The new blog

The new blog actually seems to be working, so feel free to check it out:

www.laurenenelvilag.blogspot.com

Six Months Later

It is six months after I last promised to start blogging again.

I think this blog is done. I am not saying that I will never blog again. Still, I think I will close the cover on Lauren in Budapest. It's time for a new page in my life.

Thank you to everyone who read this blog, commented, made me feel like in some way my thoughts and photos and ramblings were helpful to you. Thank you to this blog itself, for all the great and varied ways its existence provided me with catharsis, processing, closure, reflection, celebration, memory, and more. Most of all, thank you to Budapest, this funny, heart-wrenching city that took a girl and carved her into a woman.

I never could have done it without you, BP.

How to make a happy moose

So, I know that I haven't blogged in a long time. Once, for something rather traumatic, months ago, and with a few months in front of that. And I miss blogging! Part of the reason is how damned busy I am this year. Part of the reason is that my new-found love of exercise leaves me with significantly less time sitting in front of my computer. Part of the reason is that I have so much "blogging backlog" floating over my head, and it's intimidating!

So. Sorry. But the stuff I once promised to write about? Paris, Copenhagen, that sort of stuff? I'm probably never going to write about it. What I'm going to try to do is to write short vignettes, more often. Much more often? One can hope. 

I went to Dublin this weekend. It was lovely, relaxing, and delicious. Really delicious! I ate so much food.

On Sunday I was walking about and I passed this store. I saw this window display: scones, muffins, cute pumpkin cookies. But one thing in particular caught my eye.

I went inside and asked the girl working there what those things next to the pumpkins were.
She replied, "Maple Cinnamon Pecan Bars."
My eyes widened. "I'd like one of those, please."
She wrapped it in a paper bag and charged me. Then she asked if I wanted a carrier bag.
I laughed. "No, thanks. I'm going to eat it!" She laughed, too.

Imagine pecan pie, but thicker, perched atop a rich, buttery square of cinnamon shortbread. It was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. My teeth sunk into that first bite, and the clouds parted and angels sang sweet songs. I almost cried. It was perfect.

The moose approves.

I have absolutely no right to write this

A few months into my first year teaching here in Budapest, a new teacher started at my school. He was a little bit strange, but also nice, so we became relatively good friends in that fast expat, kids-at-camp sort of way. We didn't work together, just at the same school, so our interaction was purely social. Over the course of the next year, he became a pretty good friend. We hung out in groups on the weekends, he got me onto the correct bus after too many drinks on an occasion or two, we talked, he came to my dinner parties, ate my food and played with my rat.

I moved to Spain and we stayed in touch. He became a manager for the program I currently work for, and was instrumental in my eventually returning to Hungary as a Spanish teacher. Meanwhile, I heard rumbles that the power had gone to his head and he was acting irrationally, particularly to female colleagues.

When I arrived back to Hungary, everything between us was as it had been until he found out I was living with Anna. The two of them had pretty intense issues, both personal and professional. After this discovery, he quickly came after me, professionally and even physically menacing me. I was shocked, confused, and hurt. I reported him to our program director, and he very soon thereafter quit the school and left Hungary. I couldn't imagine what had happened to this person I had thought I had known.

Today I found out that what had happened was that he was terminally ill. He did not tell anyone about this, but when he went home he spent several weeks in the hospital. Then he returned to Hungary and his flat here without telling anyone from the school.

Every expat, in moments of vulnerable honesty, will tell you that their worst fear is to die alone and not be discovered for weeks, for their family to have to travel to another country to tidy up their affairs days and days after the fact.

He was found a few days ago. He hadn't been gone long. His family is on its way now, and the school is struggling to find a way to honor the legacy of someone who left under such difficult circumstances.

I wish he could have reached out more, and we could have known what was happening to him to cause these fundamental personality changes. I wish that I had been a better friend. I wish that we had made amends. I wish he had died at home with his family instead of alone in a foreign city. I wish so many things, and I don't know how to react to this news. I did not cry, and I do not feel anything I could truly define as sadness. What I feel is a deep, profound regret. It's worse, really.

Over a month

I started well this year, and blogged a lot! Now, I haven't blogged in over a month. I still have to write about my trips to Paris, Copenhagen, Bratislava, Sofia, and Graz. I have to write about all the nonsense that has been going on at work, the joy that my students bring me, and my conflict when viewing these things together. I have to write about my friends and how amazing they are. I have to write about confusing and exciting feelings that stress me to no end. I have to write about my new journey towards fitness, the hours spent at the gym, and how that is changing my body and life. I have to write about the things I have done and seen. I have to write about my life.

