Budapeshhhhht: Many large men in many tiny swimsuits

Budapest is magic. Imagine soaking in outdoor thermal baths under a nearly full moon. Imagine a place that goes from 50 degrees and sunny to blowing snow from one side of a castle to the other. Imagine a golden sunset view of a city sprawling across the rolling hills of the Carpathian basin cut in half by the Danube. Imagining won't get you close to the deliriously delicious chocolate and ice cream. And last but not least, imagine a place where Támas is actually on time to meet you. ;) Such is my impression of Hungary. And until next time, only an impression it must remain. 72 hours is not nearly enough time to sink your teeth into this mysterious, romantic, and deeply historical place.

Never before in my life had I ever considered traveling to Budapest, so here is how the scenario came to be: with the dozens of Hungarians that go to my school here in Kraków, I have made friends with some of them. Of course you from know from previous posts that Tomi and I pretty close, and if anyone could be a walking tourism bureau, it would be him. This guy, the son of a travel agent, is a certified tour guide in Hungary, and he'll never miss an opportunity to invite you to his favorite city. Back in November for my birthday, I was presented with a certificate for a "Free Walking Tour of Budapest, (valid only in March 2008)". So with a few days of Easter vacation (plus one because I am a bad student who never goes to class anymore), and a $20 bus ticket, I headed south.

There was, of course, the pressure to squeeze in such a trip before Tom left for Germany, but there was also another reason that made all the train and bus travel worth it -- ice cream. OK, I am not so shallow as to only be motivated by sweets. Another friend of mine, Péter, was going to be home. The Hungarian countryside was a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city, and time spent with Péter is always time well spent. Getting to him involved me buying my first -and most likely only- ticket in Hungarian. (I may have accidentally bought two, but I can't tell...) I spent the morning in the picturesque town of Kecskemét and, despite the language barrier, a most enjoyable afternoon in Péter's home with his generous and good-natured parents. Now you may be asking, where are the sweets? Péter's family owns an ice cream parlor in a small resort town maybe 100 km from the capitol, hence ice cream. And did I also mention chocolate? ;)

Back to Budapest. The architecture and city planning are at times astounding. It might be the place with the most statues and monuments per capita that I have ever visited. But what really struck me was the contradictions I felt in having to remind myself that I was in still in Europe while surrounded by decidedly non-European language. The city has the look of another Vienna, but it's soul is decidedly its own.

And I suppose I can't finish this post without explaining the allusions to Europeans in Speedos in the title. With the concurrence of Tom's mother, I left their house in the morning with the intention of finishing the day relaxing at the famous Széchenyi Baths. First I needed a suit. Sure you could rent one there, but Tom's mother insisted I check out a cheap clothing store just down the street from their house. There, her and I mixed and matched suits and underwear, bottoms and tops until I found an acceptable combination. She even walked in on me in the dressing room to offer her observations like a true mother. With a bra and little boy's red speedo-like bottom in my bag, I was ready to hit the town.

I am so glad I allowed myself to be convinced to go to the baths. I arrived to observe my favorite time of day, where the sun's waining light cast golden hues on the clouds and on the already yellow building. The warm water outdoors evaporated into visible wisps of steam in the chilly spring air. Jumping from sweltering sauna to a 10º C pool (5oº F) was invigorating. And I felt no trace of self-consciousness with my makeshift bathing suit because, like I said, based on some other choices of swimwear among locals and tourists alike, let's just say that no one was lacking a healthy body image.

Relaxed, well-fed, and blessed via a Good Friday service (my first, and most likely only in Hungarian), I reluctantly headed back to Poland. The Rudniks would be waiting for me! But first I had to pass through the mountainous Slovakian landscape. Contemplating the snowy peaks and the villages below (between catnaps because I was up at 4:45 that morning!) I couldn't help but think again that this trip was pure magic.

way to end on an upbeat

THE NETHERLANDS

It was cold. I was tired. I was also cranky from being cold and tired. All in all, my 6-hour introduction to Holland via Eindhoven was not as interesting as it could have been. I think Tom summarized it best when he said that the city is like one big duty-free shop for the Eindhoven airport. Lots and lots of bicycles though.

There were some other upsides as well, like going into my first Bjorn Borg store and then meeting our friend Fanney, who came from Amsterdam to catch our flight to Katowice. She was smarter though to take the shuttle back to Krakow and not have to so a repeat performance of the bus-train combo. Oh well, I just ate my chorizo and manchego with some Dutch bread and was happy.

No pics this time. You should instead look for some tourist bureau material; those photos actually make the place look nice...

and I came home with chorizo and manchego :)

ESPAÑA (con ANNA!)

