Matthias goes Budapest

Hello people, sorry for not posting anything for a long time. I'm in my last days here before I go home over Christmas (at least I hope so, because there are strikes in public transport and on the airport). At the moment, Budapest is pretty cold and it is raining a lot. Also, most of the people from my dorm went home already so you hardly meet anyone in the hallways any more, and my school closed for the holidays on friday.

Luckily, that does not mean I am bored. I probably would if I got up normally in the morning and would not have any school during the day. But in the last 2-3 weeks I adapted my day/night rythm to the fact that the days are grey and rainy and with nothing much today...I just go out all the time and sleep through the mornings ^^. It is a bit too much to sum up everything, but let me try and tell you about some of the most fun parts.

I have been to an all-you-can-eat-and-drink place twice, where you pay 20 euros, and you can sit for three hours, drink beer, wine, champaigne, water, and alcohol-free drinks, and get all kinds of starters, main courses and deserts from a buffet. Also, you can go over to a chef and tell him to prepare various kinds of fish and meat in front of you eyes. The quality of the food you get is really good, and together with the drinks included, it is a great offer. The first time we went, it was because of a birthday, and we were around 15 people, was a lot of fun (although someone had accidentaly booked at the wrong place, so we had to sit in the basement). After that everyone decided we were too tired and full for going out, so we would go home. However, we ended up playing poker until 4 anyway, so we could as well have gone somewhere...except for the fact that I won the tournament which gave me the incredible sum of 1400 forints (err...5-6 euros). That was just enough to buy myself in for the real poker tournament organized by our dorm a few days later, with professional dealers and about 25 people playing. 

I'm not even a good player, so I dropped out rather early. The other played on for 6 hours straight, and then everybody was too tired and the last 4 split the pot, which gave them around 60 euros each, quite a decent sum. The most fun was watching one of the Italian guys playing, because first he was totally dominant, and then he started loosing against some other really quiet italian guy. First I wanted to quit watching after some time, but his swearing in italian when he lost once again was just too good to miss. Also, the italians cooked for us a few days later, after receipes from their mamas, and it was a great meal.

In the last week of school, we decided to make a christmas- and study-end-party with a bigger group of people from the school and from my dorm. We met at a flat and made our own hot wine, an italian girl made tiramisu, it was a lot of fun. After that, we went to the Living Room, which is some kind of bar with a dance floor, but there were hardly any people. We were enough to make our own party though, and I ended up taking turns with Pim in getting new beers (I think it was three beers for 2 euros or so). Well you have to know that usually, me and Pim are the responsible guys who stay rather sober, because his girlfriend gets drunk after 2 glasses of wine, so we still have to get her back to the residence hall after going out. This time she drank more than that, but she ended up being the one who had to take us home...something about this combination of glühwein and beers must have been nasty, and I ended up really wasted for the first time ever here in Budapest.

Martine (Pim's girlfriend) told me the next day that she wanted to take the bus home, but me and Pim and fiercely protested and tried to call a taxi (apparantly by shouting at cars and cursing them for not stopping). Also, we seemed to have the following conversation:

Pim: "We're gonna take a taxi, and you know why" *conspirative grin*

Me: "Why?"

Pim: "Because we can afford it"

*evil-super-genius-laughter together*

Also, I remember the taxi driver telling her "Good luck with those two"...

Anyway, everybody had a good time at that party, and the next morning (2:00) I met with 6 other guys to go to the spa, which is one of the greatest ways to cure a hangover. We went to the Szechenyi, which is most probalby the most beautiful spa in Budapest. It is built in a classical style, with mosaics and statues everywhere, and you really feel like in ancient rome...you can go to swimming pools, saunas, steam bath, outside hot pools, everything you can imagine. It was a great day of just relaxing and talking and having a good time. Afterwards, we were totally hungry and raided a KFC store, including eating chicken out of buckets...boys' day out, I would say ;)

Another day, I went to the Moulin Rouge with some Austrian girl called Karina, and a girl from Kirgisia who's name is impossible to remember. I just ran into them in the hallways, and although I planned on just sitting on the balcony having a few beers with some guys for the evening, I did not want to miss seeing that place. It is really close to the opera on one of the main streets, and is better (or worse, depending on perspective :P) as it sounds, namely it really has class. You pay 2000 forints to get in (which is around 7-8 euros and a lot for Budapest going out), and the club is styled like a paris opera house from the inside, everything in gold and red satin. You can rent the balconies for private parties, and the seating area is a dancefloor. On the stage, there is a bar with two dancers in the background, with feather hats and that kind of klichee stuff, like in that movie Moulin Rouge. Drinks are quite expensive, the music was okay (electronic) and the dancefloor shifted from empty (around 12 o'clock) to too-full-too-move in about half an hours. We danced a bit on the stage, but it was too crowded and I usually prefer going with more people I know (although we ran into some other guys from the school). I wandered around a bit, and stumbled into some room with two girls in lingerie making out on a bed...apparanty it's part of the whole Moulin Rouge design thingy, but I was not that great that it would have held me in this place for too much longer. So, I went searching for the two girls around 2...however it turned out the Kirgisian girl had disappeared, and the Austrian girl was drunk....and to be honest, seeing a girl drunk really annoys me for some reason.

