Buda Baby: Life in Budapest

Four Hours of Daylight is Not Enough

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:29:12 GMT

For reasons too mundane to describe here, my schedule has been turned around for the past few months such that I am going to bed at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, and then hopefully wake up by noon. Since the sun sets early here, around 4:30, this means I am seeing four hours or fewer of sun every day. Less, really, because it won't stop raining.

4:30 seemed awfully early to me though, so I looked up the latitude of Budapest today and learned that it is roughly the same as Quebec City, Quebec; Bismarck, North Dakota; Helena, Montana; and Seattle, Washington. I'm just sayin'.

Technorati tags: My life as a vampire

First Snow!

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:06:48 GMT

After weeks of pissing rain and cold temperatures, the weather finally got around to doing something interesting! We had our first snow today, lasting most of the late morning and afternoon, but turning back to slushy, mushy rain in the evening.

My poor garden gnome looks cold, no?

Technorati tags: Budapest, first snow

A Little Bit of Normalcy

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:36:57 GMT

Today is the 51st anniversary of Hungary's 1956 revolution, in which the Hungarians temporarily pushed out the Soviets. Most businesses were closed yesterday too, and there have been hundreds of events commemorating the occasion around Budapest. Sadly (in my opinion) the holiday has become highly politicized; you may recall seeing the news of the riots in Hungary at this time last year following the Prime Minister's infamous speech in which he talked about how his party lied morning, noon, and night to get into office. Since then, pretty much every national holiday has been marred by demonstrations and the far-right fringe and "hooligans" using the occasions to wreak havoc. Last night saw Molotov cocktails, cars and a police water cannon flipped over, and a handful of injuries. A group called the "Magyar Garda" has also formed, a far-right paramilitary group that signed in 600 new members over the weekend.

Given that all of this makes me sick, and given that the news and other blogs can provide a better source of information about these issues and events than I can, I figured I'd just talk about some regular, ordinary stuff to remind myself that things haven't gone straight to hell in a hand-basket (yet).

Up first: food! We've had an abundance of terrific produce lately, due to a couple of new shopping sources. First, we've been going to an organic shop on Jókai utca, which gets new, fresh stuff on Wednesdays, including some fantastic free-range chicken. They can also special order stuff for you - bonus! On Saturdays, we've taken to going to an organic farmers' market near the MOM Park shopping mall. This has become both my favorite and my most dreaded shopping experience. It's my favorite because all the food looks and tastes so great, and because there is a woman there who makes fresh raspberry juice that is to die for. It's my most dreaded, however, because it is a mob scene! The lines are long, it is very crowded, and it is heavily frequented by the Stroller Crowd, who all seem to leave their strollers smack in the middle of all the aisles, totally blocking traffic, while they yak-yak-yak, obliviously. I'm ready to leave after about 10 minutes, but Zoli becomes the slowest shopper on the planet when we go there. He has to look at, sniff, touch, and taste everything. It is like going antique shopping with my sister, and if you know my sister, you know what that means. :-) At any rate, we've been eating well, and the potato-leek soup I made last night helped take the edge off the crisp fall temperatures.

I haven't talked about my art class lately, mainly because it ended! However, my school has an open studio on most Friday nights, and whoever wants to can drop in for socializing and drawing. Everyone brings something to eat or drink to share, and we draw for two-and-a-half hours in 20 to 25 minute bursts, separated by short breaks. It's a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed the interaction with so many people of different backgrounds. A couple other "regulars" include a medical student from Greece who studies here in Hungary, and a yoga instructor from India. One of the art instructors just came back from Armenia, where she had been teaching budding journalists how to cover international politics. (She describes Armenia as being like the Sylvester Stallone movie Cop Land.) Anyhoo, the studio is putting together a student show, and I'm thinking of submitting the sketch above, drawn on Friday night. The proportions and foreshortening are kind of screwy, but I'm really, really happy with the model's face; she's one of my favorite people to draw, and this is one of my favorite drawings so far.

Last blurb: I went to the movies on Saturday night for the first time in a year, and for my first time ever in Hungary. I went to see Evening with a couple of girlfriends (Este in Hungarian; we saw it in English with Hungarian subtitles). About the movie: if you are very hormonal and it is on the Oxygen channel or Lifetime Television for Women or something, then it's probably ok to watch in your sweatpants and with a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Otherwise, it is ridiculous. How can a movie with Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Natasha Richardson, Eileen Atkins, and a bunch of cute guys be bad? Well, start by making each scene be an emotional outburst of the Nth degree, but never give any reasonable story line or development of character. It was like watching a drama class have to ad lib a variety of emotions. The emotions were well-acted, sure, but I couldn't work myself up to give a crap about any of the characters. And you would think that a secret lover and a dead man would give you a decent story, but noooooo, not in this piece of crap.

The experience of going to the movies in Hungary was more interesting than the movie itself. Just briefly, some differences from the US experience:

We had to find something I could watch, since I am handicapped by my inability to speak Hungarian. Lots of English movies are dubbed, so this meant finding something shown in original English, with subtitles.
Seats are somewhat assigned, I think by row.
You can buy alcohol at the refreshments counter. Other drinks are served in cans or bottles. There isn't much (any?) food. The idea of getting twice as much junk for a little more money? Doesn't exist.
The theater is not packed with the disgusting sound of people chomping on their popcorn.
People stay to watch all the credits before getting up. The lights don't come on until the credits are finished running.
If you come in too late (more than a few minutes), you won't be allowed in.

Technorati tags: Hungary, 1956, organic food, art class, movies

The High Tech Life Here in Gulyás Alley

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:06:01 GMT

It's been hard for me to write on this blog lately. A few reasons for this:

Sometimes I get tired of the sound of my own written voice, and if I am sick of it, I can't imagine inflicting it on others
There's still so much more I want to say about Italy (food, small towns, Pompeii) that I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work it would take to tell you about it
I'm working on a couple other creative projects outside of work, which cuts into my time to blog (small posts like this one and the last couple are relatively fast to dash off, but telling about a trip can take hours)

I don't talk much about "work-work" here for a variety of reasons, but it has been an interesting few weeks for the Big Z and me. As some of you know, we've been working on a start-up for some months now, and have been missing the environment of Silicon Valley. It's a vastly different culture there: people live and breathe the tech lifestyle, talking deals, ideas, technology, and industry gossip. All. The. Time.

Now, I will admit to this being a case of "the grass is greener on the other side." In the Bay Area, sometimes I really craved conversations that didn't revolve around technical acronyms, funding, burn rates, bugs, next releases, customers, who had money, who was out of money, what was going on in what company that would make or break a deal, who are the assholes, and who are the good people. I was constantly looking for ways to bring balance into my life. Serenity Now!!