And yet I don't want to. I will write about my trips, and soon. I will write about some of the adventures I've had. I might even write about my job and my new fitness addiction. But the other things are mine. I want to put them in little glass balls and hide them away somewhere safe, because they are fragile and magical.

I've been so busy. So busy. Running around back and forth, working like a slave, going to the gym, attempting to maintain a social life. I stay up too late every night, grabbing little bits of happiness from the miracle of the internet.

I have decided to not travel in July. I won't work, I won't study, I won't spend the four weeks flinging myself from one place to the other and exhausting myself in the pursuit of novelty. I may take a short trip or two to visit friends, but otherwise I am going to sit in Budapest and get work done and relax. I am going to enjoy my first Hungarian summer, and I couldn't be more excited.

And over the summer, once the school year ends and reports are handed in, I will write. Because I do miss writing.

Robbed!

So on Friday night I went out dancing with a girlfriend.  And I had a lot of fun, until my purse got stolen.  Now, when your purse is stolen from three inches from your hand in the ten seconds it takes you to order a drink, and the phone is already disconnected when you call it a minute later, you can only assume you have been robbed by a pro.  So, while my friend freaked out, I was rather calm at the moment.

The next day I got up super early and headed back to the island, where the club was.  I combed through the bushes, and even gave my flatmate's phone number to some homeless guys who were doing the same, asking them to call me and promising a reward for my ID.

Still in my party gear, I then went and waited for the bus.  Two dudes started to sort of harass me, and I snapped at them that I had been robbed, and demanded a bus ticket.  Mollified, they actually gave me a bus ticket, and then turned friendly and non-creepy enough.  I guess it's easy to pick on the girl in a sequined dress at seven in the morning.

So the next step was canceling my Hungarian bank card, which Anna helped me with.  Then it was off to the police station to file a report, which I was able to do myself.  Actually, the male police officer at one point had to go ask his female colleague exactly how to say "sequin" in Hungarian, which I found amusing.  I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't know everything!  After that, a new phone.  Then going to the bank to order a new bank card, and last of all heading to immigration for a new residence card, which, as usual, was a nightmare.  The only good thing was that Balint pointed out that we needed new locks on our door and was able to change them out for us.  It's good to have a handy person around!

I really recommend you don't get your bag stolen.  I mean, it could have been worse: it was only a small bag with some essentials in it, so I still have my passport and all my other cards.  But, really, this has been one annoying, expensive, week-long hassle.  So hold onto those bags while you're out dancing, ladies!

Fluffy Boys

Laying in bed, watching silly TV shows while reading a good book, letting my two little fluffies climb all over my back and kiss my cheeks...

sometimes it's good to just be lazy.  Real blog posts about Paris and Copenhagen coming soon!  In the meantime, a funny kid story: yesterday during tutorials, I had my sixth graders play a game from the television show Whose Line is it Anyway, where they each are given a prop and have to come up with different mini-skits using the prop as different items each time.  And they had just tons of fun with it, actually taking the whole half-hour session to play.  I had expected they would take about ten minutes and then it would be time for a new activity.

One group of boys had a lot of fun with it.  They had a little bulb-shaped timer as their prop.  And, surely enough, at one point they used the little timer as a bong.  I kind of just pressed my forehead to my hand, and asked where they had learned about these things.

The kid turned to me, scoffed, and said, "Ms. Lauren.  Youtube," as it it was the most obvious answer in the world.  Which, really, I suppose it was!

Free bird!

This is a traditional Hungarian folk song, rethought.  I've kept coming back to it over the last few days.  The lyrics, translated by me and repeated in various patterns throughout the song (I'm translating in the full order, starting at 1:40ish) are:

Cold winds are blowing.

They do not bode well.

Free life, free as a bird.

Oh, how beautiful is the one who travels free.

This is important for me to remember.  Maybe cold winds are blowing right now, but who knows what they will bring?  More importantly, I am free.  If the winds blow too cold, I'll breeze into something better.  It really is beautiful to be free.

Maudlin

So this weekend, one of my sorority sisters was in town.  Nobody I was ever particularly close to, since she was a freshman when I was a senior, but still a really nice girl.  So I took her and her friends out for dinner on Sunday, and then we had some drinks last night.  It was nice to see her, catch up, and gossip about Lycoming people for a little bit.

After she left the bar last night, I stayed and had another drink with my friends, and then headed home.  As usual, when such things strike, it struck on the bus.  I became horribly dark.  Now, most of you know me, and know that I'm not really all that dark.  I'm regularly described as a "sunshiny" person, for goodness sake.  I think this is mainly because I keep my darkness to myself.  So I rode the bus a few extra stops, then wandered home over the back of my little hill.