Also, I had to get her back to the residence hall somehow, and it was cold and she complained about that all the time...however, the first night bus luckily came in time. However, we still had to make the part from Moskva tér to my school which is about 4 kilometers, and I told her I did not feel like waiting for that bus for half an hour, and that we could better get walking a bit already which is less cold than standing around. We then walked to another bus stop and waited for the bus there. Luckily some moron came by in a BMW 5 to entertain us. The streets were wet, and he was standing in front of the bus stop at a traffic light. When it turned green, he drove off with spinning wheels and way too much gas, second gear, still spinning wheels, third geer, still spinning wheels (that car obviously had too much power for his driving skills...). Well, next thing I saw was the car loosing grip, drifting sideways and crashing into the tram station opposite to us, where luckily noone was standing. 

The doors opened, and four guys jumped out, and then ran off in opposite directions...typically eastern europe ? :P Well apparantly it was not stolen after all, as one of them came back when police arrived. I rather felt sorry for that nice car, it looked like a total and all that really unnecessary...

A few days ago, the people from our dorm organized a christmas party for us. It was a really nice idea, and they decorated everything nicely, with a christmas tree and glitter and so, they made hot wine and got cookies, and invited everyone for 6 in the evening. However, only 15 people or so showed up, and many left soon already, so that at 8 there was almost nobody left. It was still nice, and I met with some other people in a flat afterwards and went to a house party of some french and finish people I did not know. It was quite nice, but a lot of people were drunk already as we only arrived around one. Someone had found a guitar and rattles and were playing songs and singing at the top of their lungs, it was quite fun. I played some guitar as well later when I was alone in the room, but, as some of you might know, I don't really play any guitar , and I ended up playing and singing the probalby worst cover version of "Wish You Were Here"  ever made with some French girl. I did not like the party that much, but there were quite some people I knew, so I still took the first tram back at 4:40. 

The next day, I took some guys to the chinese market (without my chinese teacher this time...that crazy girl once woke me up by calling me on my mobile phone to ask if I had poker cards at 5 in the morning, and then actually came by to collect them at 5:30...really confused person). As I expected, all of them were really impressed by the place, as you usually don't see that part of Budapest at all. Also, it was grey and rainy, so that added up nicely to the run-down atmosphere of the place :D

In the last two days, I once went to the Instant with some people, which is a bit like Szimpla, some alternative place to sit and have a few drinks. There was a reggae party going on in the basement, and a crowd of dreadlock-wearning pot-smoking hippies going crazy...that's a bit too alternative for me, so I prefered sitting on a table upstairs ;)

Yesterday, I went to a concert in the Gödör club, with some finish and hungarian people. The place has an interesting history...they wanted to build a new theatre or opera house for budapest, and this building was designed to be the parking house. However, the project ran out of money halfway, so the parking house is now a club with different stages. The band playing was really popular in Hungary, and all the young people went crazy to their music, but I did not like it too much...was some kind of punk hard rock pop thing, but I guess you have to be able to understand hungarian to appreciate it. After that I called Lennert because I wanted to go some place else, but he said he would stay at home that day (usually he is going out all the time). So I made it home around 3 or so.

Actually, I have a bit enough of going out at the moment, and it is not really convenient to have your personal clock set to perceiving 4 in the morning like 12 at night. Today I did a bit of shopping and went to the post office in a shopping mall nearby, where everybody came to do their christmas shopping. I wanted to get a haircut but a lot of places closed early today. For tonight, I think I will just meet with some housemates that did not have a lot of time in the last time.

Maybe I will put on some photos in my next post again. And for you people that I will not meet before next year any more:

Have a nice Christmas and a happy New Year.

I will see most of you back in Maastricht and Duisburg next month. Thanks for reading :)

Matthias

Last week was not too spectacular. Everyone was tired for days from the little sleep in Zagreb, and my cold has stuck with me so far (I got some medication from the pharmacy though). I went to a presentation by a big shot from Merrill Lynch on Tuesday, who tried to explain the Economic Crisis that is going on at the moment. It was really interesting, but I must admit I lacked some economic understanding to follow a lot of the causations. What I did learn is that investment bankers have some problems at dinner parties at the moment, because they earn looks that are usually reserved for child molesters if they tell people what they are working as ;) Some apparantly go with saying "Oh, I'm a teacher" when asked about their jobs...

On thursday, I agreed with my chinese teacher to go to a big chinese market here in Budapest. I had heard about it before, but it is in a bad part of town with mostly abandoned industry buildings, and I never had a reason to go there before. I wanted to meet her at 2 in front of the market, but I had no idea how precisely to get there. However, I did know the broad direction, so I just went to some central square by tram and tried to call her from my cellphone. Of course, I was just out of credit by then. I found a public phone, but it did not accept coins (when is the last time you have used a public phone? You only notice if you suddenly don't have a cell any more). I managed to get a telephone card, but the instructions in the phone booth where in hungarian and totally not self-explaining. All my common-sense attempts to operate that damn things failed as well, and time before that appointment was running out...

So I just had a look around for anyone who might speak some english, and had some hungarian student help me with that phone. Well, at least I found out that, luckily, it is not me being retarded, but those phones are just a mess. The guy spoke hungarian of course, but we tried together for ten minutes to use that phone, and even with him understanding the instructions, it was simply not possibly. In the end I used his cellphone to call my teacher and ask for directions...and I learned that Hungarians are not used to being spoken to in the streets, but really friendly and helpful once you broke the ice. 