Budapest is different. Now that we are here, the balance has swung in the opposite direction, and it is very hard to find people who speak our language (so to speak). Entrepreneurs tend to focus on technology at the engineering level, or are paranoid to share their ideas, or are very local-market focused. Technology investments are seldom and small. And if you try to talk to people about business or tech, well, you might as well talk to the wall in most cases. I've never experienced more glazed-over eyes and drool in my life, outside of riding the bus in San Francisco.

The past few weeks, however, have been invigorating. There was a big Red Herring conference here a short time ago, and Zoli got to network with some good guys. We both had a chance to talk shop with a serial entrepreneur. I had an interview, of sorts. A couple of new guys have joined our team. And, in some ways most excitingly, we had a mini-tech workshop in our place yesterday. Our friend Paul, who is a total start-up guy, introduced us to a couple Hungarian entrepreneurs here in Budapest, and we all spent yesterday afternoon discussing our various business and ideas, demo-ing our stuff on the projector, and offering constructive criticism to each other. As it turns out, the Hungarian guys both spent time living in the Bay Area; the Small World Syndrome strikes again! We were both jazzed about it the rest of the night, as it was infinitely refreshing to talk to people who get it, who are smart, and who bring fresh thoughts to the table.

Technorati tags: Budapest, high tech, Silicon Valley, start-ups

Complain, complain, complain!

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:25:53 GMT

I have so much more to tell you about Italy, but I sure am having a hard time getting it written. I've been working on a post about food for over a week, and also still want to talk about some of the small towns we visited, and show you some of my favorite pictures from Naples, which felt like a National Geographic photo expedition. It's more time consuming than I ever thought it would be to describe places and people and things for public consumption.

Meanwhile I've been awfully busy with seemingly nothing to show for it. So, I figured what better way to get back on the blog horse than to engage in the Great Hungarian Pastime: complaining.

My biggest complaint today is my water heater. We had trouble with it when we first moved in, but it has been problem-free for months and months. Over the past few days, however, it seems to have lost its mind. When I get in the shower, the water starts off nice and normal, and then (usually when I am at some critical stage, like getting ready to rinse shampoo out of my hair, suds in my eyes) scalding hot and icy cold water start alternately shooting out of the nozzle. While this is enough to piss me off, what really pisses me off is that this doesn't seem to happen to Zoli, just me. Which leads me to the conclusion that once again a poltergeist is dogging my steps. Splendid.

My next complaint is the weather, which will supposedly reach freezing on Sunday. Double splendid.

My final complaint has to do with a party we went to last night. We went to a bankers' party at the Moulin Rouge, a [former?] burlesque place that was converted to a dance club. Packed party, very cool inside, having an ok time once I acclimated to the heat, wall-to-wall bodies, and the smoke... until some jerk-nuts started spraying liquid onto the crowd from one of the balconies and I got all wet. :-(

PS - You might ask what a bankers' party is. In Budapest, organizers throw different parties theoretically for various professionals to get together and mingle (read: get shitfaced together at events sponsored by telecoms, alcohol distributors, cigarette makers, etc.). The thing is, I'm not sure I saw one "banker." Basically a business card - any business card, gets you in.

Technorati tags: Life in Budapest, complaints, partying

Screw you, European designers!

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:54:16 GMT

There, I've said it. For seven years you have pissed me off as I've tried to fit my hips into your jeans, sometimes successful, more often, sausage-like. On one occasion, I actually broke a zipper in the fitting room.

Now, it is a known fact that women in Europe are typically much thinner than women in the U.S. I'm not sure why this is, but I attribute it more to caffeine and cigarettes than I do eating smaller portions or eating healthier food. Women in Hungary are skinny bi-otches, and let me tell you, Hungarian food is not healthy, and the portion sizes are designed for the Flintstone family.

I'd also like to point out that while I am not as svelte as I'd like to be, I'm reasonably thin and fit. More often than not, guys I meet are surprised to find out I am American, looking my body up and down and asking me "Are you sure?" This is both flattering and insulting, but nowhere near as insulting as buying pants anywhere on this continent, except maybe the U.K. where people are big, too.

The thing is, I spent more than half of my life so far being called a bean pole. I had an hourglass figure, but my chest and hips were just small. Then I hit my late 20s and something happened. I started becoming curvy. My hips got wider, and my chest got bigger. And it was a challenge to figure out what to do with such a body. My clothes sizes were still small, but I had to choose different styles. I learned what cuts worked and what didn't anymore. Etc.

But I digress. The point of this post is that European designers are out to get me. I can deal with the fact that size Medium here is size Small at home. I can deal with a whole other system of sizing too. What gets my goose though is when I go to try on a pair of pants that are theoretically supposed to be my stupid Continental Europe size and I can't pull them up past halfway up my thighs. And God forbid if I do get the bastards up and buttoned. It's like every excess fat gram on my body gets pushed up over the top of them and hangs there like Santa Claus's guts. Simply put, nothing fits my bottom half. Even skirts are screwy. If I can get them over my hips, the waist is so huge that I can pull it out like a Weight Watchers Before-and-After ad. Maybe this is why Britney Spears goes around without pants so much - she's fed up with it too!

Now I'm getting to the real reason for today's post, the thing that has pushed me over the edge. A few weeks ago I went to Bed Beach with some friends, and there happened to be a fashion show for Misso, which I think is some Hungarian clothes label. When we left, the women in our group were all given swag bags, which contained hideous yellow Misso thong panties, with "Misso" written on them in black across the front. These panties are tacky as all get-out, but I figured I'd hang on to them for those times when I haven't done laundry in weeks and run out of clean underwear.

After traveling for a week, today was one of those days and I reached for my Misso thong. I was happy to note that the tag says size L, so I figured there would be no problem in hoisting these suckers over my Venus De Milo hips. Alas, while I can barely squeeze them over my hips, the ensuing result is so uncomfortable and so disgustingly unattractive that I am going to cut them to shreds and mail them back to the manufacturer, along with two photos: one of me wearing a thong that actually fits, and one with a photo of me wearing their crappily designed undergarment. Trust me on this: the pain this will cause their eyes is well worth any embarrassment it may cause me to potentially have this photo wind up on the Internet some day when I run for president.

Technorati tags: clothes, sizes, thongs, Misso

Get your groove on at DM

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:43:41 GMT

It's no secret that Europe is a lot more free about sexuality than the U.S. Americans might think they are exposed to too much sex by the media, but from the amount of PDA (that's public display of affection, not the Blackberry) on the street to advertisements to free porn on TV, Europe makes the U.S. look downright prude. The other day, on some morning television show, there was a woman modeling her collection of nipple clamps and accoutrements, and yes, everything was on full display. Take that, Janet Jackson.

Meanwhile, I had to laugh today at DM (which is like Walgreens or CVS for those viewers playing along from home). There was a little rack of DVDs right by the greeting cards near the checkout counter. There were three choices: one was a kids' cartoon, one was Striptease Aerobics, and the third was a Kama Sutra instructional video. And I thought I only needed toothpaste and deodorant!

Technorati tags: Life in Budapest

Just don't bring in your ice cream!