This was what I had been looking forward to for about four months: Spain. The country that I'd dreamed of visiting for so long but which has always eluded me. I mean, I was finally going to see the places I had first set eyes upon in my 7th grade Spanish textbook. I was going to see a much-needed familiar face, a Sarah Lawrence friend. I was going to speak Spanish again, a language I actually know! I was going to have a good cup of coffee again, not to mention tons of other delicious goodies. Oh, to be in a Mediterranean country!

Of course, it couldn't all go smoothly, could it? Thanks to a thick batch of fog in the characteristically overcast Belgian sky, our plane from Charleroi to Madrid was horribly delayed. So we sat, and we sat, and we sat around for hours. Apparently, conditions were different at another airport in this vast country that we could be allowed to leave from a different airport. That meant we all got on a bus destined for an airport one hour away, checked in AGAIN, went through security AGAIN, got our boarding passes ripped in half AGAIN. By this time it was about 10.00 pm, and there was no one in this dinky Liege airport, which sees about 4 planes a week go in and out. The worst of it was Tom and I had been planning to meet my Bostonian-turned Madrileña friend, Anna, at her apartment that evening. Since we arrived in Madrid about 2.00 am, when the metro had conveniently stopped running for the night, we decided that rather than pay through the nose for a taxi and disturb Anna's entire apartment, we would catch some Z's right there in the terminal until daybreak.

[Some of you readers may be aware of Tomi's and my bad luck with at least one connection every single time we travel together - London planes, Czech trains, and now. He blames it on me, but now what can he do. Three times now makes it a tradition.]

After an uncomfortable night in front of Turkish Air, we then hopped on the Metro and without further complications found Anna's apartment, in it's amazing location, complete with a dazzling view of the Almudena Madrid Cathedral. After a big terry cloth hug from Anna, who greeted us at the door in her bathrobe, our Madrid adventures began.


To tell the truth, it was surreal, and surreal in an unsettling way. I think it was because, in contrast to Belgium, I had so many expectations of Madrid which ended up preventing me from enjoying the city for what it is. Don't get me wrong, I loved it all! It is an amazingly beautiful place replete with gorgeous architecture, parks and people :). I think I was just impatient to feel the city, to let it completely absorb me and to belong to it that I didn't slow down. (Then again, traveling with Tom you can never slow down...) More often than not I felt like I was back in Buenos Aires, a feeling which also added to my disorientation. On the other hand, the sheer Western cosmopolitan atmosphere wasn't without similarities to New York. Neither could I believe that I was could be at the Plaza Mayor and El Corte Inglés, places that I first read about in the dog-eared pages of my textbooks of 10 years ago. Surreal. And in many ways magical. The transcendental moment for me was when I went for a walk by myself one afternoon and found myself at the top of the Casa de Campo with a view of the sprawling city below and the rugged landscape beyond. With the city of Madrid at my feet, I finally understood that I was smack in the middle of the Iberian peninsula at 23 years with possibilities on all sides.


There is so much there to go back for! I had an amazing time seeing the sight, and like I mentioned, it was some good therapy to see Anna. (And I know the experience was reciprocal.) Many of the things I had hoped Spain to be and that I had hoped to do I got to check off my list, such as eat tapas and tortilla, drink delicious wines, go out on the town, see the Prado, pay homage to Cervantes, lounge in cafes, wander about parks, and hablar some español.


There were even some unexpected moments that made me so happy to be there: the utterly incredible Picasso exhibit at the Reina Sofia, walking around sin chaqueta in the springlike sunshine, cooking Hungarian lesco in Anna's apartment, the drama that was Anna's apartment in the light of the search for a new roommate, meeting up with a Minnesota friend, watching "Friends" in Spanish, chocolate con churros (!), finding that I retained much of my Spanish (complete with my Argentine accent), realizing that it is diffucult for me to get drunk after after having become accustomed to Polish vodkas, laying eyes upon the original Real Academia Español and Instituto Cervantes, going through the Palacio Real three times (folks, it can be done in just over 9 minutes if you keep a brisk pace)... if I keep thinking I can certainly add more to this list.

And just to make it an even number of nights we would spend at the airport (read with sarcasm), Tom and I ended our Madrid stay back at Barajas at midnight to wait for our 6 am flight. This one, however, we had planned on, and this time we found a much quieter and a minimally more comfortable nook.


En serio, Spain, I will definitely be back. After all, one thing that Tom said to me merely as a passing comment I really took to heart: he said that he has never seen me so happy as when I was speaking Spanish.

Fries and Chocolate

It's almost been a month since Tamas and I went on our little westward excursion. Even so, I'd still like to note some of the highlights, if even just for myself.