I was 20 minutes late in the end, and my teacher and a friend of hers had waited at a tram stop in the cold...bu hao yi si wo chi dao le! (Sorry I am late), but I was quite lucky I had found them after all.

You have to picture the market like this. It is a huge open area, with ship containers all around it, and surrounded by a fence (partially out of junk and who knows what, a bit postapocalyptic Mad-Max-style). Over the entrance are big chinese letters, and the whole are is covered by small stands and improvised shops, a labyrinth of alleys and food stands, chinese and vietnamese traders holdings stacks of bills and trying to sell you cloths and shoes and fake brand stuff. I have never seen anything like that, and it was not romantic-exotic or anything, just a really big grey labyrinth. I liked it anyway, although the girls told me that chinese people don't go to that market to buy stuff. "Where do they go then?" "Shopping Centers"...well if you want quality you are surely wrong at that place. But if you want metal shirts and fake football trikots, and bargain in hungarian with Chinese people, you might just be okay...at least I was ;)

However, it appeared to me that in this part of the city, the market was the only center of activity where anything was going on. The rest was just old warehouses and office buildings with chinese letters on them. However, I should be surprised. We went into one of those buildings that I never would have had set foot in, and it turned out to contain an entire chinese parallel universe. I was about the only non-chinese in there, and all signs and arrows were just in chinese characters, so as a European you are simply lost. On the sides where Chinese supermarkets, travel agencies, barber shops, everything. We went into one of the supermarkets, and they really only had chinese products, from 10 kilo bags of rice ("We can't eat hungarian rice, it is shit"), to big stacks of dried seaweed ("are you telling me you can eat that?"), to a box of half-living crabs that people are just grabbing and putting in plastic bags (which seemed pretty cruel to me). 

I went home by tram after that, but at least I could claim I had really seen a part of Budapest that is usually invisible to tourists. In the evening I went to a Cuban restaurant with Pim and Martine, Lennert, his sister and a friend of hers (they are visiting him at the moment). So basically we were there with six people from Maastricht. After that, we went bowling. I started out really well and was first after a few throws. And then I changed my strategy to playing the worst bowling of my life, I don't really now what happened but the second round we played I even came in last (after the girls, dammnit). I did not really want to finish my evening like that, so I went to the B7, a club, with Lennert and his visitors. It was a good place, and we were joined by several other ERASMUS people later. Around 3, I decided I had enough and wanted to go home (everyone else still wanted to stay). 

Only when I left the place, I noticed that I had no idea how we got there and how to get back. More than that, I did not recognize anything around, so I couldn't even find one of the main streets for orientation. It was 3:30 and cold and I really did not feel like freezing out there, so I just went up to a group of 8 hungarian guys drinking in front of a tram stop (which, in a sober state, does not sound like such a great idea any more). I asked if anyone spoke English, and if they had any idea about how I could get to Moskva Ter. The first response I got was "it's fucking cold man, have some vodka". So after warming up a bit, the leader told me in very good german that they had to go there as well, so after walking for 10 minutes we came to a street in knew again. Turned out he had worked in a hotel in bavaria for a year or so, and, more importantly, that I would probably end up sleeping in my bed and not in the street that night.

Yesterday, I spend most of my day working on my paper for Games of Strategy (I'm writing about auction theory and bidding strategies on ebay). In the evening, I went to a housewarming party closeby...yes, closeby, for the first time! It is only about 20 minutes by foot from where I live, so for the first time I did not have to think about how to get home. A finish girl and a hungarian guy I know moved into a new flat, and it was one of nicest places I have ever seen. The owner who lets it is Hungarian and lives in finland, so they did not only get it for a special price, but also fully furnished and with loads of fotos from finland everywhere. It even reminded me a bit of some of the houses we had when I went to Sveden for holidays with my parents. Oh and this time there were only two people from Germany, and the rest from Hungary, Denmark, Kazachstan, China (one of my basketball rivals), Finland and so on, around 14 people in total, so it was different from being with a german majority for a change (finally...). Also, the hungarian guy living there is a cook and restaurant manager, so the food was good as well ;)

Today I got some work done on my paper again, but I am not really motivated. It is not too inspiring that it is dark and cold and rainy all day as well, and my work won't just let me go into winter sleep until spring or so ;) But another week of Budapest completed.

It has been a while since my last post, because I have not done a lot last week. I finally took a break from rushing around, I studied for my Logistics Exam (which went well I guess), did not touch any drinks for a week, went jogging in the morning, and started going to the sauna of our school with Pim and Gisli (I have never done that in my life, but I like it). As healthy as that might sound, it did not really make me feel that good, and I caught a cold somewhere.

However, on Friday we left off to Zagreb where we had rented a youth hostel to spent our weekend. And when I say friday I mean early...I had to get up at 4:15 in the morning so we could catch the trams and metros to the railway station.

Waiting for the Bus at an unspeakable time...

Luckily, everyone in the dorm managed to get up in time, and all our connections worked as planned as well. It was really really cold though, which was good for waking up but not too great for raising our mood at 4:45 in the morning... However, when we arrived at Keleti Paliaudvar, the train station, we we missing three out of the twelve people of our group. When we called them it turned out that, somehow, they had managed to oversleep...great. However, it looked like they could still make it, because we still had 45 minutes until departure, and all of them only lived one metro stop from the station.