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:27:44 GMT

Well, after gallivanting around Germany & France, I've been back to hard labor at home, barely leaving the house in the past week and a half. I did escape my laptop long enough today to run a couple of errands, and was rewarded with a funny little sign at the post office. You're not supposed to take pictures either, but I didn't see that sign until I got inside.

Technorati tags: Budapest, funny signs

Reason # 252 that I love living in downtown Budapest

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:55:43 GMT

Some people don't prefer living in the thick of things in a city. The noise can be bothersome, there are hardly any trees, you don't have a yard, and parking is difficult. Others thrive on it. I grew up in the countryside; kids drove tractors to my high school. I fell asleep to the sound of crickets and frogs, the delicate scent of cow manure wafting in through my open window.

Maybe it's the scarring memories of cow poo that turned me into a city person, because now I can't get enough of the hustle of city life. Put me in a busy city like New York or Hong Kong and I start bouncing off the walls like a kid after a birthday party. Budapest isn't quite so chaotic as those cities, but on a typical half hour walk I always find something that just thrills me.

One place in Budapest that I've really come to love is Erzsebet ter, a half block away from my apartment. This is a huge square, with a playground, fountains, a dog park, lots of grass and flowers, sculptures, and a club/art gallery. In the early to mid afternoon, the local cool boys claim one section of it as their personal skate park, and the area around the club fills up with young people and students in the late afternoon and early evening. Sometimes it looks like a lawn at a big university, with people hanging out with their friends on blankets, others working on their tans, and still others pattering away on bongo drums. Every evening the club has live music, usually some kind of jazz. Anyway, the other evening things got started with some swing dancing. For me, this is exactly the thing that I love about city living. As you walk, things seem to just spontaneously happen no matter how long they've been planned.

Technorati tags: Budapest, Erzsebet ter, swing dancing, city life

No guilt here over spending $35 on ice cream

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:54:00 GMT

We had record heat today in Budapest, with temperatures reaching 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

The city's free-cold-water-for-hot-people program has now been expanded for dogs, and there are big plastic bowls of water for dogs next to the water stations. (Enterprising vendors o' crap have also set up their booths next to the water stations, hawking dolls, lace doilies, and other tourist junk).

In other weather-related news, post office workers now have the hours between 1:00 and 4:00 p.m. off for siesta as long as this heat wave lasts.

In my building, our elevator is enclosed in glass on the outside of the building. The elevator itself is metal, so it heats up to sickening levels as the sun pours in through the glass. Our building management has hung up a sign in the elevator asking that those of us on the third through fifth floors send the elevator back to the street level where its cool after we exit. Hopefully this will help; the elevator really does feel like a broiling death trap. God help anyone who gets stuck in there.

Given how f-wording hot it is here, we don't feel the least bit bad or extravagant about spending $35 on four pints of Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Dazs today at Culinaris, aka Extortion Central. That's almost $9 per pint. (Dulce de leche, strawberry cheesecake, and cookie dough, in case you are wondering.) It feels fantastic to lay in front of R2D2 in our skivvies, stuffing our faces.

Technorati tags: weather, heat, ice cream

Weekend Round-Up

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:04:05 GMT

A happy birthday shout out to Kirstin and John! I've known Kirstin and John for ages and while they have many qualities that make them great friends, they have the added benefit of birthdays just a few days apart making it terrifically easy to remember when to say happy birthday. Here's to yous, buckaroos!

Budapest has changed a lot since I started visiting here in 2000. It's become more stylish, more international, more commercial, and more yuppified. It's cleaner too. Many of the buildings downtown have been renovated, and gone are the layers of black grime. In the district V, people even regularly pick up their dog poo (sajnos, this hasn't caught on as much in the other districts yet).

While many of these changes are good, or are at least indicative of a certain kind of progress, it is interesting to hear the perspective of foreigners who lived in Budapest back in the heady days of the early 90s. Michael, a friend of Zoli's from San Francisco, is in town for a few weeks with his wife and four-year-old. Michael studied music in Budapest back then, and, for some crazy reason, fell in love with Hungarian and became fluent in it. During dinner and a walk on Friday night, Michael commented several times on his mixed feelings about some of these changes because he is very nostalgic about his time here as a student.

One of the newest trends in the city is highly imaginative, Frank Gehry-style architecture. Several buildings are going up around town, including this one, that will be built near my apartment:

Very cool, but very, very different. At least it's taking a place of a hideous parking garage and not one of the beautiful buildings in the area.

How cool is this: an Eiffel Tower jumpy thing! The Budapest branch of the French Institute held a two-day street party in honor of Bastille Day. There were three stages, French food and wine, fireworks, and imaginative street processions such as mimes in metallic costumes walking on stilts that were covered with electric blue lights that flashed on and off. My favorite was the booth from a school that makes champagne. Why didn't I know about that place when I applied to uni?

A shot of the fireworks with Parliament in the background:

We watched the fireworks from the Chain Bridge, which is closed to traffic on the weekends in the summer and instead is clogged with artists, musicians, performance artists, fire-eaters, and the like.

Back on our side of the bridge (we didn't stick around the party after the fireworks), we happened across some kind of old car convention:

By this time, it was getting on toward 11:00 and we still hadn't had dinner. Due to some weird luck, we wound up at Il Terzo Cerchio (or as I call it, the third circle of hell) for pizza. I briefly wrote about this restaurant back in January, when I didn't like it. They are known for their pizza, so this time, we stuck to that and had a good meal.

Have you ever seen such a cute Great Dane? We haven't either. That's why we adopted this guy.

Ok, so we didn't really. But we did stop to pet him and take lots of pictures of him because he was so cute and had such a great big head and drooled a lot.

Technorati tags: Bastille Day, Eiffel Tower, Old Fashioned Cars, Great Dane

This is not the 'droid you're looking for

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:20:19 GMT

The last time I was outside of my apartment was around 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. It is now 4:30 p.m. on TUESDAY. Almost certainly it is this lack of contact with the outside world that leads me to post about our new mobile air conditioning unit, or as I like to call it, R2D2. (That, plus there is no way I've been able to explain this thing on the phone to people without visual aids.)

R2 comes up to my mid-thigh in height, can be rolled around from place to place on wheels, and is remote control operated. He is also (did R2D2 have a gender?) multi-functional, and can be used as a fan and a dehumidifier in addition to cooling the air. It's a pretty nifty device and we were glad to have it yesterday, when the weather was in the 90s F plus humid.

But why, my American readers may well ask, would one want an air conditioner on wheels? I've certainly never seen anything like this in the US, but maybe it does exist there too. The reason we wanted it was because this kind of appliance was pretty much our only choice in the matter. Central air conditioning doesn't exist in old buildings, and preservation rules and bureaucracy thwart other alternatives. You wouldn't see a window unit in a beautiful old building, for example, though you would probably see it in cement-block style apartment buildings that are butt-ugly anyway.