BELGIUM

After a night of no sleep thanks to a midnight train to Katowice and the subsequent bus/plane connections, we arrived in Brussels on a sunny Tuesday morning. That was worth it for me right there - sunshine. Add to that the fact that the among the breathtaking architecture, the city center constantly smells like waffle cones. There you have Sarah's dream city. Isn't that how it goes, though? When you have no expectations of a place (or no idea what to expect) it comes to pleasantly surprise you in everything.


Anyway, two days in Brussels was overall fantastic. The Atomium, the parks, dog walking, the city, the peeing boy fountain, the food, the beer, the family and friends, lunch at the European Commission (in the heart of the heart of Europe - haha), good coffee, being surrounded by French without all the pretension that I imagine is in France, being surrounded and confounded by Flemish, bilingualism in general, funny mannequins of the Royal Family in the subway (what's up with Belgium's government anyway?).



These were all the wonders shown to us in the seat of the European Union thanks to our friend and tour guide extraordinnaire, Nelly, who just finished a semester at the Polish institute with Tomi and I. What was really interesting staying with her family is how their conversations fluidly changes from English to Polish to French and back again. They are fabulous people which makes you realize how much good there still is in the world.


I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it's nice to have friends in fun places who you can go and visit...

NOTE: The Delirium Bar and a mitraillette sandwich are must-try's. Delish.

The Great Czech Republic Adventure

[Note] Blogger would not let me fill in as much as I wanted to in the title space (not enough room), so here is what the official title of this post should be: "The Great Czech Republic Adventure; OR Thank Goodness for Long Underwear; OR I've Never (fill-in-the-blank) in the Czech Republic Before; OR It Is Established Once Again that Annie and Sarah Make A Powerful Team, So Maybe ONE More Person Should Ask If We Are Sisters" There.



The only word that can accurately describe the weekend I spent in Valašské Klobouky –a small town in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains– is "magical". (I don't think it is a coincidence that the the sun came out to shine over the freshly fallen snow once Tomi and I crossed the Czech-Polish border on our way there.) It was truly a change of scenery and a breath of fresh air. The most important thing to me was that I saw Annie in a place where she felt really at home. The entire weekend she had stars in her eyes and love shown out of her heart for everything and everyone. And it was easy to see why. Words are utterly inadequate to convey my feelings towards the hospitality of the kind, worldly souls of Kosenka, Valašské's environmental NGO and organizers of the St. Nicholas jarmek (market). I had to make an effort to hold back my tears as we were saying our goodbyes at their building on Sunday afternoon. And I had known these people for only about 36 hours! I'll do my best to recount the highlights here for better or worse and in more or less in chronological order:

- Tomi and I had to negotiate in Russian for our train ticket to Klobouky and then paid the 22 crown fare with a king size Kit-Kat bar. A good start.
- ANNIE!
- Czech beer
- Bowling at the "Amerikan" bar. Just wait - Cosmic Bowling will take take the country by storm. It's only a matter of time.
- Kosenka
- Attending an art opening with local artists, food, and live folk music at Klobouky's high school. It was the beginning of a lot of hammer dulcimer music.
- A youth choir concert in the town church that included various popular religious songs translated into Czech AND a stirring rendition of "Oh, Happy Day!" in English
- Baking periniki (gingerbread) at Mirek's home with a recipe that has been passed down for at least 4 generations. I use the term "baking" very loosely here since basically my role consisted of sitting at the dining room table to drink and eat while all the women of the house laughed and fell in love with Tomi. (Pretzliki are my new favorite snack.) However, I did give the mortar and pestle a few turns to grind the spices.
- As we were about to leave Mirek's house, we were surprised with the return of Martin, Mirek's son, from Norway and who has another soul full of light and love. I am honored to say that I met the entire family.
- Sleeping on a gym floor. Here are where my long underwear came in handy - it was cold!!
- The next morning, Annie woke Tomi and I, acting like a Dad on vacation at Disney World who wants to see absolutely everything. My breakfast was a glass of hot honey wine. I think I made it until about 2 o'clock before I had something non-alcoholic to drink.
- I spent the rest of Saturday without hardly ever being without food or drink in my hand: kolaczki, frgali, kyselica (oh, spelling...), kielbasa, potato pancakes weighing about 1 kilo each, boiled potatoes and cream from the old people's house, chicken, breads, apple cider, apple and beet juice, kofola cola, and of course, slivovice!!!!

