on a night train home

one-forty am, a night train home. 'it feels good having somewhere to go back to,' she said.
'yes, a base.'

Auschwitz

in the morning he was again pestering me to go to Auschwitz. yes, i was going, i had told him the night before, at whatever time i got up. he was more anxious than i was; it bothered me only that he was implicating me.
we got there and i kept drifting off. he took ahold of my sleeve and said, 'can we please go in together-- i do not want to do this alone.' i finally understood-- this israeli jew, traveling alone, wanted someone with him. so i stayed.

afterwards we talked about it. he had expected it to be more shocking. i was disturbed by the proximity of the camp to newer-built houses. we did not take each others' hands but still shared a sigh of relief as we got on the bus home.
later we had dinner-- the two of us-- at a georgian restaurant. he began, i believe, to entertain notions... saying things such as, 'it feels natural to be silent with you.' i was reflecting on the naturalness of my own silence within myself-- something that comes with these lone journeys. i forgot he was with me.
the next day i left the hostel early but i returned in the evening to kill time before my night train home. i caught his surprise, returning, and he asked for my email. 'for when i come to budapest.'
'i'm gone a lot on the weekends.'
'that's okay,' he said. so i gave it to him.

the night before he had seen me writing. 'do i appear,' he asked, 'in your journal?'
'um... i didn't write much today,' i said, feeling bad. 'but you probably will.'
'my journal would be boring,' he said. i grimaced at his calling it a journal. 'today i brushed my teeth and ate eggs for breakfast...' he laughed.
'i write conversations,' i said, seriously, 'i do not write events.'
'oh.'

Some New Place

perhaps it is not the leaving so much as the enticement of a homecoming, she things as the dots glide by, cold the night, the train travels out the station. for the embarkment is golden, sweet, and wild-eyed; the time wears through and soon i turn to counting days.
days until you, days until home, days until distraction of Some New Place.

on meeting people

from my drugged sleep i heard american voices. the train was stopped; i was cold. i knew we were in the slovakian countryside, as only two sets of border guards had awoken me as of then. these stops included loud doors sliding open and shut, voices. i would speak to her in english, i thought, and catch her off guard. yes, she was surprised. the girl who came into my compartment was teaching english in kosice, slovakia. martha had also, a summer before, studied in cuernavaca, mexico. i too had lived there for a time. we began.

moment in a station

something sighs in my heart-- backpack-logged, water in hand: train station Keleti at night. these stations all feel the same, but my feeling is... of a place closer to home. freedom, and familiarity.

words

i find myself and there i am listening to their voices on the radio-- i've turned it on for music but get impatient at the repetitive american pop and have an immediate response turn the dial at commercials... i listen to their words, the sounds, making out occasionally what i can but content to leave the rest be-- dancing, slowly, differently to my ears, my subconsciousness as i write, read, clean, eat.
what is it about unintelligable sounds tha makes me feel so content. their voices relax me. i do not long for the English of home, preferring, rather, to live this life undistracted by streettalk, ignorant of what is being said to me. there is some sort of comfort in this: the withdrawing and self-sufficiency. using words meditatively and sparingly, apologetically. their sounds flood my consciousness but i am refuge in silence.
compulsory words, excuse me, no thank you, are from habit engrained in hungarian. i love being a stranger to words. giving off that one-dimensionality, that aura of ditziness, stupidness, simplicity so often bestow on non-English speakers at home.
i indulge.

dreams:

'On the rare occasions when our dreams succeed and achieve perfection-- most dreams are bungled-- they are symbolic chains of senses and images in place of a narrative poetic language; they circumscribe our experiences or expectations or situations with such poetic boldness and decisiveness that in the morning we are always amazed at ourselves when we remember our dreams. We use up too much artistry in our dreams-- and therefore often are impoverished during the day.'

'We have no dreams at all or interesting ones. We should learn to be awake the same way-- not at all or in an interesting manner.'

Nietzsche.

la vie française continue...