One option that we would have liked would have been a split air conditioner. Basically this is an air con that you can mount on the wall and control with a remote. This has the advantage of looking a hell of a lot nicer than R2D2 hanging out in the room with you, but has a couple of serious disadvantages too:

You need to channel the hot air OUT of your apartment somehow, so split air conditioners require that you have piping either mounted on the wall or else you have to excavate your wall and hide the piping inside, plaster it all back up, and then repaint. Not to mention, the outside wall to our apartment is about two feet thick so a gi-normous hole would have to be drilled somewhere... all of which would be much more of a pain in the butt and more expensive than our landlord would likely want to spend.
But let's say all of the above was fine. You still have to tackle The System. More than half of all split air conditioners in Budapest are installed illegally. The reason why? Well, they come with somewhat big, loud, and unsightly units that have to sit outside the building (for example, on your balcony). (The piping from the unit on your wall is connected to this thing.) Since the big, ugly thing sits outside, you have to get a permit from your district to have one. Presumably if you live in a protected building, you're out of luck. But not matter what kind of building you live in, to get a permit you need to obtain the permission of the majority of people in your building to have one. Which means you have a slightly worse chance of getting one than a snowball has in hell.

Even if you do go the illegal, non-permit route, you still have to contend with your neighbors. One of my friends, for example, has split air conditioning and she originally had the outdoor part of it on her balcony. Well, it turns out the the fan noise bothered her neighbor, and things went back and forth between them for a while. Finally, the neighbor, a lawyer, threatened my friend with a lawsuit. She still has the split air conditioner, but had to rig it all out by extending piping down the the basement of the building, where the hot air part is now kept. Cha-ching!

So now that we've learned that the hot air from one's apartment has to blow somewhere outside, would you like to see how R2D2 tackles the problem?

First, he has an accordion-like hose that comes out of his back. This is pretty stretchy, so you can theoretically move him pretty far. The problem is that his electrical cord is only a fraction of the size, so if you wanted to move R2 as far as the hose stretches, you'd need an extension cord.

Second, we stretch this hose over to the window in the corner, where our apartment manager has cut a hose-shaped hole:

Once the hose is pulled outside, then we can put a hood on the end of it, turn on the unit, and enjoy cool and pollen-free air. Ahhhh!

Technorati tags: air conditioning, Budapest, apartment living

You know you've been in Budapest too long when...

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:24:54 GMT

... you think this is perfectly acceptable footwear to wear around the house:

You've really, really been here too long when you accidentally wear this outside of the house.

You should get on the next plane home when you leave the house with your feet looking like this ON PURPOSE.

Luckily I'm only on Stage 1.

Moli, My Hungarian Name

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 08:22:46 GMT

Let's just say that "Molly" isn't a Hungarian name, and is not even all that well known as a name here. I remember when Zoli told his parents my name for the first time that he was met with a certain level of incomprehension, and was asked to spell it. M-o-l-l-y... which they noodled on for a moment before trying it out and coming up with the following phonetic pronunciation: MOE-LEE. Yes, this is also an adjective to describe Cindy Crawford's beautiful face: it is moley.

I do have to explain that this pronunciation makes perfect sense in Hungarian, as words here are pronounced exactly as they are spelled. If I wanted people to pronounce my name correctly, I would have to spell it like this: Máli.

After nearly eight years with Zoli (has it really been that long already?), I've become accustomed to being MOE-LEE when I am in Hungary. I don't really mind it - after all, God knows I can't get my tongue around unfamiliar Hungarian names either. But, well, there is this one little thing about it that bothers me. You could call it childhood scarring mixed with a bit of paranoia.

You see, when I was a kid, my sisters used to call me Moles Anne to tick me off. (My middle name is Anne.) Moles didn't exactly have a positive connotation with me, as they were:

Rather ugly little animals that lived in our barn and yard, and which our barn cats would kill but not eat. Therefore, you were always in danger of stepping on one of their little dead bodies. Gross.
Rather ugly growths on people's skin that have a propensity to turn into tiny festering bags of skin cancer. I personally have a pretty gnarly one under my right arm that I am awfully sensitive about.

So, I didn't like to be called Molesanne for these reasons and now when I hear my name said as MOE-LEE I always experience a brief flashback to being a pissed off little kid. Then I think about getting my mole checked out by a dermatologist. Then I think about getting it chopped off. And then I can finally catch up with the conversation.

All of this babble is to set the stage to tell you about the surprise I felt at being extremely touched by being called MOE-LEE earlier this week. I was hanging out drawing with my friend Sara, who likes dancing, art, and Supertramp, and who will be going to first grade next year. I drew a picture for her of a purple flower and wrote her name on it. Then she drew a picture of a red tulip, looked at me impishly, and wrote my name on it: MOLI.

A Few Words of Thanks!

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:52:57 GMT

Even though we hardly live on the outer edges of civilization, our families and friends do dozens of favors for us that help tremendously.

Thank you Dan, for bringing my new credit card to me next week! Baby needs a new pair of shoes! :-)

Thank you Terri and Darren, for being our own personal post office, and forwarding all the important stuff.

Thank you Terri, for my groovy new ring! I'll try to keep my gesticulations to a minimum so as to make this one last.

Thank you Adrienn, for bringing me the jacket that I left in Dublin. And thank you also for having something in your suitcase that smelled really good, because my jacket smells wonderful.

Thank you Jim, for organizing the Great Jacket Handoff.

Thank you Mark, for bringing us a bunch of mail from the US, including Zoli's new credit card and my groovy new ring. Sorry for the confusion about the ring, by the way!

Thank you Delfin, for bringing me a big bottle of Excedrin. "Excedrin, it works!"

And thank you Mom, for mailing me all kinds of stuff from articles to Ziploc bags to some new summer clothes! Ziploc bags are like gold around here. I clean and re-use them till they fall apart.

While I'm thanking people, I might as well also shout out a thank you to Budapest, or at least to my district, for making free cold water available downtown to anyone who needs it. We've been on "second level heat alert" (whatever that means) here for a few days, and you can see from the picture that there are many grateful partakers of a bit of refreshment.

Feeling Ostalgic

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:15:07 GMT

All those old Cold War movies have planted certain images in the minds of Americans. Bland, block-style apartment buildings loom large, and Eastern Bloc cities are all drab and gray. Boxy, identical cars chug along, belching out black exhaust. The overall impression is oppression and gloom. There are no flowers, and there is no sunshine.

Do you ever wonder what happened to all those old Trabants, Ladas, and Polski Fiats? Well, a few of them are still around. In Budapest, for example, you usually see at least one parked every few blocks. Sometimes expats drive them - I guess it fits in with the idea of living in the wild, wild East. Other people drive them because - why not - the thing still runs, and who really cares if it were to get stolen or totaled?

In Berlin, where ostalgia (nostalgia for the East) has been in vogue, you can toodle around in a rented Trabant of your own while taking a tour. This is high on my list when we go to Berlin next month.