Where the hell are those guys...waiting at the station

Turned out they did...not. We were a bit annoyed because we had bought tickets for everyone, and planned everything out, and they somehow messed up anyway...well after all it was their problem, as we had the tickets, so they had to buy new ones. Despite the early hour, we were in a pretty good mood (the smokers got their smokers compartment, and we got ours, win-win).

 Enjoying clean air: the non-smokers

Grinning in the face of early death: the smokers

Weeell the train ride was six hours, wich is a long time for sitting in a compartment looking at this.

Lake Balaton in Winter...not really inviting

Although I did not sleep, it was quite doable, as it was early in the morning and you could just doze and not care too much. At least until the Kroatian border, where we were checked by Hungarian tickets controlers, Hungarian Border Police, and the same things in Croatian. All passports were checked quite thoroughly, and some police lady took away Lennert's syringes and insulin that he carries for his diabetes after searching our luggage without any comment...luckily he got it back later. We only found out later that we were lucky, because the people who missed the train and came later were blackmailed and forced to pay Euros by police, otherwise they would not have gotten their tickets back. so we could say that we arrived in Zagreb without any major problems (except for leaving behind 1/4 of our group, of course).

Arrival in Zagreb

We decided to go to our hostel first to get rid of the luggage. Of course we did not have a map or anything. Someone wrote down "cross the railway tracks" and "follow the road", which is helpful to find your way in a capital, if you are, say, a pirate and used to reading treasure maps or so. But we could not even complain as most of us had not even looked at a map of the city, and we had enough time so we eventually managed to ask our way around.I immediately liked the city better than Bratislava...it does not look very big and metropolitan, but it is nice and inviting and clean...it reminded us of some Austrian or Southern German city, which is quite suprising to find on the Balkans.

Almost certainly a King, who has probably expelled the enemy tribe, eventually uniting his people an, taking a shot in the dark, founded the croation nation. I am making this up on the spot but somehow it is always like that with monuments here :D

The hostel was only 50 meters from the main square, so it was easy to find. The guy running the place was most funny...he greeted everyone in his respective home language, and was joking around all the time...also the place was surprisingly nice, rated best hostel in Croatia and Nr. 7 in the world by some hostel agency.

 View from the hostel

12 people bedroom - we did not plan on much sleeping anyway

After we dropped our luggage and got some of the funny Croatian monopoly money, we just went exploring a bit.

Of course you have to open up a bit to this south-eastern european charme, but the city has a lot of it, and it was nice just walking around there. Around noon, we wanted to find some cheap restaurant to have a good meal and rest. However, we ended up in some rather fancy one, which was including an art gallery. We entered and were somehow directed to a table and presented with the menu so it was too late to row back, but everyone else was older and dressed up an looking at us...admittedly, we were a bit afraid of being presented with the menu. It turned out that the restaurant was indeed fancy, with truffles and fancy stuff on the menu, but every main course was somewhere around ten euros...hurray to Eastern Europe! This discovery turned out to be the starting point of one weeked of going to nice restaurants two times a day...

 However, we spent the rest of the day exploring. At 9 in the evening, we picked up the three other people who had missed the train. It sucked for them of course, because trains from Budapest to Zagreb only go at 5:15 and 15:00, so they missed the entire first day. They did not care too much, because they had obviously brought a bag of beer cans to the train, and two were totally drunk. That's why they managed to get lost on the 50 meters from the main square to the hostel again...incredible. They were eventually found again though. Most of us agreed to go have a nice evening, but not go partying yet, as that would be better for the next day after all of us would have gotten some sleep. However, the Italians are simply party animals and they don't care about getting up at four in the morning and partying until 6 in the morning of the next day...the two late-comers were in the mood as well and went with them. The rest of us just went for dinner and to a bar.

 Waiting for the late-comers to arrive...and for some reason, crazy face contest

Did I mention it was cold outside?

 It was!

Nice Restaurant with cigar selection...for 2 euros a piece, haha

Although we did not go to bed too late, I slept pretty bad...woke up at night in some crazy half-dream half-awake state and totally messed up...but I managed to go to sleep again, and hardly noticed the Italians coming back. Only the Italians? Yes. The two latercomers had left the club around half past one with the intention of going home, and never showed up in the dorm. We tried to call them but the phones were turned off. Of course we worried, but we could not do anything at the moment, so we decided to go on with exploring the city and see further in the evening.

 Breakfast

Free Minitrain ride through the city? Why not

Awwww

Freezing ? Not in Iceland...

 Wait, didn't we agree on "funny faces?"

We ran into the lost guys around 3 o'clock by accident...they told us they did not find the hostel, their phones did not work, and they stayed at the place of some Croatian guy they just met in the streets...credible or not, a lot of people were annoyed because they worried and they did not seem to take it serious. Naja whatever...in the evening we went out eating again, and then to some club. I totally loved it...the music was some mixture of turkish balkan and dance music, and everybody was going crazy in there...however, we were around the oldest in there, most were around 16 to 19. Unfortunately, me and Lennert were the only ones who liked it, the rest wanted to move on, so we went to another club just one floor down, where the music was good and the audience more mature. However, me and Lennert switched between the two as they were right next to each other. It was fun, because the Italians literally just went up to girls and said "Hey, I'm from Italia", and that worked so often that Lennert became Leonardo for the evening, with some really weak story about how he can be blond and blue-eyed and not speaking any Italian then. It was ridiculous but a lot of fun.