• montmarte cafe: niiiice. delicious cappuccino, friendly waitresses, wonderful croissants, and live music on saturdays. new favorite.
• margaret island: gorgeous. if it weren't a walk-yellow line metro-oktagon-tram ride away (or, alternatively, walk to station-red line metro-kossuth lagos-walk), i'd go more often. i'd say, though, that it kicks parisz's butt with it's overexpensive islands. margít island is purely park: hikeable, walkable, runnable (with a built-in rubber track!), the runner in me is in heaven.
• oktober 23rd: what? a national holiday? little celebration. i am trying to find out what the flag with the hole in the middle means...
• bad '80s music: will it never end... sadly, i missed phil collins (yesterday), a sin i'm sure my roommate samantha will not let me forget. it's his 'first farewell tour,' you know.
• chinese market... okay, this one was not so much french. but enjoyable, nevertheless. who thought i'd be haggling with the chinese in hungarian? got a great skirt, though.
• books. somebody stop me. so i bought voltaire and the phantom of the opera. i have to finish the jungle books first. i must.

la vie français

note: when walking down tereza korut, do not allow thyself to stop and gaze at every shoe store.you will never get anywhere.it's about this time in the semester one realizes that her european city, although wonderful and unique in its own way, will never ever measure up to paris. not even the people (rude, cold, closed as they are) compare not to the snobbish exterior of the french. (how i love it!) however, i've decided to bring le Français to hungary. it's a big enough european city, let's establish some culture! to me, french life is about cafes, the arts, museums, and coffee-- all of which i'm willing enough to engage in. so this week i'm making it my personal duty to scout out the most 'european' sites in budapest... will keep you posted.

• some french sites...
  the fine arts museum: large collection of ancient egyptian relics. (what is it with egypt?) pretty cool except the italian masters collection was closed, they were setting up for some sort of big dinner, and everything was jumbled around. typically hungarian, i suppose.
  about 5 bookstores in two days... including 3 libraries. that's just me. thank god for penguin books. i'm reading the classics for three dollars a piece. have already exhausted the roommates' collections of english books, and my hungarian is not progressing nicely enough for me to read in it.
• all of andrassy avenue. as it was modeled after the Champs-Elysées, so i guess this counts as quasi-french. really, really nice to walk on a day like today-- misty rain but perfect temperature. great to people watch.
  am reading les miserables. this definitely counts. too short, unfortunately. have any other french epic-length books to recommend?
• ice-skating in city park. although i have never been ice-skating (shock! she's from illinois and no one's ever taken her...), i long to go. in my morning run today, i stopped short when i saw the rink where the construction/ pond used to be. this early in the year?! so exciting. if you get close enough, close your ears to the machine drills, and squint... it almost looks like the rink in front of the hotel de ville?
• a weird, rockballet called "a proba" (the rehersal) about jesus, mary magdelene, and judas. again, weird interpretive dancing. that's french, right?

upcoming reviews: margaret island, montmarte cafe, october 23rd celebrations, phil collins (okay, this goes under the category of european obsession with bad '80s music), and more...

Vivs Seek Temporary Refugee Status

Budapest 2010

...so Budapest is currently in the runnings for the 'Cultural Capital' of Europe 2010. i think it's got a pretty good chance, and it has been seriously beefing up its 'culturalness' lately. there are festivals everywhere. last weekend there was a lights display in deak ter, one of the city's major squares (you can see the lights in my pictures). they've also got displays of their crazy ideas all over the place-- pretty cool looking computer graphics meet public spaces architecture. very intriguing.

Vivirito Times... revisited.

Updates on the Viv Family's Saga...

Judge Releases New Age Rule for Girls
Notice, New Family Song
Profiles: Matt

Re: activism

Lawrence Lessig.
Saskia Sassen.
the Yes Men.
Wikipedia.
Open Society Archives.
Creative Commons.

::nerd heaven::

Romania, II

...and Romania; Transylvania.

the professor's words linger in my mind, he having replied the best to the poignant question posed by one too naively believing the definitions give by this system-- definitions of 'nation-state,' 'national identity,' 'minority,' and so forth. the question was posed by a colleague of mine, 'what nation do you identify most strongly with?'
'yes, this is precisely it,' came the reply.
'no, you misunderstand my question. do you think of yourself as romanian or hungarian? or transylvanian?'
'yes.'
frustrated, my colleague attempts to explain again. the professor cuts him off,
'i understand your english. i am me-- i have a personality, and those types are the most difficult for a state to deal with. i am an individual. there are firstly hungarians, and there are those hungarians who live in romania. and there are transylvanians. and there are the issues of schooling in which language? and so on. the classes here (in a small romanian village) are all in hungarian. except 8th grade romanian history, of course.
'and the worst is if you, a hungarian transylvanian, speak romanian better than them. it does not matter i speak three languages. you do not insult a romanian by better knowing his own language.'
my colleague has of course sat down by this time. it is a funny situation with us americans in hungary; there is not enough money put into universities, into the intellects for the really good ones to stay within them. so, for instance, this professor teaches at CEU, the graduate university, three days a week, and returns to romania three days a week to this small village where most of the population does not go beyond fourth grade. 'the last day (of the week) you know is not mine.'
one of our directors (Antal Orkeny) in budapest is famous the country over as an sociologist. and then there's the soviet/ russian historian peter kenez published many times over who is based in santa cruz. and i look around the office in budapest and frown-- these two are horrible at the paperwork, nagging questions from foreign students which they have been delegated. they, sensitive to the hungarian-romanian ethnic conflict, cannot either convey to us the importance of this tension.
there are 'good' romanian villages and 'bad' ones, the distinction according to a fifty-year-old pillaging of hungarian villages when the people were forcibly moved according to the soviet plan. (the socialists wanted to create 'national identities,' you see, which requires that minorities be diffused and decentralized and regional autonomy broken down.) at markets today grandmothers still see their dowry chests, their childhood plates, their tables, being sold back to other hungarians... 'bad' villages are cut off from the local economy, a sour fate for a country whose GNI per person hovers around $5000 (a year). hungary is connected with the wealth of the eu, you see.
the embittered countries resume their fights of words, politics, policy. 'yes, to comment on the (Hungarian-slandering) remark by the romanian politician... when one runs out of policy issues, when one wants to remind the people of base and vulgar associations-- it is easiest to play to their identity by insulting the other. that is how to know who you are. it is a question of self-identity.'