And, back in Budapest, the zöld fiatalok (green young people) have put an old Skoda (a Czech car) to use in promoting their event about the dangers of globalization.

Seeing this car really took me back, but not to the days when I prayed to God to keep humanity from destroying itself in a nuclear holocaust. Rather, it reminded me of Ohio, where this kind of thing was an occasional yard decoration. Perhaps the East and West weren't always so different after all.

Portraiture

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 10:14:59 GMT

Now that my figure drawing class is over, a few of us decided to continue with our instructor, Paula, on learning portraiture. This is actually some of my happiest time spent all week; drawing is such an absorbing task and while it is frustrating when your hand can't always do what your eye sees, it is so, so satisfying when it does. Taking art classes is the best thing I've done for my soul in ages.

Anyhoo, this post is for Chris B., who invited us to a fantastic evening of wine tasting at his apartment in honor of friend and wine writer David's birthday. (Thanks for the evening, Chris!) Guys, just because we left at 4:00 in the morning does NOT mean that Zoli and I will forget those plans we made for touring Burgundy together this fall! You are officially on notice! :-)

I have to admit, I am like a little kid. If you tell me you like a short story that I wrote, I'll write 15 more for you. If you say you like my hair a certain way, I'll wear it like that again. If you think it is funny when I tell a joke in Hungarian, I can tell you five more. So when Chris stroked my ego about my figure drawing, of course I had to post some new pics for him.

Following are are a few drawings from my first two portraiture classes. During the first class, we studied how the head works: how does it work in space, how does it tilt on an axis, what are the proportions of the face, and how the planes of the face work. We ended the evening doing a 40-minute portrait of our model of the evening, Wayne, Paula's husband. In some ways, I think my angle was the easiest. Since I had a profile view, I didn't have to deal with two eyes and figuring out the nose:

Paula says that it would look less cartoon-ish if I would shade the background, but I never went back and did it. Not to be conceited, but I don't think this is so bad for my first portrait ever!

At our next class, we started breaking down the parts of the face and drawing them at different angles. Specifically, we worked on eyes, noses, and ears. Ears are the easiest to draw. Since they are sort of a foreign shape in that they are not something you look at all the time and/or have feelings about, you can look at them and draw them they way they really look:

Eyes and noses, on the other hand, are really hard. First, they make the face, so you pressure yourself to make them look the way they really look if you are drawing a portrait. The problem is, since you see eyes and noses all the time, there is a strong tendency to symbolize and project when you draw them. In other words, rather than drawing what you really see, your subconscious gets in the way and draws either what it thinks it sees, or what it wants to see. Rascally subconscious!

My noses were an unmitigated disaster, but I had some "ok" eyes. They don't necessarily look exactly like the model's eyes, but as eyes go, I think they are alright.

Szexy!!

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:39:47 GMT

I really have nothing to say about this man I saw walking around downtown today; his picture says more than I can possibly put into words. Too bad his feet are cut off in the picture. The black socks and sandals really completed the overall look.

I have only a question: in a city packed with sexy women, why on earth did they pick this guy to advertise a sex shop?

The American Superfly

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:26:48 GMT

If you live abroad, or even if you don't but have friends who were born somewhere else, you inevitably find yourself involved in a conversation where different aspects of life are compared.

Sometimes these conversations are enlightening - they usually start out that way - but more often than not, I find that they devolve into overly passionate arguments where either side finds itself defending something about his or her culture. The funny thing is, in another conversation that same person might be highly critical about the thing that he or she is defending! It is just the context of comparison that seems to bring out the latent patriotism in people.

I really dislike these conversations and try not to get involved in them in the first place. Sometimes they can turn downright nasty. A simple conversation about, say, education can result in a listing of every sin against the world that the U.S. has ever committed. And I'm not saying that the U.S. is blameless, but I think there are better ways to make a point about the education system, such as understanding why it is the way it is.

As a result of these conversations, I find that I can argue either side pretty well. I can see the pros and cons in many issues, and think that neither "side" has it right on most points. Sometimes one side may have it better than the other, but that doesn't mean the other is valueless either.

There is, however, one thing on which I will take a stand and say that it is better in the U.S., and that is the housefly. By better, I mean better for the fly, not better for the person annoyed by the fly. American flies are fast and devious. They divebomb your head and zip away. They land in places where they know you can't do anything, such as your loved one's nose, the middle of a plate of food, or the rim of a wine glass. They fly around a room for half an hour before landing, and when they land, it is some place where you can't reach them, such as the ceiling. Meanwhile, you are dizzy from spinning round and round, following its progress. It's hard to kill the little suckers, and they are so irritating in the process that you can't just ignore them. As soon as they see you are trying to ignore them, they'll fly into your ear, rattle around in there for a second, and then zoom away to the ceiling where they will mock you for a while.

Hungarian flies, on the other hand, are either stupid, lazy, or both. Since we don't have screens, and since we need to keep the windows open or perish from heat and lack of oxygen, we get a fly or two in the house every day. These flies tend to be bigger and fatter than American flies, which may be why they are not as agile. They come in, buzz around, and then land (sometimes with a thud) in place where it is very easy to squash them, such as on a table or in the middle of the window. And they don't even move when they see you coming, magazine in hand. They just sit there and let you blast them into multi-colored, mushy mess. It's almost embarrassing, the lack of challenge that they present. If they weren't such disgusting pestilential creatures, I could even feel sorry for them. They are so slow that I've even slapped them out of the air with very little effort. They fall to the floor, THUD, and are either already dead or so stunned than I can easily dispose of them.

I don't know why flies are so different here, so I think I will chalk it up to the only explanation I can come up with: they must eat a lot of gulyas.

Are days 25 Hours Long Now?

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:29:34 GMT

When the local 24-hour shop closes, what do you do? It seems half the neighborhood is wondering!

This kind of shop, known as a non-stop (remember, in Hungarian "s" is pronounced "sh" so they are called "non-shtop" and I feel like I have a speech impediment whenever I say the word) are ubiquitous in central Budapest. There are two on my block alone.

Most of them are pretty cruddy, selling late night basics like water, soft drinks, cheap beer, toilet paper, and junk food. If you go into one past midnight, inevitably someone is stumbling around in there with his can of beer opened before he even makes it to the cashier's counter.

There are also a handful of supermarkets that are open 24 hours, such as the Rothschilds on the korut near the Oktagon metro station. Zoli and I were shopping in there one night at 2:00 a.m., picking up lots of stuff: water, yogurt, bread, cheese, toilet paper, etc. It was surprisingly crowded, and not with drunks either! Funnily, Zoli's phone rang and it was our friend Mark, calling to see if we wanted to come out with him and his friends to party. It was one of those times where both people thought the other was on another planet: we thought he was weird for calling us at 2:00 in the morning to go out, and he thought we were weird for grocery shopping at such a time on a weekend night! I think we both had a point...

Zoli Sings On Stage!

