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it occurs to me that the fundamental problem of our time is that we all truly believe all the way to the tips of our toes that we are right. which in and of itself wouldn’t necessarily be so bad, were we able to realize that this does not in fact mean that anyone who disagrees with us is wrong.

nature’s reminder of the joys of photo processing (but only, of course, after reminding you of the wonders of snowy arboretums, planned but unfortunately forgotten until there wasn’t enough daylight left to catch a train

can’t stop listening to theloneous monk’s first recording. not because it’s good, but precisely because it isn’t. great men start somewhere. gives hope, that.

every now and again I like to imagine that the concept of ‘forbidden’ didn’t exist until we ran into the germans

typical? maybe not. but had I not been exactly where I was exactly when I was I would have missed it all – I’m definitely taking it to mean I’m doing something right ; )

saturday, not only do I get an eyeful of machine heaven as the dakar series budapest-romania warms up at the end of my street, I’m treated to twenty minutes of overhead stunt flying – barrell rolls right on the deck, vertical stalls swept seamlessly into laws-of-physics-defying acrobatics… in a turboprop!

sunday morning, start of the dakar series budapest-romania central europe rally. didn’t see any ‘71 vw beetles, but felt a six year old at christmas all the same ; ) (really want to know why the toyotas had exhaust vents pointed directly into the navigator’s window…). must have picked the right spot, cause the bikes and quads all chose the corner I perched on to pull celebration wheelies

sunday afternoon. heading home, waiting for a bus on damjanich, 16 men and women on horseback randomly pass by

out the bus window towards the north end of city park I spot tents and crowds and hop off to see what’s up. thinking it must be critical mass (bicycle event) related, as that starts somewhere at 4, but the sudden sound of machine guns shoves that idea right out my head. an unmistakeable roar fills the air and I look up to spot 4 guys standing on the outside rails of a police helicopter. it circles directly above me once then veers left to drop them right into the middle of the crowd.

some days, life is just perfect.

I can understand that people feel the need to express their views. I cannot understand how they can’t see the irony of dousing a flame of international cooperation and hope to further the cause of freedom. Of using violence to restore a culture committed to the core to the peaceful path.

What mystifies me even more is this. It’s not working. It’s having exactly the opposite effect. Nationalism in China has hit record highs, fueling the previously lagging power of the CCP. Yet still people attack.

I wish I understood why Tibet has become such a token cause. It’s no more to do with freedom than anywhere else in China. Mind, I have no idea what the Dalai Lama would do if he were miraculously returned, to power or otherwise. All I know for sure is that until 60 years ago the only education, at all, in the entire country, was bestowed upon monks. Women were, and still are, forced into arranged marriages. Maybe that’s what Tibetans want, but it doesn’t sound particularly fun to me. But I suppose ‘Dump Education, Marry Young’ doesn’t look as good on a posterboards.

When I travelled the Amdo regions I had the chance to talk with people, ask them what they wanted for their own futures, what the solution could be. Overall the answer was that they simply didn’t know. It was from them I learned of the problems under religious rule. I certainly didn’t get that part from mainstream media. Why would I, it’s not what people want to hear. Sure, they want freedom. But so does anyone in China who’s managed to unbrainwash themselves enough to realize they don’t have any now. Why on earth do people think Tibetans deserve it any more than anyone else?

For the past few years the CCP had been digging their own graves. They do this well. What started as open elections in a few problematic villages will spread. The only thing really keeping them in power was people’s beliefs in them, their hope for change within the system. 1.1 billion people taking issue with the smaller problems of their government, like corruption and rigged elections, is potentially a good thing for change. But instead of taking cues from the people tirelessly, dangerously working to change things from within we once more rush into the fire with idealistic cries and muck everything up. In response to our global protests, nationalism is rampant. Ordinary people are in defense mode as they watch their countrymen and woman attacked by foreigners while carrying a symbol of hope. Meanwhile the government, free to allow the news focus to remain on Tibet related pr stunts, quietly arrests more and more mainland activists to keep them quiet during the games.

I’ve been struggling with a similar problem in regards to Kosovo. People keep talking about freedom without noticing the concurrent headlines about the trial of Ramush Haradinaj, former prime minister of the region, for war crimes and genocide. He was recently aquitted of war crimes charges, not for innocence perhaps so much as what the NYT reports as probable witness intimidation. Everything I read leads me to believe that for the years the Albanian rebels operated in the area they hounded Serbians without reservation. And we’ve just handed them their own country.