I'm not sure exactly what it was that tripped me over the edge into an emo midnight wander.  Certainly, it has to do with roots.  I'm not really in touch with anyone from America anymore, and while that's ok and understandable, in many ways it's also awful.  I have a life that I genuinely love, and I'd like others to understand it with me, and yet there really is nobody who can.  This whole experience is also changing me so drastically, in so many (mainly) positive ways, but I don't know anyone who knows both old Lauren and new Lauren.

At the same time, as soon as I feel like I'm putting roots down here, the ground starts to become sort of shaky. The international and financial situation here in Hungary has always been something that, as a foreigner, I could happily ignore.  But it's reaching a level where I can't ignore it any more, and I have to consider the future of this little country that I adore in my life plans.  And that is so upsetting to me.  I hate the feeling of uncertainty where just a few months ago my life was laid out in front of me, for the next few years at least.

Beyond that, so many of my friends are planning to leave in the next few years.  And that's fine, and I'm happy for them, and I know that I will make new friends.  But... still.  Add to that the fact that this weekend I met a boy that I think I could grow to really like, and I think he feels the same way about me, and, of course, as usual... doesn't live in Hungary.

Then mix in the fact that this feeling of uncertainty is not unique to me.  All across the world, young people and especially young women are starting to worry about their futures.  We have to care so much about everything, while pretending to be cool and not care at all.  We have to worry about our bodies.  Appearance is tantamount, and we have to present a perfect feminine appearance, but we have to also act like men.  More than anything, though, we feel a bit cheated.  We have to deal with living our whole life being told we could be anything we wanted to be, and then coming out of college into an economy where we're all still sort of scraping by five years later.  So many of my friends are still in an entry-level position, or back in school racking up more debt.  It's ridiculous.

And last night it all became too much and I became a little bit angry.

Happily today's the last day of my work week, and tomorrow I'm heading off to Sweden and Denmark for Easter.  And I'll remember that I'm one of the lucky ones.

A weekend in Madrid

The first weekend of the month, I headed to Madrid.  I found the ticket for about 30 dollars, round trip, so I figured why not, and bought it just about two weeks beforehand.  So after the typical Ryanair runaround, I arrived to Madrid and discovered this in the metro.  (I must say, it's a good thing that this wasn't such a common ad campaign last year when I was in Madrid and desperately missing Hungary.)

I found my way to Mary's flat and dropped off my stuff, quite pleased with myself that Madrid is still second nature to me.  We then headed to her friend's apartment, grabbing me a yummy kebab on the way, to play Settlers of Kataan.  Which is pretty much a perfect table game, by the way.  Then it was off for some really overpriced tintos, which Mary got delightful Spanish over, before heading home.

Saturday's breakfast was at Mundo de Croquetas.  The dude working there judged us slightly for eating croquetas before noon, but I didn't care.  They were delicious.  Croquetas.  I miss you.

I headed to Moncloa and caught the bus out to San Lorenzo to see Hernan and Yoichi.  We had a nice dinner outside: the weather was amazing for the first weekend of March.  And I held Yoichito cat and he was angry, but then he relented.

Hernan and I then went for walk, and admired the bucolic sheep grazing under the bucolic almond blossoms...

... and the Spanish sky...

... and the monastery.  We had a really nice talk and it was really great to speak for hours in Spanish again, and especially to see my old roomie.  He was a good roomie and I miss him.

Then it was back to Madrid and out for Cien Montaditos, which no longer serves gulas to my horror, and then to Magic Beer.  Which still serves magical beer, to my delight.  Silliness ensued, and, as usual, I wound up buying beer from a dude selling cans on the street from a cardboard box stand.  We then went back to Mary's and played darts and danced with puppets.  And then, to continue the as usual, I ended the night at a gay bar.  It was a fun night.  There's me, Jess, and Mary up there.

The next day, Mary, Chelsi and I hit the Rastro, where we found nothing, and then visited one of the funniest shops ever, where we read ridiculous books and improved our vocabulary.  Then for lunch it was pinxos!  Yum.

Then there was a trip to buy some jewelry, and we visited Chelsi's tea room.

I also pierced poor Mary's ears, in the most horrifying and least successful piercing ever.  But now she has pretty earrings!  Chelsi even managed to help, despite her fear of needles (which she has somehow despite all her many piercings).  After that, it was off to the airport to catch my flight back home.

This is all the loot I got in Madrid... I have a problem!