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:38:26 GMT

I have known Zoli to sing loudly and publicly on two occasions. One was with a Hungarian band on a cruise, where he persuaded them to play Szeme Kek (accents not included) at the Chocolate Extravaganza and where he accompanied them with his loud, if not always in key, vocals. The second time was at the inaugural BUDSUCS show a couple of weeks ago, where he was pulled up on stage by a stand-up comedian. (This is EXACTLY why I never fully enjoy myself at a comedy club.)

A quick word about BUDSUCS. First of all, it stands for Budapest Stand-Up Comedy Shows, and no one, including the organizers, can seem to decide whether to pronounce it Bud Sucks or Bood Sucks. Either way, the driving force behind it is a Hungarian woman named Kinga, who lived in London for a while and developed a liking for stand-up comedy and decided to bring English-speaking comedians to Budapest to do shows. The next show is on June 22, so if you are in town, check it out. The first show was a fun time. (Details here.)

If you'd like to see Zoli in all his singing glory, click here to watch it on YouTube. The video was put together by the BUDSUCS people (it's longish; Zoli is around the 3:15 mark).

Music, Events, Food, Books, and War

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 13:59:27 GMT

Danger Will Robinson, extra long post!

It is a good thing that we like music, because we have had hours and hours of live music directly outside of our apartment this weekend. (From 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday.) The Belvaros Festival (Belvaros is our district) started Friday night and ended last night. Throughout our neighborhood there were concerts, food and drink vendors, arts and crafts, activities for kids, and even a hot air balloon.

One of the concert stages was set up in our square, so we were able to take in the shows from the comfort of our balcony. The variety was huge: smooth jazz, jazz/hip-hop blend, classical, opera, gypsy, ragtime, and so on.

Budapest always has a LOT going on. On any given night, for example, there can be as many as three dozen live jazz acts. Combine this with classical music, dance, theatrical performances, concerts, art installations, networking events, parties, and more and you have a very lively city. Yesterday, we went to three different events. First we strolled around our neighborhood to see what else was happening at the Belvaros Festival. Then, we walked over to the next district, where there was another festival going on at Hajos utca. We wrapped up the day's activities at a wine and cheese festival over near Moszkva ter.

Each event had a distinctly different feel. Since we are smack in the center of downtown, the Belvaros Festival had lots of tourists and "family fun" aspects to it, with at least three tents set up for kids to make different art projects.

The Hajos utca festival was another thing entirely. Hajos is one block away from the Opera House, and perpendicular to Andrassy ut, Budapest's most grand avenue. Like many other neighborhoods in Pest, Hajos utca is slowly being renovated. Interior design shops rub shoulders with trendy cafes, cheap beer halls, fruit-and-vegetable markets, and a gourmet foods shop. The neighborhood is a mix of artsy types, pensioners, and people investing in and renovating properties. The festival reflected this character: as we entered Hajos from Andrassy, there were a couple of women dancing barefoot with those long ribbons that are used in rhythmic gymnastics. I think they were stoned out of their trees and not any kind of "official" act. Further in, there were vendors selling beer for about $1.50 as well as plastic cups of cheap sangria. The crowd grew more alternative, with lots of piercings and Goth dress. Vendors sold t-shirts with skulls, funky jewelry, and second-hand clothes. In the midst of all this, we saw several groups of pensioners sipping on giant cans of beer, chatting and taking it all in.

Fast forward to the wine and cheese festival. This was the kind of event where you pay an entrance fee, pay for a glass, and then pay usually nominal amounts to taste different wines. Some people brought picnic baskets and made a day out of it with friends; others bought gigundous cheese plates or had warm fry-bread topped with sour cream, fried bits of bacon fat, and onions (it was like langos, but the bread was square shaped and thicker). This was by far the most crowded event of the day, and people seemed to be having a good time. Myself, I'm starting to have mixed feelings about these wine festivals. You spend more money than you intend to, wait in lines, get jostled around, and see the same producers and shops that you see at every other wine festival. (That said, we did taste some unique things: one palinka made from the juice of muscat grapes, another palinka made from muscat skins, and a beautiful reserve malbec from Argentina.)

This makes me appreciate Monarchia's tasting events more, because they are always something different, and always informative. We also have tickets to a 7 x 7 event next week, to which seven producers from seven different regions will be bringing their wines.

We did quite a bit of cooking at home this weekend. On Friday, I made patties of ground lamb and veal mixed with garlic, mint, salt, and freshly ground black pepper (the veal was on our butcher's recommendation) tucked into pita halves with romaine lettuce and topped with chopped red onions and a sauce made from yogurt, mashed avocado, and mint. We had a Greek salad on the side, and slurped it all down with a light but flavorful German red.

I spent most of yesterday toying with a coconut cake in the kitchen. I've wanted to make the Barefoot Contessa's coconut cake for quite some time, but when I went shopping for ingredients on Friday, I could not get vanilla extract, almond extract, sweetened coconut, or cream cheese. So, I substituted non-sweetened coconut, vanilla sugar, vanilla beans, chocolate brandy, and some weird Hungo cheese, and the results were actually excellent if I say so myself (Zoli's seconds this motion).

Aunt Dee gave us a bunch of those silicon baking supplies for our wedding, so I used the heart-shaped cake pan. I cut the cake into two layers, and used Substitute-Hungo-Cheese frosting between the layers and all over the cake. I topped the cake with toasted coconut flakes. Too bad I forgot to take a picture! It was lovely, but is now halfway consumed.

Our butcher also convinced us to buy a couple of T-bone steaks on Friday. Neither of us are big fans of T-bones, nor of Hungarian beef for that matter, but we had to admit that these pieces looked perfect. So, after we got home from the wine festival last night I grilled them up on a grill pan on the stove, topped them with caramelized onions, and served them with chunks of potatoes fried with shallots and rosemary. The steaks had been marinating all day in Worcestershire sauce, white wine, mustard, garlic, and sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. We had some raw tomatoes and cucumbers on the side, and enjoyed it all with the zin that Zoli brought home from the Monarchia tasting on Tuesday. With cake for dessert, it was really way too much food to eat at 11:00 p.m., but we stayed up late watching a movie to digest. Nonetheless, I had scary spider dreams all night long.

I've been meaning to post about Library Thing. Chris P. told me about it a few weeks ago, and I've slowly been adding my books to it. Basically, you can use it to list, tag, and review all of the books you read, see who else has similar collections, get recommendations, discuss books, see statistics about your library, and other book-wormy things. It's pretty fun, so I've dropped the book reviews from this blog and am now listing everything there.

My Library

In response to seeing cockroaches in our apartment and in our building, we've declared war on our apartment. Zoli literally scoured every nook and cranny of our place with the vacuum, and our landlord sprayed all the doors, windows, and cracks with some kind of spray that supposedly is ok for people but not okay for roaches. He also set some traps so we can try to see where the roaches are coming from. Since then, we haven't had any, but our apartment seems to be fighting back:

The toilet seat in our bathroom broke, so that now when you sit on it, you are in danger of being flung into the bathtub.
The hot water heater inexplicably turned itself off and drained itself.
When you run water from the tap in the master bathtub, water also starts spritzing out of the shower nozzle.
The bathtub drain is clogged.
The latch on the door of the washing machine broke.
The dishwasher is also on the fritz, leaving lumps of soap all over the place.