Why? Probably because an oil pipeline runs smack through the middle.

I’m sure that’s not the complete picture either. I need to learn more. And I’m likely currently biased by the Serbian first hand accounts I heard on my visit. Or the simple fact that the whole thing is being run by Albanians, only they didn’t secede from Albania. But when I’m asked what I think, my answer isn’t to blindly raise my fist in the air for freedom, even though I’m personally rather fond of the concept, but to ask if the questioner has any information I don’t yet. And whether he does or not, to break out the google when I find myself with a spare moment or two.

I read eswn for translations, to hear what actual Chinese people are saying. What effect our actions have on the world stage. I don’t think people truly realize the extended effects even small actions have. How can they when the western media, lacking access to real information, publishes only partial stories. Yet we in the west have a luxury China doesn’t have, we can read all these lovely bits without bypassing the net nanny.

It’s so easy to get drawn into supporting an ideal for the ideal’s sake. Yes, the world needs more freedom. Yes, the world needs to better define and protect human rights. But, like most things in life, a little thought on the matter first never hurts.

while I have travelled around this country and into its neighbors, after six months I haven’t quite made it to the wednesday/saturday market 200 feet down the street.

thanks to a couchsurfer on a szentendre tour, I have remedied this situation. should I ever be in need of cheap clothing or pickled vegetables, I now know exactly where to go  ; )

I leave tonight for Budapest, so that I can be up early to pick up a rental car, to pick up Caley at a bus station in the middle of nowhere, to head… to Serbia. I’ll be surfing, thus with locals, and they don’t think there should be a problem. Even given the current frustration of Serbs over the recognition of Kosovo (Croatia, Bulgaria, and now even Hungary have just joined the chorus of voices in their favor). We won’t be in Belgrade, or Kosovo for that matter, but Novi Sad should be interesting on a number of levels. Since we’ll be properly mobile (get me, I’m driving around the Balkans!!) I’ve a feeling we’ll pop into Bosnia as well. Wish me luck  : )

Spiderman is in love with the fairies. But the fairies hate spiderman. He climbs the mount everest because that’s where the fairies live. the witches turn him into a pig. spiderman didn’t know that he was a pig. the fairies were having a picnic on a marsh. they were listening to music. spiderman went there. the fairies were scared. the fairies changed him into a homework board. the students went there and wrote on the board : stupid. the end.

- ék as an ending means they ___

ék = to split apart

I got all excited, thinking I’d found an insight into the linguistic motivations behind the cultural phenomenon of hungarians kicking each other when they’re down, until I realized that usually the -ék has no accent (-ek). thankfully, my generous friend salvaged my ego with this ::

“the ‘é’ is just an additional vocal, saving the hungarians pronounce two not matching consonant“

theory saved :: to pair unmatching hungarian bits, you must split them apart : )

wandering home after a night in budapest I found my lovely old neighbor wrangling her shrubbery. beautiful yellow flowers blanketed the dusty yard as she struggled to hold tree branches down whilst attacking them with pruning shears.

a little slow on the uptake, while wondering if I should dump my ginger ale and overnight bag before or after offering assistance, the aforementioned branch swings up as she bends down to gather trimmings and smilingly present them to me. I mime ‘really, for me’ in my polite / making sure said object is actually a gift way. she giggles and rushes into her house, returning moments later with a small pottery vase filled with blossoming sunshine. in case I didn’t entirely get the message, she returned to the house to drag out another example.

I use the opportunity presented by replacing half a dozen vases to put down my stuff, leaving my door open to avoid “I’ve accepted a gift then walked away without ado” miscommunication. hands free, I rejoin her under the tree and mime my intended offer. “jo, jo, jo!” I’ve no idea what aesthetic model she had in her mind but it was certainly vivid; she sheared twenty years off her appearance by the swift movement of her determined shears. job done we collected the remnants, which she ran off to present to another neighbor, a less mobile lovely old lady who’d been watching us quietly from a chair just inside her door.

chores done, my lovely star lady proceeded to walk me around the courtyard pointing out every single flowering blossom, no matter tiny or obscure. we got into a discussion of bulbs, and she brought out another example from what I can only imagine is a house entirely covered in flowers, this time to snag some of my nicely loamy store-bought soil with the world’s daintiest white plastic spoon. I showed her my own bulbs, still in their packaging, and she left after making me promise I’d plant them today. a smidge of dirt remains under my fingernails as I type even now.

