, i've been using film for the past couple of months.
not very happily either, since I haven't used film in almost a year...all the photos I took were complete crap and I was worried i would have the same problem this time.
so i took three rolls in yesterday, and for less than $20 had them developed and scanned onto cd in less than 3 hours.
i'm way WAY happier with the results than i expected to be...

this is National Day


this is Parliament


these are Hungarian skaters


this is the flea market


this is cake


this is the thermal lake at Heviz


this is the lock fence in Pecs


this is the train station at Tokaj on a foggy night


this is a wine tasting


see all of these and MORE in full technicolour glory on flickr.

this is what you get when you google yourself.

i had completely forgotten about this. i'm not sure what i said but i'm pretty sure i didn't say it in french! click here and then scroll down for hyper-flattering photo and silly quote.

some things you should check out

my friend Doug is a holistic nutritionist (you won't believe how much trouble i just had trying to spell that) and has recently started up a fantastic (you could even say....super-fantastic) nutrition blog and newsletter. check out Radical Nutrition. and don't eat artificial sweeteners.

my friend Josh is currently blogging from South By Southwest in Austin, where he has just seen that little kewpie Lily Allen perform. seems she's just started her takeover of North America. you lucky sods, you haven't been overexposed yet? seriously, i'm going to barf if i hear 'Smile' one more time. though i did see a pretty cool video mash-up of that song + the cure's lullabye.

nothing to see here, ma'am

so around 8 i finally left the apartment and when i opened the door to the street, was relieved to see the police were dismantling the barricades. whew! and i congratulated myself on great timing.

then i turned the corner and saw that that had merely MOVED the barricades. so i followed a wee squad of riot police down toward the new and improved barricade and when i was approached by one of them just pointed at myself and then pointed at the street past the barrier...as in "me go out? yes?"

as i tried to pass another cop said something to me in Hungarian and i replied "nem maygar, angolul?" which means something like "no hungarian, english?" this came out extra-meek without my even trying...heavily armed people just do that to me i guess.

so they let me pass and i walked down to the main avenue, through some old-ish clouds of tear gas. it wasn't so strong anymore but the air tasted like shit and my eyes were watering. at that point i was a little past Oktogon already and couldn't see many police anymore, just people out in the street. the street was shut down and there were lots of people with flags, some wearing balaclavas....one large garbage bin was on fire in the middle of the street and i passed some people in the process of lighting another one on fire as well. there were also plenty of people who just looked like they were out for a stroll.

just as i was turning the corner toward Phil's place i heard "pop-pop-pop" and the rushing sound you get when a lot of people start to run. turned back to see several tear gas canisters start to steam and a big crowd of people heading toward the train station. it felt a bit undignified to run, especially since i was on a side street and more especially since i was clutching a package of paper napkins in one hand. but i sped up. two men dressed in waiter-style tuxedos stood outside of a doorway, watching what was going on.

then i went up to watch Benedicte make crepes (which were impressively delicious). other arrivals spoke of seeing a car on fire, people being sprayed with water cannons...however this was apparently much much better than the situation back in October, and it would probably be over by midnight.

sure enough, when i walked home 5 hours later there was no sign that anything at all had happened. the sidewalks were cleared of debris, the street was being sprayed down and cleaned, and i had no trouble getting back into the apartment.

not some guy with a loudspeaker

so i was wrong. that wasn't some bozo with a loudspeaker and a truck, it's a demonstration outside the House of Terror. I have no idea which party or political 'wing' this represents as I can't understand what they're saying. However I did see several Arpad flags.

Hungarian politics are too complicated for me to comment on.

Anyway, my block has been barricaded and there are probably 40-50 riot police at the end of the street. I have been watching from my bedroom window and it's hard to tell what's happening - sometimes it looks like the crowd is dispersing and then a chant rises up again. Then they fall silent, then they chant again. The crowd has definitely moved back from the barricades but it doesn't look people are leaving (also it's hard to tell how many people are actually out there because i can't see around the buildings).

I'm supposed to go over to Phil's in about an hour - really not looking forward to walking through a cordon of mini-Darth Vaders to get there. I hope this is all over by the time I come home too because I don't know how I'm going to talk my way through a barricade.

**update**
when I looked again most of the protesters appeared to be gone but there were even MORE police. why? while i was pondering this, they opened the barricades and about 15 cops ran out and out of view to the front of the House of Terror. A cat came streaking across the street in the opposite direction (cats are smart). a police car pulled up on Andrassy, followed by a large group of even more riot police. I'm not sure how many, maybe 30 maybe 50, but they looked pretty beetly and intimidating with the lights flashing off their helmets and shields. Then they all ran off to the front of the Terror house too, again out of my sight.

now i can't see any protesters at all but there are even more police than before, even on the 'calmer' side of the barricade which just leads out to a quiet side street. there's a line of riot police three deep standing about 5 feet behind a barricade. two freaked out looking backpackers hurry past. a guy holding a Hungarian flag stands in front of the barricade and his friend takes his photo against the backdrop of police. i can hear some people laughing but i can't tell if it's onlookers or police.

no rioting yet

Everything seems to be pretty calm on National Day so far. i went out for a walk and saw a lot of people walking around with flags, but that's about it. I didn't go down to where the rallies were happening. There's a pretty strong police presence around some places i went past - the Synagogue and the US Embassy and the Terror House (a museum which is in a house once used as a prison by the Arrow Cross Party and the Nazis and then the Soviets. It's down the street from me.).

I can hear some people shouting things out on the street right now, but it's probably just some guy with loudspeakers and a truck.