It is times like this when I am thankful to be a renter.

Boobs are Hard to Draw and Other Observations

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:18:55 GMT

I went to my last figure drawing class this week, and start portraiture next week. Technically, our last class was last week, but our instructor was kind enough to hold a make up class for those of us who've had to miss a class for one reason or another. Last week, we worked on "tonal studies," which means that we rubbed charcoal all over our papers, used a chamois cloth to even it out, and then drew the model using a combination of charcoal, erasers (for highlights), white conti (for brighter highlights and to draw things out), and blending sticks. The results were interesting - some of the class made excellent drawings - but I didn't feel I had the hang of it. So, I was happy that we did another tonal study during the make up class, where I achieved much better results:

The three of us in the make up class all struggled with our first drawing of the evening, so we also went back to the basics and did a longer exercise where we worked on measuring and proportions. Our instructor asked us to pay attention to our tendencies, the things we do repeatedly that throw off our drawings. Mine are:

Making heads too small
Placing armpits too high
Drawing weirdly shaped boobs
Giving men a more feminine shape and women a more masculine shape (what does that say!?!?!)

Working on measuring is deadly boring, but it is very useful in training your eye.

Thankfully, I am not feeling logy anymore. In fact, I felt better about an hour after writing my previous post. I think it was the joy of making the logy-loogie connection, and getting some nice alliteration out of it too. Anyway, it has actually been a good week. Delfin and Laura from SF were in town and stayed with us one night; it was great seeing them. Zoli took them to a Monarchia wine tasting, where, ironically, he bought a California old vine zinfandel (Monarchia's owner has a winery in Northern California and he was tasting the CA wines).

We also met up with Cindy (she of Breakin' the Law notoriety) at a Xing (formerly OpenBC) networking event, and she introduced us to a wonderful little Hungarian-French restaurant afterward. The networking event was interesting. In San Francisco, you mostly meet people who work in high tech, which is both good and bad. At this event, we met people from all kinds of industries from food importing to a headmaster of a British school. We also met people from at least six different countries.

The Logiest

Thu, 31 May 2007 13:33:47 GMT

Years and years ago, my friend Steve taught me the word logy. We had been out for a big lunch, and after driving back to work, he commented that he was feeling logy. I took this to mean the feeling of sluggishness that you feel after eating a big, heavy lunch such as a cheeseburger topped with blue cheese and grilled onions, and served with thick french fries. After looking up the definition in Merriam-Webster, I now know that my interpretation was only partly correct. Logy means "marked by sluggishness and lack of vitality," but the source could be anything, and doesn't have to be related to eating too much.

I like the word logy because it reminds me of the word loogie, which is "a slang expression used in North America to refer to a mass of sputum that is ejected from the mouth after being expelled from the throat of a person with nasal congestion." I can't imagine anything much more logy than a loogie, though the malaise I've been feeling all week makes me a contender. By the by, malaise can be an indication of malaria or another infectious disease.

I don't know why I feel logy, but I am reasonably certain that I don't have malaria. It is tempting to blame it on my soul-sucking Hungarian classes, but I don't think that's it, either. (Today's class so was bad that two of us left early.) Sigh.

Is the shopping really better in Austria?

Sat, 26 May 2007 11:38:23 GMT

Yesterday Zoli and I did something typically Hungarian: we went shopping in Austria. (A lot of our friends have a Grass is Greener on the Other Side view of Austria, expressing that everything from shopping to salaries are better in Austria. This isn't necessarily the case, but it doesn't stop people from thinking it.)

Melinda generously volunteered to drive the two-and-a-half-to-three hours up to an outlet mall a little bit past the Austrian border. She, Monika, Zoli, and I set out mid-morning and made it to the outlets about half past noon. While I think shopping in Hungary in general is equal to if not better than in Austria, I have to admit that this outlet mall beats the one near Budapest hands down in terms of size, selection, and price. That said, we all finished shopping earlier than we thought, and had a hard time finding things we liked. Let's just put it this way: I loved my nana, but I don't want to dress like her. She was a sharp dresser for her age, but I'm not there yet!!

Zoli and I were excited to see a Leo Hillinger shop at the mall, as well as another wine shop. We picked up a bunch of great deals at the latter, and the shopkeeper at the former directed us to the Leo Hillinger winery nearby for a tasting. The winery was way cool. First of all, it is a contemporary architecture masterpiece. Second, they are a major producer, creating a lot of good quality wines at very, very reasonable prices. Hillinger is also a partner in producing Puriste, a premium vodka made from grain distilled six times with water from the Austrian Alps. If you are a vodka aficionado, seek this out and sip it straight; it is a delight.

Since we were in Burgenland, we decided to try dinner at a heuriger, which are little taverns or gardens that serve local wines and a small selection of food. Typically the food consists of small cold dishes, but the one we went to had a regular restaurant menu. We went to Buschenschank Schandl in Rust, which is a pretty little town on Neusiedlersee, a lake on the Hungarian border. The town is also known as a nesting area for storks, and indeed it seemed that every other house had a huge nest on its roof.

The ride home was eventful only because we got lost of couple of times and had a few spirited debates. I think we were all worn out when we rolled back into Budapest near midnight! Otherwise, the conversation was interesting. Monika had done some intriguing things in her life, having lived in Istanbul for a couple of years, and having spent five weeks with her boyfriend's family in Rio, where she experienced firsthand the cultural mix of the city's rich and desperately poor.

Petty Brushes with Fame

Thu, 24 May 2007 16:38:31 GMT

Budapest is home to two million people, way more than twice the size of San Francisco, yet it feels in many ways like a small town. Everywhere I go, I see someone I know: someone from drawing class, someone from language school, a friend, a bartender, the guy whom I buy vegetables from, or just somebody I know from somewhere. At the wine festival we went to last weekend, I ran into TWO people I know in Budapest. And this festival was in a village an hour away, for pete's sake. So I suppose that given that this is the way Budapest is, there are also frequent celebrity sitings.

For example, a couple nights ago Zoli met Gabor for a beer at the cafe downstairs. Seated outside at a cafe across the walkway was Sandor Csanyi, the hot actor who played Bulcsu in Kontroll, my favorite Hungarian movie. (I've seen three Hungarian movies. One was a contemporary art flick based on Antigone and it was so bad that we stopped watching it after about 15 minutes. The other was Valami Amerika, a pretty funny bit of lemonade.)