I can’t honestly say which pleased me more – the childlike joy in sharing spring, or the well of hope produced by watching a 90 year old woman skipping.

late one night above the lights of buda, my friend posed a question that a number of hungarians seem to ponder, belying a unique ability to look directly at their own geographically influenced patterns of thought as though they were not indeed a part therein. to make comparisons, notice contradictions, and generally be more selfculturally aware than just about anyone I’ve ever known.

we all bear evidence of our civilizations. on occasion we can even catch a glimpse of our selves out of the corner of an eye. others still compare general cultural traits (loud americans…). but it’s a rare westerner indeed who routinely checks his own thought process for traces of ingrained perspectives.

a brilliantly dry wit, the number one justification of my draw to hungary. this new sort of question is undoubtably number two.

I’ve just gotten back from the doctor where I enjoyed my book rather a bit longer than necessary due to not yet knowing that hungarian queues aren’t called by the staff but by the participants. new phrase to learn “who do I come after?”

while attempting to recover from yet another bout of flu / recent scraping of my eardrum I ran across this really cool brain trickery that I feel the need to pass along. 20 bucks to whomever can explain to me why this works ::

visual mayhem

Leaving a friend’s flat this afternoon I saw a truly miniscule dog. in a pink and orange sweater. despite my usual loathing for large rats posing as canines I couldn’t help but smirk at this one, which broadened to a full on smile upon seeing its rather matching owner, a little old lady of the glowing knowing can’t knock down type slowly working her way down the hall. she looked at me, returning my smile, then cocked her head and said without question,

“You’re not Hungarian.”

I haaaaave the iiiiiiiiiiinnnnnterneeeeeeeet !!!

no, it’s not t-com. still wondering if they’re ever gonna call, really. but vodaphone just came out with an unlimited data plan wireless modem and I jumped on it. and miracle of all miracles, it only took a week to sort out. of course, the modem finally arrived on the very day the school fixed the wireless network, which is coincidently the day I lost t-com cell signal in my house (and the day before a storm blew my just-adjusted satellite dish out of alignment), so really everything worked out perfectly ; )

trip report to follow, but for now a photo or two from last week’s sojourn to dienten, austria ( a perfect little town just south of salsberg)

weeks later (in the hungarian universe this is timely, I believe), I was surprised with a birthday party tonight. on a number of levels, really, and I must admit to feeling rather unworthy of the generosity bestowed upon me this evening.

I walked into my little jazz internet cafe without fully knowing. at the big table in the corner, surrounded by handwritten happy birthday banners, a number of co-teachers and gabi’s lovely girls stood and began to sing happy birthday to me. the barista cracked a smile as I blushed to my toes and received my glass of champagne and rather a lot of hugs and double kisses.

I successfully avoided the presents for a while as I had my laptop with me and could finally show Kata, our devoted art teacher, the pictures I took to document her name day (as she so lovingly documents all her classes). I was however caught into the toast, which after a fashion turned rather sweet, if slightly ungainly as non-native speakers struggled perhaps with english, perhaps with unfamiliarity of expressions of such gratuitous kindness to a near stranger. they are my friends, in a way, but like everything in hungary things progress slowly. yet I felt tonight received and welcomed for the first time as a friend.

I drew it out a bit, the opening of the presents when time no longer allowed me leeway. hidden under kata’s paisley scarf a pile of packages and loose objects awaited. though the teachers bought me a spectacularly soft plum cardigan (and laughed when, finding it so ‘me’ that it must already be mine. I checked if for holes, as all my other sweaters poses more than the usual four) and an rust coloured paisley scarf I found oddly suitable, and gabi presented me with a beautiful, handmade-paper-covered book by her favorite hungarian author, it was her children’s presents that left me rather speechless. it usually is, isn’t it.