Romania, I

tour bus bumping along romanian roads-- crass tourism. hills untouched-- terraces of these remain, though grass has grown over them. one time a few years ago i was going boating at clinton lake. i remember getting out of the car my gaze resting on wildgrass growing alongside the paved parking lot.
'i'll bet there's not a place in this world that hasn't been touched by humans,' i said to him.
'maybe there is.'
'where would it be?' speculations conclude perhaps the russian steppes, sparsely populated tundra of sibera may, perhaps, hold a place.

i have wondered about it, agitatedly, since. have we really, in our footprints, covered the whole terrain of the globe?

here,here in transylvania, i think perhaps there is still such a space. the vast outlays of land stretching further than cultivation, domestication could reach, rekindle my hope. but deterring a conclusive thesis, i recall the centuries of life sustained here before this one.

perhaps my place has not yet come.

time.

how can i go home
with nothing to say
i know you're going to look at me that way
and say what did you do out there
and what did you decide
you said you needed time
and you had time

Go Team.

Buda

step stone streets of Buda breeze up here hills both sides and i squint
to see my return here, a time i finally feel at home is a time i refeel the grooves of an already found vár-- when i come home, i think, to this place is when maybe i will feel i already belong.
whistful for... whistful, the hand to hold of a love here the day maybe will come and what then could i show the fall in hungary the duna's dance the peace of st. stephen's the wine of eger or:
(my heart in a place yet not my home)
a mute vision across uninhabited lands.
when i arrive i will return to this város and find anew a belle ville, spots alighting candlewalks on the river hands together clutching there love for one city more one moment more one...
whistful breath of a moment unkept a promise yet unmade snow unformed
on the last day
in the last park
skating
on the ice.

Pécs

in Pécs, i stand a sunday morning the fall
there are chestnuts split open over the cracked sidewalks the cobblestone streets and i breathe in having been to the churches yesterday
st. martin's of the bleeding eyes miracles in recovery be still my beating heart so while they outside the chestnuts thump, fall an organist preparing the melodies of armageddon be still i am
(in the church on the morningtime in the quiet quiet of the tér)
and still i find returning to this sunday morning museum art portraits of all sorts and of a prophet of the hungarian people called at 47 he paints of burning buildings of red-orange sky of wide-open eyes and watching. one though catches my step a woman blue-and-green she looks, her eyes... and i am again in your living room where i sleep under your father's portrait of your beautiful mother and mine eyes cannot sit there comfortably
.no silent eyes could witness that handcrafted love and believe there was no story no history no sometimes long ago, lost lands and hard loves that carried that painting from your patria here.
in pécs i stand a sunday reflecting these projected memories i tear my eyes from the thing i replace my glasses and i walk on. there is enchantment

here

pictures...

i know i need to put new pictures on. i'm in hungary, darn it! there's limited access to computers with usb ports, that's my excuse. until i do, please bear with them.
i also need to fix the margins on this page, they're ridiculous. if i had the time, i might sit here all day and fiddle with my blog... maybe when this week's rain comes?

CEU

Classes.

ELTE: (Budapest Undergrad Liberal Arts University)
Hungarian 15: Intensive Beginning Hungarian
LAW: International Law and Human Rights

Central European University (Grad School)
IR 5305: Transnational Corporations and National Governments: The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment
IR 5305: Concepts and Theories in International Relations