Then today, Melinda, Zoli and I were having lunch at Gerloczy. A man sitting near us was tinkering with a camera and seemed to be somewhat interested in our conversation. At any rate, he kept glancing over at us. Finally, as we were starting to discuss the bill, he came over and asked if I am from New York. I said no, and we all talked about where we are from. One topic jumped to another, and we soon learned that we were talking to Stephen Spinder, an accomplished photographer who published a wonderful book of photos of Budapest that we bought a couple of years ago. He has a newer book out now about a Hungarian village in Transylvania, an area he has been visiting for 16 years. An interesting person, to say the least.

We are starting to get alarmed about something. We've now seen four cockroaches in our building, one of which was crawling around in our foyer.

Last night we watched the European League of Champions final at the Taverna (Milan vs. Liverpool). Being an Italian restaurant, it was packed with Italians and Italiophiles. The place went nuts when Italy won, and the funniest thing was that the group - Italians! - even chanted a little victory song in HUNGARIAN. Reemie, you should have been there. I know how much you love watching Italian men hugging and jumping on one another in celebration! :-)

So this is what warm summers feel like...

Wed, 23 May 2007 15:21:33 GMT

It is May, and it is already in the 90s in Budapest. Summers were hot where I grew up, and hot in Washington DC, where I lived for a few years. I've spent the last six summers in San Francisco, however, where it almost never gets hot in the summer. Mostly, the temperatures are mild, in the 60s or lower 70s. I always had a light jacket with me, and I never could go out at night with just short sleeves. Suffice it to say that I've completely forgotten what it is like to have hot weather day and night in and out.

Since the weather is so mild in San Francisco, we didn't have air conditioning. No one did. Even office buildings didn't really use it much, at least not in the way they refrigerate offices on the East Coast. Living without air conditioning changed me; I actually now find air conditioning unpleasant. A little bit of cooling goes a long way for me, and if I have to put on more clothes to sit inside because the air con is too cold, then something is wrong.

Lots of people do not have air conditioning in Europe; we don't either. Partly this is because buildings are constructed differently, and partly because people are more conscious about their energy consumption (and paying for said energy). People who do have it tend to use it minimally. I'm sitting in the living room, with the lights off and the windows open, and while it is warm, it is certainly bearable, almost pleasant. We are thinking of getting a fan, but that is mostly for me because I like white noise when I sleep.

In other news:

I saw another guy wearing a headband today. (A few weeks ago, I wrote about this trend of guys with longer hair wearing headbands). I was standing behind him on the bus and had to give him points for ingenuity. He was distinctly balding on the back of his head, but he used his headband to push his long front hair over the bald spot in back. Voila! A trendy comb-over!

My last figure drawing class was last night. :-( Zoli loved one of my final drawings, but I can't post a picture of it because I don't think it will photograph well. The art school has open studio nights every other Friday, so I think I will continue with it. I also am thinking of taking a still-life pastel class.

My art teacher and her partners have me thinking. They all moved to Budapest and rented an apartment to use for the school. I'm toying with the idea of renting a small apartment to start a culinary club or school. The question is, would I be able to make enough money with it to pay the rent? Some ideas for classes/events:

Making Tarts
Making Vietnamese Springrolls and Dipping Sauces
A Trio of Curries
Mastering the Basics of Hungarian Cooking
Comparitive Wine Tastings (e.g., best values under 2000 forints, Hungarian sauvignon blancs, comparing Hungarian sauv blancs to French and Austrian SBs, etc.)
Food and Wine Pairing Basics
Cocktails and Appetizers
Big Night: An Italian Feast

TGIF

Fri, 18 May 2007 06:19:48 GMT

Well, it is pentek here in Hungary, known as Friday by those of us who speak an easy language! (There is an accent over the first "e" but I am lazy to fire up MS Word to type it with an accent and then copy it over here.) Between classes and social life, I haven't had much time to post recently. It all started with the bankers' party last week, and has continued on to a dinner party we had the other night, which led to a late night conversation about love, relationships, and whatnot. But what I really want to quickly talk about (I have to leave for school in half an hour and I haven't showered yet) are those little odds and ends that I post from time to time.

In my art class, we have had a model who fainted, a pregnant model, a model with a mass of giant curly hair, a male model with lots of tattoos, and finally, a really skinny model last night with hairy armpits. And no, my dear American readers, she was not Hungarian, she was Australian. Contrary to stereotypes, I don't know any Hungarian women with hairy pits, at least none under the age of 40.

In other art news, my art teacher was just filmed in a Pepto Bismol commercial that will be airing in the US and Canada this summer, and another one during the holidays. The theme is American Idol-ish, so if you see it, my teacher plays the casting director. If any of you are tech savvy, maybe you could put it on YouTube?

Yesterday there were people dressed up like giant fruits and vegetables in my square. I don't know why. I also saw a senior citizen listening to an iPod Shuffle, and a woman wearing three-inch heels with extremely pointy toes. The interesting part about her shoes was that their design was like those Chuck Taylor Converse tennis shoes.

To make our district prettier, residents had the option to obtain flowers for free to put in their windows and on their balconies. The district is also providing the shot for the HPV virus vaccine free of charge. (Each district is run separately, and each also has its own mayor.)

I know a guy who is moving to Moscow and who is very excited because his taxes will be 13%. Here in Hungary, he is paying 54%. Presumably for balcony flowers.

Ok... as Bridget Jones would say, "Must fly!!!"

Back to School, Part II

Wed, 09 May 2007 15:49:26 GMT

Yesterday was a day o' learning, with my Hungarian class and my drawing class. Drawing was fun last night; we had our first male model. He had a nice big nose (get your minds out of the gutter) and a tattoo, and put himself into all kinds of great angular poses. This was great because we did several exercises where we looked for triangles in the body and in the imaginary planes surrounding the body, and then drew them. We could draw only triangles, and the results were really interesting. It's cool to see how you can coax out the shape of a figure by simply sticking to triangles. Here's an example:

After class, Melinda and I picked up Zoli and we went to dinner at La Fontaine to celebrate her new job. (Thanks Melinda!!) She is passing my resume on to her recruiter as well (hearing my mother breathing a sigh of relief from here). La Fontaine is styled like a Parisian bistro, but the food is more upscale and the prices reflect that. However, women and children eat for half price on Tuesdays, so our damage wasn't as bad as it would have been on a regular night. We had foie gras with a Tokaji sauce, a salad with goat cheese mousse on toast, scallops with a port reduction, and a "seafood composition" with salmon, tuna, and prawns. Zoli and I love the owner. We've only met him once, and that was a couple of months ago, but he remembered us right away and greeted us like old friends. After all, we did enjoy armangac with him well past closing the last time we were there! I guess we are not that forgettable.

I was up early again today (there are no two ways about it: waking up at 7:30 flat out sucks) for class. We had a different instructor today and she was fantastic. She didn't speak much English, but her enthusiasm and sense of humor kept us all engaged for the full three-and-a-quarter hours. Today's lesson was about food and shopping, so naturally this was a rockstar lesson for me. I am pretty good with food words if I say so myself! :-) We also worked on bigger numbers and some conjugations.