Egeszsegedre!

It is the weekend and I am in Hungary. Just like in the U.S., the weekend is an excuse for all the youth in the city to drink, hang out, and listen to music. So as they say in Hungary, Egesyegedre! To your health!

So...what have I been up to this weekend, you ask? Well let me tell you it has been a phenomenal couple of days.
Friday afternoon we had the opportunity to meet some of our Hungarian host students from Karoli Gaspar and four of the girls offered to take a group of us out drinking at this club/bar called Szimpli (Simple). I officially want to live there. Eclectic is probably the best word to describe Szimpli, with its mix of indoor and outdoor seating, tables and furniture constructed out of recycled materials (i.e. a stack of wooded chairs stacked to look like a tree and the back of a car that doubled as seating). Plants grew everywhere and strange lighting of all different colors and shades of colors and intensities poured out of various places. Even the stairwell was decorated with half of a bathtub and, of course, the obligatory graffiti. Not only was the atmosphere unbelievable, there were at least four bars that I saw selling all different kinds of drinks. I ordered a draught cider, a combination of beer and apple cider that was finom (delicious). People sat around talking and drinking and smoking, mostly Hungarian and international youth all using the Friday summer evening as an excuse to go out. We had conversations of all sorts with our Hungarian hosts with topics ranging from Hungarian cinema and pop music to the problems that come with female sexuality. AND, as all four of the girls are studying literature, I made a point to engage them in all manners of literary discussions.
While we were there, it started to storm and, as part of Szimpli is open air and the drinks are also expensive, we decided to go someplace a bit cheaper. We darted down through alleways, squeezing onto the sidewalk under the overhang, dodging raindrops and other people also dodging raindrops. Finally, Sonia, who was leading the way, ducked into a hidden door off of an alleyway and we ended up in a smaller pub full of mismatched easy chairs and people chilling. A group of us decided to ditch for a  bit and take the tram over to get some falafel, then came back to meet up with the rest of the group. I bought something blackberry flavored that wasn't bad, although it was nowhere near as marvelous as the cider.

So that was Friday. The girls dropped us off back at our dorms where we crashed and everyone slept in till almost noon today. Then, it was time for an extremely nerdy and touristy Rick Stevens walking tour of Budapest! Hurray! I think the highlight of the tour was Irok Boltja, the Writer's Bookstore. I immediately found the door, ran inside, and exclaimed several times about how wonderful a bookstore it is. I want to go back at least seven million times while I am here. Possibly eight million, if I am feeling especially ambitious. I cannot even explain how amazing all of the things we saw today are.

Today was one of those days when everything and everybody you encounter seems to possess a kind of strange, secret magic, almost as if at any moment they could turn sideways and disappear. I don't know how best to communicate the beauty of some of these moments today, but I will attempt to do so as best as I can.

 Two homeless men slept near each other huddled under blankets near a monument, sleeping in the midst of all the photographers and tourists and young twentysomethings roaming about and all I wanted to do was to sit down and ask them to tell me about their lives.

I caught some children staring at my boyfriend today as he is quite tall and he chose to amuse them with some magic tricks and the looks on their faces as he made a 20 forint coin disappear and reappear...moments like that are the things that can help move our lives forward. I don't mean to sound sentimental. I am saying these things with absolute sincerity to try and express the odd magic of today.

An old toothless man smiled as he played his accordion and swayed to the music that traveled through the streets.

A family of four zoomed down the stone streets on their scooters, zipping around us and racing each other back and forth.

An old couple stood close and whispered in each other's ears on the tram, her standing on tiptoe to reach his ear.

Some pigeons gathered outside of a cafe to peck at some crumbs on the ground, fighting with each other until a woman shooed them away, smiling slightly as they skitted off to find something else to eat.


We found an old playground with a spinning top seat in which you can sit and be pushed. I spun in circles and watched the colors fly by.

The wind. Oh my, the wind. It lifted up my hair and touseled it and pulled at my clothes and pushed me along the ground and made everything smell wonderful and took the strange magic of the day and stirred it together. It was the sort of wind that feels like drinking cool water.

All in all, a wonderful weekend, and one worth drinking to.