It was a great little whirlwind trip.  Definitely a new kind of trip for me: a trip to see people only, and pretty much ignore the city they are in.  It was beautiful to speak Spanish again beyond the very elementary stuff I get to speak to the kids.  I do miss Spain: the food, the language, the spirit of it, even though I really didn't love living there.  It was funny to complain to my friends about the same old things, because the country's never going to change.  It was also great to just see my girls (and Hernan) that helped me through that really tough year.  They're great people, and I miss them.

Excluding the 22 months in which I needed to leave Spain alone after Alfonso and I broke up, I have yet to go a year without returning to Spain since I studied there.  And I imagine it's kind of always going to be that way.

Easter Eggs

No colorful dye to dip them in, but that's ok because it doesn't work so well on brown eggs anyway! I went to Anna's parents' house for lunch today, and after a delicious meal we decorated some eggs with markers. I made a bunny, a chick, a rat and cat eggs, a poem, a party, a kokopeli, and a Hungarian Parliament. Some of those were requests. It's always fun to do the things you did as a kid, even if it's differently and under different circumstances!

Icy Danube

Piroska Andras made this video of the ice on the Danube.  It captures the eerie beauty of the whole thing even better than the photos I posted a few entries ago did.  Enjoy!


Budapest Sorbet from Andras Piroska on Vimeo.

Blogger

So apparently I need to contact google.  Because it seems that my blog has permanently decided to not allow me to upload pictures.  Which is incredibly upsetting, considering that I PAY THEM for the storage space.  In the meantime, blog posts have been put off and off because I can't put the pictures up that would serve to help tell the story.  Boo.

So, yes, still waiting on the post about my visit to Madrid, and now also the one about my visit to Paris.  And some random Hungary ones in between.

It's finally spring time here.  And it's beautiful, and I've been biking to work and being happy in the sunshine.  Spring time also brings planning for next year, and it seems that I will be able to teach the classes I want to teach next year!  Which is awesome: all language teaching, all the time.  I will also be coordinating the FCE prep for the program, and organizing a unified plan for English in grades 1-8.  This, in addition to continuing to teach and plan Spanish from 5-8, plus now doing so in grade 9 with the assistance of a Hungarian Spanish teacher.  I'm super psyched!

Now I just need to see about maybe negotiating a small raise to go along with all of my extra responsibilities!

Boooo

I started to write a pretty long entry about Madrid.  But my fingers are tired and keep mistyping and the photos won't load... I just get an error message.  So, instead, I will simply wish you all a happy 350th blog post.

Mandula, my roomie's cat, was in heat last week.  She spent every night for a week caterwauling and keeping me up.  She was also just generally ridiculous.  She did finally get spayed on Friday, and things are back to normal, but I think the whole week without sleep, especially after a crazy weekend in Madrid, may have broken me.  I can't stop being, well, dumb.

So I'm going to go to sleep.

Lights

I spent this weekend in Madrid.  It was a very short time, and totally dedicated to seeing friends and eating delicious things.  I will write a longer post with pictures and reflections and such in a short time.  Right now, it's two in the morning, my bag is finally unpacked, and I'm pretty much 100% ready for bed.  This post isn't going to be about Madrid, though, but about Budapest.

Budapest, like most cities, lights up its major buildings, landmarks, and bridges at night.  The floodlights switch off at midnight, and only streetlights remain after that.  Now, I have experienced those lights turning on and off countless times.  It's normal enough that we sort of use the lights to tell time when we head home across the river from an evening out in Pest.  If the lights are still on, we're being good responsible adults.

Planes usually approach Budapest from the south, crossing over fields and suburbs to land at the airport, which is itself in the southern part of the city.  It's rather uneventful, view-wise.  In the right conditions, though, planes approach from the north, flying right over Margaret Island, the Parliament, and Varosliget.  From the sky, you can see all the bridges, the castle, the citadel, the cemetery... it's always fun to see the landmarks I'm so used to all tiny below me.

Tonight, coming back to Budapest from Madrid, the two coincided.  I was looking out the window for only a few seconds at that point, and our plane was directly over the river, when one by one the lights started to switch off.  Goodbye, Parliament.  Goodbye, Chain Bridge.  Szia, Heroes' Square.  Only the boulevards remained to show me where things were.  (Well, that and the ridiculous lights outside the Arena Plaza mall.)

For some reason, this moment really struck me.  As all those beautiful things disappeared, leaving a shadow in their place, I felt a strange sort of happiness.  It should have been sad, but it wasn't.  I could still see the places I love, even if I couldn't see them, more from their lack of light than from anything else.  As each light switched off, I felt happier.  I sort of feel like I saw all of Budapest tuck itself in for the night.  And it was good to be home.

