Monthly Archives: January 2009
in a moment of guilt, I’m scraping together what bits and pieces of thoughts I’ve tossed about then immediately forgotten as I wander about this city…
I’ve just come back from a typical budapest celebration. they closed the road along the danube for sewer work, so bicyclists took advantage of the situation to call for an impromptu picnic on the suddenly empty road. which basically meant lots of people with one pant leg rolled up hung out with lots of people they already know and ate some muffins.
Guy wandering about the divider of Ullui u. every Friday selling porn.
My landlord’s representative’s representative might have been courteous enough not to check the money right in front of me, but when she left without her laptop case and I went to see if I could catch her on the stairs, catch turned into the operative word as I found her half a flight down, book on the ground, fingering the cash ; )
Guy hanging around the exit of the blue line metro stop, looking for all the world like he’s waiting for someone, holding up a dress as though an identifying marker. Abruptly he turns on his heel and walks up to the 4/6 tram line.
“They are interested in things in this discovery channel sort of way.” (unattributed Hungarian)
“I don’t listen to that kind of music at all, but god I love that band.” (unattributed american traveller)
Either a frenchman fluent in hungarian or a hungarian with a french accent in english came up to me on Andrassy and asked where to find the nearest strip club
Late one night, preparation for a parade of protest has 8’ metal barriers along the Andrassy sidewalk and an army of trucks clearing out the towing notice illiterate. Old, greying man stood in front of #60, smoking a cigarette, arms folded, overseeing the situation, looking entirely too natural, given the geography…
Young lady on the metro today scooched over so I could sit down. That’s a first. Not sure if I’m going winter crazy, but it seems that Hungarians might be getting more pleasant. Either that, or I look so miserable that it’d be no fun to kick me. ; )