On the next day, my cold had not really gotten any better. We got up relatively early, did some more exploring, and sat outside in a café having some coffee. 

 Goodbye, Croatia

You rock!

I did not make it to the Freshman’s Ball. I considered it for a long time, but I heard it was at some rather remote location and also expensive. It would still have been fun for seeing everyone all dressed up (after all, expensive means 10 Euros entrance fee in Hungary), but I saw all the people in the Hallways…guys in expensive suits, and girls in dresses and with show-off jewelry…I don’t usually care too much about being underdressed, but I think they simply would not have let me in with any cloths I have here :P

The day was not so great in general anyway. I went swimming in the morning, so I was really relaxed and exhausted for my Logistics Class in the afternoon. We learned about Radio-frequency identification, a technique where chips are attached to products that send information to readers, which is basically like a bar code only you do not have to scan it from close but it sends information directly. Apparantly, in Germany there is a METRO store where you just put everything you buy into a cart, push it through a gate, and then pay, without any waiting lines or people sitting at cash registers. Well, one student asked why one cannot simply peel off the tags from some products and get them for free. Our teacher said that this is the reason why the experimental store is in Germany and not in Hungary, because it would be empty and bankrupt after one day if it was installed here. He was really surprised because he had taught the same lesson to French and German people and the question never came up there, while it is the first thing Hungarian students ask him usually…

I finally decided to cook for myself again in the evening, while I usually go out for that…which turned out to be not such a great success. I broke a plate on my doorstep, the cut myself on the splinters, then I got a vacuum cleaner from the reception, but someone had broken it so I cut myself again on the sharp edges of where it had been broken :D Also, that meant that I could not get the splinters from my doorstep, as there were no working cleaners in the entire building. Somehow I managed not to cut my feet open while dragging splinters through my room the last days.

Anyway, we went to a cocktail bar the same evening. I had already convinced Pim and Martine to come with me to the Sonata Arctica concert. It is melodic power metal, so they actually liked the clips I showed them on youtube. We met with Anna and a friend of hers from Finland, and when I told them Sonata Arctica was playing they went totally crazy…it’s a finnish band from one of their hometowns, and they had been waiting to see it for a long time, and had no idea they were in town…so convincing was not even necessary there ;)

For Friday, I agreed with Pim and some others to meet for Basketball in the park at one…of course, I just woke Pim up when I knocked at his door at 12:30, but we still made it in time. We played Maastricht against China over an entire court, so it was reeeally exhausting. I was with Pim, Georg and Philip from my study, against four Chinese guys we had played before. We mostly scored by physical strength and teamplay, but they clearly did it by technique and individual skills. There was one guy who was literally not bigger than 1,50m, and he simply ran under my arms when I tried to stop him…that guy even stole a rebound from me, and all the others were playing insanely well too. I think it was pretty balanced, but overall we got our asses handed to us by those guys. At least everyone was telling me I looked like some Chinese celebrity, so maybe they had even gone easy on me, I hope they did not :D

I begin to feel all those sports in my muscles though, I just don’t find any time to rest because there is so much to do. Me and Pim cooked in the evening, as Martine was out to get the tickets. We went for Pasta, because that is a really good base for drinking beer, because that is a really good base for going to a metal show. However, we had a little problem in the store when we wanted to get minced meat. Of course we had no idea what it was in Hungarian, and of course nobody else did. But we ended up trying to articulate what we wanted for ten minutes, with 3 persons from the stuff and half of the consumers in the store trying to help us :D Well, it simply did not work, so we put more vegetables in and the sauce was fine.

Everything took a bit longer than planned, so it became obvious we would miss the first support act. Also, it was funny to bring those two non-metalheads to the show. Martine had listened to gothic or so when she was younger, and she had fun putting that old makeup and rock n’ roll hairstyle on again. But Pim looks like a banker with short hair and always wearing nice shirts, and he has never been to any kind of concert. He was confused when she forbade him to go with a green t-shirt (“I don’t have anything darker!”), but I gave him some metal shirt of mine and we were fine. The place was a bit far out, but I immediately felt at home again when I heard the sweet sound of doublebase through the wall of the concert hall, and that typical crowd you always encounter on metal shows. Well, actually there was some guy who came on a Harley Davidson Night Rod, in a full-leather suit covered with silver rivets and a rob-halford-memorial-mustache…if heavy metal would drive motorbikes, then it would have been him :D The location was great, there were about one or two thousand people in there, so it was exactly right to get an atmosphere, but small enough that you could go to get beer (1,70 Euros) or to the bathrooms without any waiting. It was the best. Of course everyone had to warm up first, but for the main act I dragged everyone to the front somewhere 5-10 meters from the stage. After one hour Pim was shouting and flinging the devil’s horns like he had not done anything else in his life :D The atmosphere was great as everybody knew the lyrics and was singing along, and the sound was really good, not the mix-up of only base drum and screaming guitars you sometimes have, the melodic part came out great.

Here’s a video, I was somewhere in the front left

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCC8_aXW2Do

It felt quite short though, maybe because we missed the first band. We were out of the place around 11 I think, and we went to that same cocktail bar again, then went home by nightbus and cab.