boro (maybe 7?), in addition to the brightly coloured banner, had painted a bottle in red and black to use for a vase, or perhaps as was suggested some homemade palinka. she had also wound a paper clip into a flower and strung it on a blue ribbon for a necklace. she admittedly giggled when at my attempt to put it on immediately I found it didn’t entirely encircle my neck. so we tied it around my wrist instead. eszter (ten, I think), creator of the medieval calligraphy banner laid across the table, had fastened a handmade wool flower, green with an outline of orange, to her handmade black paper box. Sure, neither knew how to spell my name properly, writing instead the half english half hungarian transliteration ‘Any’ (in hungarian the sound of my name would be ‘Eny’) but I found this somehow appropriate and charming. I grinned conspicuously and thanked her copiously, only to once again bring laughter as she pointed out that there was in fact something in the box.  I opened it to reveal a handmade wool necklace, on yet another too short string so she tied it around the other wrist. Real laughter burst forth as I went to put the box down carefully again only to be informed that I really ought to look inside again. A pair of rolled wool earrings (a technique I’ve yet to see anywhere else, I’ve eyed frequently, and must really learn to do) in lovely oceanic blue and green found a home in my ears, even if I couldn’t manage to close the clasp on the first try.

it was the noticing that took me by surprise. though some of us had talked about heavy or lighthearted things, I never thought they really gave me a second glance. I didn’t realize so many of them had been learning me as carefully as I’d been learning them.

merriment ensued, with the help of champagne, and even as some had to leave to tend to their children others arrived knocking at the windows and generally enjoying one silly moment after another. gabi taunted me with the hungarian tongue twister I enjoy not being able to wrap my brain around and the girls and I swatted and played even as we all discussed philosophy and cultural differences and the dramas at Agy Tanoda. in the midst of this beautiful chaos I realized eszter (an incredibly gifted artist) was writing something along the top of her banner. I’d really no idea whether she was doodling and there was no other paper, which seemed a shame but it’s her creation to do with as she wishes, but as she crossed the table, appearing to write one or two words per sheet, my interest and curiosity grew.

perhaps it’s the changes this country has begun to make in me, maybe I’m just getting old. there are times sentences are said, praise lauded, that I don’t believe a word no matter who the source, just as at times I choose to accept it regardless because it’s what I need to hear. when gabi, whom I trust perhaps more than any other individual in this entire country, called me her best friend, the best foreign teacher Agy Tanoda has ever seen, I chose to accept the former as good natured exaggeration (admittedly I did literally raise an eyebrow) and simply completely ignore the latter. yet children are different. they may hint towards inheriting the traits of their parents, they may scheme and berate, but they do so more often than not without true guile or pretext. they may claim a thousand reasons for failure to turn in homework, but they know full well you’re not going to buy it for a penny, and they may praise you to the heavens but it’s in my experience always accompanied with a certain lilt of a smile and so timed that there’s no confusion that it’s meant to gain favor. (I could of course be wrong, about all sorts of things, but at this juncture I choose not to entertain that possibility.) it is, with children and perhaps with adults, the most spontaneous utterances that hold the greatest portion of honesty. and eszter, though wise beyond her years, is still a child.

finished, she looked up, saw me watching, and simply said it was ok for me to read it :

“If you are smiling, we are smiling too. If you are with us we are happy, Any.”

though I’ve ordered t-com (a division of t-mobile) internet service and the first guy has come to set up the line…. they’ve run out of modems.

it will therefore be no surprise that I’m not updating, nor will I be particularly available online in any way shape or form, for a while still. can’t even use my old wireless net cafe, as the old barrista has vanished and the new one doesn’t seem to know the password ; )

some photos from a cemetery walk up in the gallery…

hopefully I’ll be a bit more reachable in a few weeks when I wander stateside for the holidays…. hungary being hungary, I bet the modem will show up the day before I depart : )

I can rebuild a motorcycle, rewire a boat, build a house, but apparently I cannot warm my home without setting myself on fire.

The landlady came over with her son today to turn on my heaters. Clunky beige gas affairs that admittedly had me a little squeamish since occupancy. The son turned on the kitchen one with little ado, and we discussed at length which of the two heaters, positioned within two feet of each other, one in each room, would be better. As the kitchen one heats more quickly with less noxious scents it’s first choice. Unfortunately, while the living room version starts with a little push button, the kitchen model requires a match.

Perhaps we laughed a bit too much, the crazy landlady and I, over our amusing mimed conversations, perhaps I should have watched more carefully, or trusted a bit less. The son explained the procedure, in English, and I knelt down in my grey fleece bathrobe and fuzzy slippers determined to learn. We had a bit of a giggle the first time when I didn’t know to hold down the gas knob after lighting and it went immediately out. So, turn on the gas, light the match, hand back on the knob, stick my other hand into the bottom and

whoosh, all the gas flowing while I’d lit the match ignited in a puff of orange, vanishing instantly as my left hand came off the knob with the realization that I’d just set my right hand on fire.

