Hyperballad

I'm not sure why, but I've been listening to this song lately. I'm also far from suicidal thoughts if those are what you read out of it.

From the road again

So here I am, opening another chapter in the book of wonder. (You should watch Bjork's video I posted yesterday if you haven't done your homework on those yet).

I'm leaving Budapest this morning and although it's upsetting I feel like it's just another swerve on the strange sequence of my last few years. We're slowly approaching the brighter horizon and leaving the dark hours of the sleeping city behind. I passed the corners, the lights, the rain, and the blurry-eyed people on the metro. The dark face of the city only showed a few scars this time, as it always does when you see it at its hour of weakness - when sun doesn't shine yet and the coffees of the city haven't brewed long enough to shoo away its crooked expression.


I feel like this year will be a yet another year of changes. Change seems to follow me ever since I've left home behind and in the long run it seems to be the only constant in my little life. I'm going home for a few days before I make the bigger move back to London. I felt a tickle of happiness when I saw a little Polish flag and a familiar looking license plate. But today when it's so much easier to move, what is it that drives us to go home, stay home, or have a home period? Is it the longing for familiarity and belonging? Longing for the meaning we build around our states, objects, and people? It's amazing how deep the wiring for this goes. I always get so much pleasure out of speaking Polish to shop keepers and little people when I go home, but I'm not sure that this at all shows how much I belong. I feel ever more distance to the idea of belonging to any certain place year after year. I love going home, seeing people, and re-visiting memories, but I can never quite decide if it's more than a visiting place anymore. I feel more and more comfortable around people who share this confusion of space and decide to re-create themselves and their 'homes' outside their birth-place bracket; they have become a sort of a refuge for me. Maybe later on age will bring answers to these questions.

So long!

I'm in and out of being heart-broken today, as I'm leaving Budapest for good early tomorrow morning. The dizzying lure of London seems ever so distant right now...

A friend (whose webpage you can find under 'Equivocality') showed me these Michel Gondry videos and I can't help but share. Sorry to you who are already 'in' on this one!

Another try for Romania!

Oh, Romania, what a strange place you are. I'm back in this country again and again my feelings about the place are a little mixed. The purpose of this trip was to attend a friend's wedding, but to get to it, I had to fly through Bucharest, spend a sleepless night because of the heat and gangs of dogs going about their nightly business, get in a car the following morning and spend 8 hours listening to the Romanian world chart hits. I guess the cracks in the roads and the on and off traffic did provide variety, but not so much entertainment. Sibiu, which is where the wedding was taking place, was a cute place, but god do I not understand how all its tourist commit to taking the hike out there.


The wedding turned out to be a blast, though in a pretty extreme manner. I thought Polish weddings were hardcore, but this one with its streams of paulinka, fire torches, and a whole wild boar on fire kind of blew it all away. I have plenty more stories to tell about the time there, but I'll have to save that for another time.


To hit it from the good old EU point, I sometimes really can't believe this country is where it is. The worrying thing is that I hear it's gotten a lot better. It feels a lot like some places in Russia, which should be fine, but this is now considered as a part of the EU. Walking or driving though Bucharest is like a long sail though an ocean of ugly grey blocks, row after row, covering the horizon. Stray dogs are ubiquitous, whether you're looking at the center or the suburbs. The traffic is fast-paced and reminds me of the rivers of cars I used to see in Moscow. I still find places in Transylvania charming, but the towns between and even the capital for the most part - not so pretty after all. Bucharest is a peculiar place though. I think my favorite thing about it are the electricity lines hanging everywhere, which draw great lines across the city and remind me of the fire escapes in NYC - not pretty, but with personality. The bubble in the middle of it really is very interesting both architecturally and otherwise. It definitely has kept its character, which is somewhere in-between being gritty, fast, and majestic. A country and city of great contrasts for sure.

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Sziget, what else?

Budapest is entranced by the Sziget festival going on 24/7 for the next week on one of the city's islands. The streets seem to have reclaimed their tourist population, but this time a peculiar one: everyone seems a little over 20, sweaty and with rather ragged expressions. Sziget is what they're here for.

I decided to check out what they came for and went to see Manu Chao yesterday. Sure enough, I was caught up in endless lines with the fellow sweaty passengers and proceeded to enter what seemed to be the biggest music event I've ever seen. As far as I can remember, the island hosted over 60 stages with different music themes and performances. Lots of fun, though the ubiquitous dust forming a yellowish cloud over the entire island was a bit hard to bear. Maybe I'm just not the camping kind anymore.

Oh my...

I can't believe I haven't written for so long! Part of the excuse is that I'm in Krakow right now and have abandoned my dear laptop back in Budapest. As for the rest of the time of my blogger absence - no real excuse this time. I'll get back on track as soon as I'm back in Budapest, which is this weekend. Now that I'm about to leave, I already kind of miss Krakow and find myself thinking that maybe I could live here?