Agens

Friday night when we arrived we had the option of seeing a modern opera. It was in the art museum we visited Sunday, and was very strange, but again, I liked it.

Opera Poster.
The male singers wore these crazy costumes made out of styrofoam packing material. They were also wearing traditional slippers for Japanese Noe Opera, which are basically flip flops on a foot tall platform. Their faces and hair were all painted white.




Final curtain call. The opera was very unusual. It mixed Italian, German, Latin, and Hungarian with all different styles of music. The second scene consisted of the woman with the red hair taking her top off and proceeding to make out with a young man and woman, both only wearing briefs. Some people thought it was about desperation, others thought it was about menopause. I think they're one in the same.

Art Museum in Debrecen

Sunday morning we visited a contemporary art museum in Debrecen. I enjoyed it. Here are photos.





1-4 taken by my roommate Beaudry. I took the last one, and that's Hillary in the sea of masked men. All the photos from the last post were also from Beaudry's camera. I should really invest in a huge pack of batteries or a battery charger.

Debrecen

A few weekends ago, our entire program boarded a bus and drove east to Debrecen, the second largest city in Hungary. It was a pretty small town though. This was the view from our hotel room of the pedestrian walkway in city center.

After communism, many nationalistic movements arose that tended to also be anti-semitic. This was one such rally outside our hotel the first night we arrived.

The tram, which I never ended up needing because the town was so small.

Hungarian poet named Petofi; most streets, bridges, and plazas are named after Hungarian poets, and this is a popular one. I can't say I've seen any English translations though.

I make a point of visiting a park every Sunday. This one was small and shitty, so we climbed on their monuments. Suckers.

City Park on Valentine's Day.

It was finally sunny and beautiful on Valentine's Day, so we skipped class and wpent the afternoon in City Park, only 3 metro stops away from our apartment.

Gothic Castle.

Budapest tends to mix their building styles, this museum is right next to the gothic castle.

Spraying yummy pesticides.

The largest outdoor ice skating rink in Europe, it didn't freeze naturally this year though.

My roommate Beaudry standing in the unfrozen part of the lake. The restaurant behind her would be nice in the spring.

Vienna 2

This church was blinding it was so gaudy, nearly every surface was guilded.

This crypt housed many of the Hapsburgs. I thought the tiny ones for still-born babies were the creepiest.

Can you imagine this coffin 200 years ago before the martyr's body had completely decomposed? Stinky!

One of the only art museums I didn't visit in Vienna: the Contemporary Art Museum.

These parks surrounded the Upper Bellvue Museum, which housed several Klimt paintings. We got there before the museum opened and wandered through the gardens just long enough for me to remember how much i hate pristine gardens and topiary bushes.

I love Budapest, but...

I love budapest, but there are some things I could definitely do without:

1. Dogshit in the streets... This is a serious problem in Budapest. I think it's great that everyone owns dogs, and I especially enjoy all of the westies out on walks, but the special poop disposal containers seem to have little effect on how much shit there is on the sidewalks. I've decided this is a remnant of life under communism, it seems to say "my life is already so horrible that a little dog shit smeared on my shoes doesn't really make a difference." When I think of shit as a soviet relic, it's a little easier to tolerate, but not much.

2. Violent homeless people... I was playing with my cell phone while walking to the subway one day, when I felt something hit the back of my neck. Hard. I turned around to see an old woman with 5 full shopping bags in a tattered fur coat yelling at me in Hungarian. The bitch hit me. I didn't really know what to do, so I walked away. I couldn't figure out if there was something about me that screamed American, or maybe she was jealous of my cell phone (it is pretty cool), but when I told my Hungarian teacher the following day, she said she was attacked on Christmas Eve, and that the homeless are just really disgruntled and violent. Being homeless during the cold winters in Budapest would suck, but I'm still going to fight that woman if I ever see her again.

3. The laundry situation... This one really isn't that bad. I can deal with the lack of dryers, even if air drying my clothes does make them stiff and scratchy, but the spin cycle on our washing machine does not dry the clothes out at all. Two days ago it was like pulling my laundry out the pool, and they're still not dry. That's right, I've been wearing the same underwear for two days, life in Eastern Europe sure is tough.

4. Horrible service... I've gotten in arguments with waiters over misunderstandings, and apparently, the customer is always wrong. It's also not fun when you don't get your bill until you ask for it and the waiter ignores you for 45 minutes. But this is just another relic from communism, and thus tolerable.

Don't get me wrong, Budapest is one of my favorite cities in the world, if not my favorite. But I'm writing a paper on minority rights and the Roma in Hungary right now, and at this point, I'd rather be almost anywhere else but here. I guess I'll accomplish that tomorrow, because I'm going to Ljubljana, Slovenia tomorrow. Wish me luck with finding a hostel at 2 in the morning!

Vienna 1

I forgot my camera, so all photos were taken by my roommate Beaudry.

I was initially really excited for the secession building because it has an entire room designed by Gustav Klimt. This was the only room we could see, however, because they were in the middle of switching exhibits and we could't get through to see the rest of the interior. It was pretty, but definitely not worth 3.50 euro.

Sculpture of Strauss

The gothic cathedral was one of the main attractions in Vienna.

One of the prettier domes in Vienna. Although most of the architecture in both Budapest and Vienna is from the Hofburg Empire, I prefer the layer of communist dirt on Budapest's buildings to the cleanliness of Vienna.

The Natschmarkt was definitely on of my favorite things in Vienna. The farmers market consisted of tightly backed stalls selling gourmet meats, cheeses, vegetables, wines, and fruit. The pathways were so tightly packed that if someone in front of you stopped to buy something, you pretty much had to wait until they were done to continue. When we went on Saturday there was also a flea market on the southern end selling mostly crap to poor gypsies (we call them Roma here because we are PC). I was able to buy a pashmina-silk blend scarf (green paisley, my favorite) for only 6 euro, which was considerably cheaper than the ones I found in Budapest for Ft. 5,000 (about $25). If I had my own camera, I would have taken many more photos of the stalls, but I didn't, so I'm left with one photo of flowers. Oh well.

my apartment

my apartment in budapest is awesome. it's located in district VI just two blocks away from our tram stop (oktogon) along the 4/6 korut (circle). there's a 24 hour gyros place around the corner, and i haven't visited the underground bar two buildings down, but i will soon. we live on the top floor (5th american) and the apartment opens to a large atrium that has a garden on the ground floor, definitely preferable to the parking lots of neighboring buildings. like all buildings in budapest, there are a lot of detains and asymmetry in the architecture. i'll post more pictures of buildings soon, but here's a taste:

just a test.