Naked people everywhere

So, as you know, I recently joined a gym. That gym includes a changing room, as most do. And everyone is always totally naked. Blowdrying naked. Chatting naked. Texting naked. I'm not talking about a lack of self-consciousness, but just a total acceptance of nudity.

People also swim in the strangest of outfits. Tiny speedos, entirely hidden under big beer bellies. Ladies swimming laps in string bikinis, then untying them in the sauna.

Body acceptance is a great thing, and I'm glad that I get to regularly see people of all shapes/sizes/hairinesses... especially in today's world of crazy photoshopping. It's nice to have a reality check, but it can lead to some awkward situations.

I recently walked into the changing room to see three of my eighth grade girls. We said hi, then stared at each other, feeling super awkward. We finally silently decided to go to opposite corners and change quickly, while resolutely staring at the wall.

I think everyone thought we were really weird.

Sundays

Every Sunday, the same thing happens.  Bedtime rolls around and I roll right on past it.  A later bedtime, too late to be really practical but things could still be ok, also comes and goes.  It is late, and I sit up, awake and stressing over the fact that I am awake.  It's really a bit ridiculous.  I should start getting up earlier on Sundays, but the truth is I usually don't even sleep all that late.  I just get enough sleep so that I'm up too late.  And then I wake up on Monday tired.

It's a vicious cycle and one that is starting to bug me.  So tonight I'm going to bed before midnight, darn it, even though I'm not even a little bit tired.  I'll read until I fall asleep.  I have a boring book all picked out and everything.  I'll leave you with Don Draper speaking Hungarian: this is pretty much how I guess I sound!

Dancing on boats

Almost exactly three years ago, Lyla and I saw that a Spanish band called Che Sudaka would be playing at the A38.  On something of a whim, we decided to head to the concert. And there we saw the opening act, Kistehen, dressed in footy pjs and singing about how great it would be to be a bunny. We also danced like crazy people, jumping up and down to the random ska music.

Last week, we saw that Che Sudaka would be returning to the A38. On a whim, again, we decided to go to the concert. And again, we jumped up and down like crazy people and danced our little hearts out. The crowd was awesome and the boat was literally rocking. It sort of felt like dancing on a trampoline.

Totally worth getting home at one am on a school night! I love all these random things that happen in my life, and how much fun I always have.

Also: I'm on a boat. Always good to act out that particular music video!

A Strange Winter

This whole winter it has been strangely mild.  There wasn't even a hint of snow before Christmas.  Suddenly, two weeks ago, it was incredibly cold.  Below freezing, even in fahrenheit.  The Danube looked like this:

Now, I did not take either of these lovely photos, rather I got them from my very good facebook friend, Budapest.  (Yes, I am fb friends with Budapest.  They give me the forecast and tell me about cool upcoming events every day.)  But they show the blocks of ice floating down the river.

It has since gotten consistently warmer.  Yesterday and today, it was in the high forties!  I biked to work today, and didn't even need my mittens on the way home this afternoon.  Craziness.  Does that mean spring is on the way, or is it just going to snow in May or something?

Starting to slack

I have totally given up on my New Year's Resolution to not get irritated at other peoples' idiocy.  To be fair, certain events in particular have made that particular resolution particularly difficult.  And also, you know, my basic nature of judge-asaurus, the scariest dinosaur of them all.  Plus, my and Lyla's bus rides became oddly silent when we couldn't comment on the sartorial and life choices of the strangers around us.

My other resolution, to get healthier, is taking up a ton of my time and concentration.  And, to be honest, it's going really, really well.  I feel great.

My other other resolution, to blog at least three times per week, is starting to be a hassle.  Particularly because of the fact that the getting-healthy resolution is such a big part of my life right now, and I really don't want this blog to become one of those diet and exercise blogs.  Because those irritate the heck out of me.  (Judge-asaurus, hear me roar!)  So, I find it difficult to find things to write about.

Today I met up and had dinner with a pair of total strangers.  They were, literally, the neighbors of one of my flatmate's old professors.  But they were in Budapest and wanting some sightseeing, so I was happy to oblige them.  I showed them around a bit, then took them to Menza, one of my favorite restaurants, and they bought me dinner.  We talked about Budapest and Hungary, Hungarian, and Hungarians... many of my favorite topics. And it was really nice.  It made me miss the good old days, where random friends of friends were always on my couch/floor.  The people who come to Budapest are generally rather awesome people.  And my life here is so amazing, and I find this place still so fascinating, that I love to show it off.  Plus, there is something so validating when people who have been to so many different places are impressed by the place that I've chosen to make my home.  Budapest is always a pleasant surprise to people, and that's fantastic.