“Well, that wasn’t right. I just set myself on fire,” I observed while running said hand under cold water at the sink, laughing over the complete absurdity that is occasionally me. The second time I do something, no problem, but bloody hell the first time I’m a hawaiian building an igloo.

Upon reflection, I should probably not have continuously depressed the gas flow button while dicking around with the match. Upon further reflection, the landlady’s son probably could have pointed that part out to me before I burned all the little blonde hairs off my hand, though it was later revealed to me that hungarian men on the whole prefer their women hairless. I suppose that’s one way to go about it.

The landlady kept smelling my hand, and resolutely refused to let me near the heater again. I did try to convince her; I’m not fond of giving up and, lesson learned, I’m pretty sure I could get the pesky thing started this time. Unfortunately it will have to wait, for as much as I want to try I’m thinkin at this point I should probably not be allowed matches without adult supervision.

I set myself on fire today. Really, how often does one get to say that.

It has been told to me by a source whose reliability I’ve not entirely sussed out that the teachers are getting pulled into offices one by one and pressured into revealing gossip. Who said what about whom. Working on delineation, but it does seem to fit with recent observations…

No one’s even pretending facts are involved in any way, shape or form. ‘They’ have simply become aware that there is a growing problem, which is of course under discussion around the teachers room, as all school related problems naturally are, and want to know who thinks what without the burden of, you know, honesty.

So, perhaps communism isn’t so much dead in this particular corner of the country.

In less ridiculous news, took a fantastic wander around the roman ruins on monday. though the barracks lay behind a closed fence, the 15,000 spectator ampitheatre’s open for anyone to meander on through, and of course the aqueducts, well, they’re just hangin out on the side of the road.

Pics soon. Really  ; )

I’m hanging out in Budapest with a Viennese, a couple of Hungarians, a Belgian lad, a Brit, and assorted few from other countries, speaking a variety of different languages, and….

there is simply nothing odd about this.

I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t part of the couchsurfing phenomenon. because in new york city, I was hanging out on a regular basis with a phillipino bloke, a variety of frenchmen, a brit here and there, some indians, and a rather lot of germans.

amusingly, couchsurfing has now made the new york times. oh la la. the article’s not bad; they even opened with neil. neil! brilliant. see for yourself

In other news, my art skills seem to have taken a rather terrible plunge for the worse. It took a full fifteen minutes to attempt a drawing of a dog for picture bingo for my 1st graders tonight, and in the end it looked a lot more like cujo than clifford.

On the up side, after three weeks of gentle prodding, I’ve managed to procure the english textbooks (used by the the hungarian english teachers) of almost every grade, so I’ve almost, almost got an idea of what these lovely children have already learned. miracle upon miracle, I truly feel I’ve just won an olympic gold that’s how heroic this task seemed.

when writing a curriculum for 8 grades with varying levels one must remember to disregard logic completely and fly entirely by the seat of one’s linguistic pants. I’m fairly sure the biggest hit in last week’s ‘find someone who’ game (in which students must wander around asking such stimulating questions as ‘do you like the colour blue’ and ‘can you swim’) was the query ‘do you eat monkeys’ which I threw in for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever.

hanging from the ceiling of an open garage down the street from my house this afternoon was a fish a full head taller and almost twice as wide as the average human.

Perhaps escaping flying spindles and blades, I saw an inordinate number of insects on my meander this afternoon :: a paper brown praying mantis, a lizard of some sort moving entirely too fast for accurate classification, and a veritable plethora of various bees.

I’ve no idea if every monday will be Szentendre Mowing Day, but this one certainly was. All over town, on sides of roads, in front of businesses, and even in some private homes came the whirrs of weed whackers and sit-downs throwing up the scent of freshly cut greens. I say greens because the lush lawns, so lovely at a distance, on closer inspection reveal themselves rather full of weeds.

My initial immersion into this country has perhaps a lot in common with the greens phenomenon. From a distance, I could be living in any suburb in America – tidy houses, manicured lawns, nice cars parked round. Upon closer inspection…..

When in Mexico or China, walking down any street provided constant reminder of my foreignness. There is something strange about having to remind ones self on a regular basis that one is in fact inhabiting another country. I’d no idea until now how greatly my internal mindset relies on external visual cues.

Then again, it could simply be that, as in Manhattan, I find myself engaged in a near constant battle to keep my decorations stuck to the walls.