Waking up was not fun. Around 10, someone was knocking at my door. I could just mumble some rather unarticulated sound to show that I was here and maybe considering coming to the door. My ears were still ringing, muscle aches everywhere from everything in the last days, I was slightly hungover and my voice was gone from the shouting. Of course it was Gisli standing at my door grinning at me full of energy and good mood.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

“Graflblarg”

“Did I wake you?”

“Gisli, what the hell?”

“Was it late yesterday? You know which time it is?”

“What time is it Gisli”

“It is 10.15! (like that’s a totally reasonable time to wake people on a Saturday morning)! I just ran up that hill behind the school, you have forest and a great few. I got up at 7 and I feel really good. You want to come down to the Sauna? It is really good to wake up!”

I explained I did not want to wake up right now, and I would see him later…

An hour later, someone knocked on my door again. Nina stared at me a bit shocked “Errr…did I wake you?” “It’s alright, you’re not the first today…”. She told me people were going Lasergaming at 4 again, if I wanted to come. Well my body tells me I should not, but I just like it too much, so I will. I did not try to go back to sleep again, so it was no problem Gisli knocked again to tell me Gaming is at 7 tonight…argh I really wanted to get some studying done, someone told me about some concert tonight in the city and if I wanted to come. I think I will have to take a break somewhere sometime, for now I just cleaned the glass splinters from my floor and the rest of the room and I consider starting some actually studying, and I already managed to not get dragged to playing football today.

Okay that’s it for now. I really have no idea if anyone is still reading this, so I would appreciate the occasional comment on my side, maybe I have only been writing to ghosts for some time already…

This is the second of two new posts, so make sure to read the next one as well ;)

I got some pictures from Martine covering various things we did in October.

Birthday Party for Niina, at Lennert's place

Palinka + Sausage festival on the Castle Hill

Funny faces? In MY back?

View from the hill over Budapest...just wow

The crew, without Martine (taking the picture)

Sir Lancelot, pseudo-medieval restaurant (but reality-awesome)

*Munch Munch*

Viking, celebrating over the debris he left behind

Belly dancer, taking away the last rest of self constraint from the Italian marathon team sitting next to us

Magician (?), taking away what is left of your appetite

Hey guys,

since my trip to Bratislava, I haven't really done anything spectacular here in Budapest. Partying is at the normal level here, several times a week, the occasional cocktail bar or going to a club once in a while. And school has not really become more challenging...got the best exam in my chinese class, but that sounds better than it is, because my classmates hardly studied. I can take a resit for fun to get more points, but I just do it out of ambition, because the grades do not even count for Maastricht, I only have to pass. If I can find an interesting Master study in Maastricht, I will definately stay there, because, even if Eastern Europe might not be the best comparison, I really think we get a really good education back home...I mean in the Netherlands ;)

However, I've discovered a new fun sport for my, yeah basically, sports semester abroad: Lasergaming. Some friends of mine took me a few days ago, and it is simply awesome. For those who do not know it, you get a gun shooting laser beams, and a body vest with sensors. You have hitpoints on your gun, shoulders and chest, and you get on a map (several dark connected rooms with barrels, car wrecks and all kinds of funky shit) with two teams and...yeah, shoot each other. You play for 15 minutes a round, and it costs between 600 and 1000 forints depending on the day (3-4 euros). And belive me, after 15 minutes of running, ducking, dodging and shooting, you are wasted. Maybe that is why the mostly sell energy drinks in the lobby. Not only it is cheap and fun, but the owners are also really cool people, and you get statistics after the game, whom you shot and how often and who was the best in the game etc...just like CS, only with actual movement and honor. It is the best. We went again today and played four games (because the fourth is for free). Last time I was top scorer, but this time I got 2nd 3 times and 1st only one time. Buuut I was the only guy on the girls team, and we still won two matches out of four...yeah as you see, everyone gets really competitive, that's the fun about it. Is it sport? Hell yeah! You are soaked i sweat already after the first round, then you throw in some energy drink after two and go on, and everyone has sore muscles afterwards.%

Here are some pics of the place.

 For the rest, I am maybe going to the freshman's ball tomorrow. And if you need a suit for that, I might at least to the party. It's supposed to be a big thing in a really exclusive club. And on friday, I got a ticket for Sonata Arctica, a power metal band. It looks like I will be able to drag Pim and Martine with me. Stay tuned! And I will add some pictures of October in a separate post.

I got some pictures from my Bratislava trip today...for more check out the Album.

View from the Train, still in Hungary

Old Town and Scary Castle

Red Army Monument

No fun!

I already wrote an article about this day yesterday night…but I deleted it again after some time, because I felt there was too much bad emotion, anger and general being annoyed in it. So here’s my next try, with a night of sleep between me and my experiences.

I was in a pretty messed up mood on Saturday evening, so I spontaneously decided to join Daniela and Inga in going to Bratislava/Slovakia to get some distraction. I knew I had my Chinese midterm on Monday, but I figured I could study on the train ride, which is about 3 hours each way.

We wanted to leave by train at 9:45, so I had to get up at 7:45 and go by trams to the station…I think that was the earliest time for me to get up here (on purpose) so far. I hardly caught any sleep the night before, although I went to bed early, but I still was not too tired in the morning.

