Giving Thanks

Location: Beautiful Budapest Flat
November 25, 2010
Adventure #41

Despite living abroad for four out of the last five Thanksgivings, I have never gone without some succulent turkey on America's delightful holiday of gluttony and gratitude. This year, Mike and I joined our Coloradan friends, Dana and Stephen, at an American woman's home who works for the US Embassy. She prepared a huge feast including a juicy bird that Mike and Stephen were volunteered to carve. The guests - mostly Europeans - made amazingly genuine American offerings including Mike's favorite, Sweet Potato Pie.

I whipped up some deviled eggs and cookies for the occasion, which distracted me from work most of the holiday. It was a great blessing to be among wonderful friends and to enjoy a delicious meal together. Here's hoping that next year, Mike and I will enjoy our first turkey day together on American soil. If we don't, it's sure nice to know that the spirit of Thanksgiving transcends US borders.

Billie's Bloom

Here houses stay red for generations and 20 types of pie are served on blue polka dotted plates with yellow napkins, clashing with Indian paintbrush walls, but matching my mood

As sun rays cuts through November sea air and slide through windows in movie projector rays,we shakily make Gretel trails of espresso down teacup sides, licking them home to sweet raspberry crisp.

Our elbows and words bump to lulling sounds of Billie on the 1930s Hungarian radio, as violet flowers bloom from her gritty mouth.

Sick Puppy

Location: Gozsdu Udvar
November 20, 2010
Adventure #40
Last week, there was a Jewish culinary festival, JudaFest, in my apartment complex. Although I enjoyed inhaling the aromas of pastries, roasting meat and sholet each time I walked outside, there were some drawbacks (including hearing faint Klezmer music in my flat for about a week straight), like making Pollock sick.

While I am not certain the foreign food was the culprit, Pollock became very ill this weekend and was not holding down his food. This isn't all too surprising because nearly every time we went outside, Pollock quickly devoured any stray kosher crumb sloppy eaters/festival goers left in our courtyards including garlic bread, some bananas and all sorts of tasty morsels. To combat his ill-fated culinary variety, we switched him to a white-rice diet yesterday, and now he seems ok. These new Asian eats have inspired Mike to sing Pollock impromptu ballads like "[You] are Siamese if you please" and "I think [you're] turning Japanese" - musical therapy at it's finest.

While Mike and I were doting, fast-acting canine custodians when responding to our sick puppy, like taking him outside at 5:30am when his stomach was gurgling loud enough to wake us up, luckily nothing was as icky as Hungary's second red sludge disaster that happened in my bedroom at 3am a few weeks back. Mike was out of town and Pollock projectile vomited the remnants of a crimson bone I had given him earlier in the day - it's a good thing he's so damn cute.

Sweden Smörgåsbord

Location: Stockholm, Sweden
November 4, 2010
Adventure #39

As my number of Swedish friends has continued to grow over the past few years in Budapest, I developed a theory that Scandinavians were slowly and politely beginning to take over Hungary's capital, in what I have dubbed the "Swedish Invasion." However, after a recent trip to their headquarters in Stockholm, I am convinced of two things - 1) If the Swedes did take over Budapest, the city would become impeccably dressed and infinitely cleaner - all positive things. 2) The coup will probably never actually happen, because it would be hard to convince most Swedes to ever leave their beautiful home.


Even after only three days in Stockholm, I was not eager to get back to Budapest. It was so easy to get used to sidewalks so clean that people didn't even put construction materials or lawn trimming directly on the sidewalk - they used special biodegradable bags, and I loved seeing lakes or the sea where ever I went.

I went to Stockholm to visit Zsofi, who was visiting her parents who live there. She went to high school in Sweden, so I had always heard wonderful stories about the city from her, so of course she made a perfect tour guide. We walked all over the city, which is comprised of 14 connected islands. I especially enjoyed seeing the old town, the royal palace and The City Hall of Stockholm - where the Nobel Prize banquet is held each year. Plus, I totally lucked out in the weather department - it was sunny every day, so I will always think of Stockholm as a chilly, glowing city, rather than a gray urbane destination as it is during much of the winter.

We also went to the modern art museum and the Vasa Museum, which is a hotly contested tourist spot in Zsofi's household. Her mother thinks visiting it is "a waste of money" and "it's a museum for boys." Her father thinks it is a must-see stop for anyone in the city. While Zsofi tends to side with her mom, I convinced her to give it another go with me. The Vasa Museum encompasses a huge ship by the same name, which is an enormous 17th-century vessel that sunk minutes into its maiden voyage in 1628.

It was pulled out of Stockholm's sea 333 years later and remains the only fully intact ship from the era. After growing up with a pirate-crazed sister, I have seen my fair share of Captain Hook-style battles, so I loved seeing a ship in person and imaging all the swashbuckling that could occur on its deck. What was most impressive, and what probably led to its design flaws, is all its ornate embellishments. There is hardly a surface that doesn't have a carving or adornment, including an impressive lion at its bow. My only complaint is that you can't go inside of the ship, although they did recreate the deck in a neighboring exhibit, so you could pretend you were inside. Thus, I am definitely with Zsofi's dad in this debate.

Over the weekend, Zsofi's dad drove us on their family tour of homes, so I could see all the cute houses Zsofi used to live in, and we made a stop at a charming seaside town called Waxholm, which is were we walked down to the water in the picture above. The whole trip was very relaxing and pleasant - but nothing so warmed my heart (besides my time with Zsofi, of course) as seeing Christmas trolls everywhere I went. These are simply amazing:

Boo-dapest

Location: Haunted Locales
October 31, 2010
Adventure #38

To celebrate America’s greatest holiday export – Halloween – my friends and I headed to Fright Night – a party sponsored by my rival English-language publication, but who cares about competition when you're in costume? So, a peacock (me), a bandit, a '70s funkster, a zombie chef and a '50s pin-up girl all went to the elegant Budapest Jazz Club, drank a whiskey out of a cauldron and danced under cobweb-covered filigreed ceilings. While the party was nothing compared with last year’s fete, the highlight was Michael winning the most creative costume contest and scoring free airline tickets. He went as Scrodinger’s Cat – which, as far as I can surmise, is a quantum physics theory that basically explains the paradoxes that innately come along with studying quantum mechanics. Anyway, the hypothetical experiment involves putting a cat in a box with poisonous and radioactive substances and wondering whether the cat is dead or alive. To capture this lofty costume, Mike turned himself into a cat by drawing whiskers on his face, and he wore a cardboard box with nuclear symbols on it. I was quite impressed with his ingenuity, but even more impressed that over the holiday weekend, six people actually knew who he was dressed up as - which fortunately included the judges.