Apparantly, I was the only one to get up that early, and the kitchens were still closed, so I could not even make coffee (they are supposed to be opened at 7:00, but in an Eastern European country that does not necessarily mean they will actually be opened at 7:00, 7:10 or 7:15…). Also, on the trams, I felt like the only person to have gotten up out of free will…everyone else looked pretty unhappy about being up that early, even more than the usual eastern melancholia. I met with the girls at 8:45, and we bought tickets for the train (which was quite complicated, because all counters only sold inland tickets…and all tourist information were closed…well, we finally found one international information counter, to ask were we could get tickets, and draw a number for the ticket counter…at which point it turned out we also needed a number for the information counter to ask them where to find the numbers…great).

We finally managed somehow, and started our circa 3 hour train ride to Bratislava. What we could see through the windows was far from a nice sight though…abandoned factories, graffiti, car wrecks, industry…it sounds like what you also see in western countries next to rails, but believe me, it is not…because also the regular houses and villages you pass appear really wrecked, it all looks pretty hopeless and you get an idea why Hungary has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. It got better at some point though, and suddenly the sun was coming out a bit, you could see the Danube and mountains and some really nice nature. Unfortunately, it was getting worse again the closer we got to Slovakia, the same was true for the weather. When we finally arrived and got out at the station, it was like walking directly under a or in a cloud…it was grey, wet, a bit cold, and totally nasty in general, which did not really improve my mood.

First of all, we tried to walk to the center (by feeling of course, men don’t ask for the way). Of course it was the right direction, but what we saw of the city was just…nothing. There were hardly any people in the streets, everything was wrecked and, to be honest, ugly. But most of all, it was just totally boring and uninteresting. I really went to that city with an open mind, but it is really hard to describe what the combination of bad weather and this place felt like…you know that episode where Spongebob forgets to get off the bus and ends up in that place called rock bottom? That’s exactly what it felt like going to Bratislava from Budapest today. The place was just weird, and I was actually just looking around looking for something to look at, because there was nothing. Daniela tried to take some pictures (ended up to be 150 in total), and somehow, on the pictures, she manages to make the place look okay. But even after giving it a chance to get better by walking around for long, through the inner city, and to the river, it was just uber lame. That, combined with my mood, really messed me up well.

Not only was I totally down and having one of the worst days ever anyway, but I was also in the most depressing place I have been to in years, which shows that life has some kind of humor after all ;)

 They also have a castle hill in Bratislava, only on the top there is a castle that is not only repulsive to enemies but also to tourists alike. We actually climbed up, only to get a better view over that ( yesterday I wrote “shithole that was annoying me more and more” here, let’s go with “city” for now). On the right side, you had a view of the other side of the river, which was plastered with high-story communist concrete buildings where 160.000 people live, as I heard. In front of that, some really ugly modern bridges connect the two banks. Slightly to the left, you have a view over a vast industrial area that rounds up the ugliness on that side of the hill, while you can oversee the rest of the city on the other side, which is a combination of old houses, randomly spread skyscrapers and communist buildings and alleys. That, combined with the sad people around you and the grey weather, just left you wondering whether to jump off that walls, get right back onto the train, find an English movie theatre or get really drunk…

The others did not like it any better. We looked at our watches and found out it was only 3, and we still had until 7:45 until our train would leave. At some point, we gave up at trying to find nice places, and it just became some kind of “Katastrophentourismus”…we walked through alleys of grey communist buildings, Karl Marx statues…you can’t really imagine it, maybe picture Tschernobyl, only with graffiti, a few people walking around, and some busses driving. I don’t know if any psychologic school uses a method of countering depression by making you go to the very rock bottom of it, but if there is, they should consider sending people to Bratislava.

At this moment, I really had it with this whole Eastern Europe thing. Everything is grey, people are walking around sad all the time, and I just felt really abandoned and away from anything that I liked in this part of the world, and especially in this city of the dead.

We seriously had no idea about how to spend our time anymore, so we walked up some hill to a Red Army monument that was actually kind of cool and had a really great view over the city. That is, the view was great in the way that you could see far and a lot, only what you had to look at kinda ruined it a bit.

But I really had it with this sh*t at that point, and started drinking Jack Daniels in some bar at 4:30, which did not make it good but a bit more bearable. Later on, we were actually sitting at the station and looking at the clock there almost every minute until the train arrived…

So guys, if you want to check out that city for yourselves, you can do it, because it is not expensive and you might give it a chance, especially if the weather is better or so. But don’t go there if you are down anyway, because then it is about the worst place you can be ;)

Well somewhere towards the end of the train ride, my body decided that it had enough of being down and tired and exhausted, so I just dropped into not giving a shit about anything anymore.

But I also decided to not mess up my study over this, with the exam today that I have to pass, so I’ll just push all the other shit aside for now… and at some point, I will maybe find some time and rest to write a song about this awful trip to Bratislava :P

Alright...I have not posted in a long time here...had a lot of stuff to deal with, and of course you get a certain routine of living here.

I have decided for myself that this city is to great for hanging around, so I am keeping myself pretty busy all the time. Although I have midterms at the moment, my study is still not that challenging. My favorite class is Hungarian Language, that's why I put a lot of effort into it, although for my uni I only have to pass it (I got 99% on my midterm exam, hehe). It is actually really useful in everyday life, especially if you come to non-tourist places where every single sign is in hungarian, and no one speaks any english or german whatsoever. I had it a few days ago, when I went to a public swimming pool alone. Of course my Hungarian is not good enough yet, but luckily I was persistent enough to find some younger woman who could speak english and translate stuff for me. 

Yeah, as my study leaves me so much free time, I do a lot of sports here. I often walk for hours just exploring the city, or go running up some hill close to the school if I just want to get exhausted. Besides, I meet with people to play football and basketball a lot. Last time, I went to a park with Pim to shoot some hoops, and we met some Chinese guys who were playing there, and who turned out to be from our school (we have between 100 and 150 in total I think). We asked them if they wanted to play together...and it became an insanely good match. They look rather short, young and fragile, but hell they have the moves that just leave you standing there breathless. As you can imagine, I am quite decent as blocking, especially against 1,70 guys. I can also get rebounds or just go through with power instead of beauty. 

But those guys will just hit the basket from every position, or get past you and two other guys with combinations that I would be proud of if I could make them on bloody playstation, let alone in reality. I'm gonna meet them again tomorrow, but it was really a balanced match last time, and one of the best I ever played.

Besides, I try to go swimming lanes 3 times a week, and yesterday I wanted to try ice hockey. We got an email from someone who wanted to start an ice hockey team, saying that you could come also with no equipment and no experience whatsoever. I went with two friends, but I turned out that the organizer had no idea whatsover about what to do with guys without equipment. He did not care to much either, so we just left pretty disappointed and annoyed.

So I have to find some new crazy thing to try....louis, whose pipe organ is that? :P

Unlike many other guys, I am not going out and drinking excessively, that is not really for me. But I am still searching for places with decent music (hard rock instead of electronic, if you need any explanation). Tonight I am planning on taking some people to a place called rocktogon, which is supposed to be more like that...but I am annoyed because I wasted my evening on this hockey failure yesterday, instead of seeing and iron maiden tribute band in rocktogon...naja.

Also, I am making some more precise travel plans with my friends now...in two weeks, we want to go to Zagreb/Croatia for two days, and in the time after that we want to see Vienna, Bratislava, maybe Krakow or even Venice. Some more adventurous-minded people also went to visit Sarajevo and other balkan cities, but I have enough with seeing those places on the news...usually it's where you go with a rifle and a blue helmet on your head.

So that's what my life here is like at the moment, I will keep you updated.

Viszontlátasra.

Alright...I have not posted in a long time here...had a lot of stuff to deal with, and of course you get a certain routine of living here.

I have decided for myself that this city is to great for hanging around, so I am keeping myself pretty busy all the time. Although I have midterms at the moment, my study is still not that challenging. My favorite class is Hungarian Language, that's why I put a lot of effort into it, although for my uni I only have to pass it (I got 99% on my midterm exam, hehe). It is actually really useful in everyday life, especially if you come to non-tourist places where every single sign is in hungarian, and no one speaks any english or german whatsoever. I had it a few days ago, when I went to a public swimming pool alone. Of course my Hungarian is not good enough yet, but luckily I was persistent enough to find some younger woman who could speak english and translate stuff for me. 

Yeah, as my study leaves me so much free time, I do a lot of sports here. I often walk for hours just exploring the city, or go running up some hill close to the school if I just want to get exhausted. Besides, I meet with people to play football and basketball a lot. Last time, I went to a park with Pim to shoot some hoops, and we met some Chinese guys who were playing there, and who turned out to be from our school (we have between 100 and 150 in total I think). We asked them if they wanted to play together...and it became an insanely good match. They look rather short, young and fragile, but hell they have the moves that just leave you standing there breathless. As you can imagine, I am quite decent as blocking, especially against 1,70 guys. I can also get rebounds or just go through with power instead of beauty. 

But those guys will just hit the basket from every position, or get past you and two other guys with combinations that I would be proud of if I could make them on bloody playstation, let alone in reality. I'm gonna meet them again tomorrow, but it was really a balanced match last time, and one of the best I ever played.

Besides, I try to go swimming lanes 3 times a week, and yesterday I wanted to try ice hockey. We got an email from someone who wanted to start an ice hockey team, saying that you could come also with no equipment and no experience whatsoever. I went with two friends, but I turned out that the organizer had no idea whatsover about what to do with guys without equipment. He did not care to much either, so we just left pretty disappointed and annoyed.

So I have to find some new crazy thing to try....louis, whose pipe organ is that? :P

Unlike many other guys, I am not going out and drinking excessively, that is not really for me. But I am still searching for places with decent music (hard rock instead of electronic, if you need any explanation). Tonight I am planning on taking some people to a place called rocktogon, which is supposed to be more like that...but I am annoyed because I wasted my evening on this hockey failure yesterday, instead of seeing and iron maiden tribute band in rocktogon...naja.

Also, I am making some more precise travel plans with my friends now...in two weeks, we want to go to Zagreb/Croatia for two days, and in the time after that we want to see Vienna, Bratislava, maybe Krakow or even Venice. Some more adventurous-minded people also went to visit Sarajevo and other balkan cities, but I have enough with seeing those places on the news...usually it's where you go with a rifle and a blue helmet on your head.

So that's what my life here is like at the moment, I will keep you updated.

Viszontlátasra.