- Dancing devils (that resemble yetis than they red devils we know) with bells on their backs and swatting passers-by with pine branches
- I bought some new red shoes! Actually, they are Vallachian slippers of the same kind that Annie wore all throughout the Powerhouse. My attempts at speaking Polish the Czech actually didn't work to my dismay, so I communicated my size with the shoe vendor in rudimentary German. It turns out that this was the same guy that Annie had bought her slippers from two years ago! And hey, at the end of it all, all three of had a round of slivovice from the shoe vendor.
- Annie's eyes when she met someone from the town whom she knew
- Taking a hike in the White Carpathians and seeing the sky's colors at sunset
- Tons of traditional dancing and people in beautiful traditional outfits
- Getting to try my hand at traditional dancing. ("Take that, Slowianki!")
- Watching Annie tap dance on the table :)
- The late-night jam session of Czech folk songs in Kosenka's horse stable. From this point on, whenever I will want to think about how the Czech language sounds, I will have to think of it in song because that is how I heard it the most.
- Getting too many kisses from old Czech men who thought I could understand them
- Vallachian yogurt
- Conversing with Mirek and feeling his kindness, intelligence, and wisdom
- Attending evening mass for the First Sunday of Advent in Czech, walking by Fredric Smetana's house, and meeting a helpful local who was almost too good to be true in Hranice na Moravia. See? Even good things can happen when you have seven-hour layover at the border because you missed your train...
- Coming back to Krakow at sunrise

I know what I wrote is a lot to take in, but in my own mind I am still trying to put this experience into perspective. Everything was in complete contrast from the style of life that I am living now, and I wish I could incorporate more of that peace here. Even though it was a whirlwind of a trip, (in Annie's words "an act of love"), a revelation came to me: when you live a small life, every single thing you have or experience takes on a grand importance. It wasn't as if when we were grinding the spices for baking, for example, that someone made an announcement that quieted the room and gathered everyone's attention to the ritual that was about to happen. No, it was just life. No ceremony to force the weight of the moment upon us. The festival was about celebrating culture, celebrating who these people are and all of their uncomplicated traditions. Each and every act there was an act of love. The cleanliness and simplicity of the traditions only serve to concentrate their potency. I think each person involved needed this weekend for a different reason. Now the time is ripe for me to think about what is important in my life. Before I leave off, I invite any questions about this post's title that remain unanswered. Finally, I have to include a photo of my new red shoes. :) Ahoj!

SMACZNEGO

This is a post I have been intending to write for the longest time, so this is going to be a lengthy one. Prepare yourself. One of the distinctive experiences of world travel is getting to try all kinds of foods that are new to you but traditional in the way that they represent a place. Yes, I've had pierogis, bigos, obwarszanki, pickled herring in cream and a LOT of kielbasa, but some of my most memorable food moments are not always Polish in origin. Here are some highlights:

"Not What the Pilgrims Had In Mind"

I'll start with Thanksgiving since that was a big event, and in fact it was the first major American holiday that I have spent outside my country. Some of my American friends and I talked about trying to recreate a traditional Thanksgiving meal here at Piast, but that never came to fruition with our midterm exams taking up most of our free time and brain cells. Besides, I haven't really noticed that Poles eat turkey at all. Besides, what kind of student-made feast could top 2006's Powerhouse Turkey Day? I did my own part of celebrating by listening to Sarah Vowell read a story on a "This American Life" episode about Thanksgiving with her family, and thanks to the wonders of the internet I was able to talk with my own family, Peter finally included.

Coincidentally, with our exams finished as of last Thursday (Thanksgiving Day), Isabelle had planned on making a giant pot of miso soup with our Japanese classmates. It was meant to be a celebratory dinner, and it was marvelous. Miso, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, potatoes, onions, some kind of Japanese boullion, and seaweed. Not only did we have miso soup carefully supervised by four Japanese students, Isa also created a rice and tomato dish with all of her Italian-French culinary experience. Wait - there's more! For desert, we had waffles topped with jam. Those were a little more off-the-cuff since none of us had ever made the batter from scratch before, and we had to keep approximating the conversion from the American recipe I got from the internet into the metric equivalent. Nonetheless, I think I will always remember how at one point all of us were standing in a circle in the 6th floor kitchen, passing a bowl every minute or so from one person to the next to beat the egg whites for the waffle batter.

The evening's experience made me consider what this holiday is supposed to represent. Yes, there were all of those messy consequences to deal with once the white men had landed in America, such as, ahem, smallpox, but Thanksgiving was centered around togetherness and food. TO get to Poland, I had to travel across the ocean and disembark in a country where I knew neither the land or the people. Looking around the bed that served as our dinner table at all the people who helped prepare our meal, I took a moment to give silent thanks for the opportunity to be here and to spend that American "święta" (holiday) with some of the people closest to me.

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"Thank you Bloedow's"

It was a foggy, rainy, and chilly day in Krakow. It wasn't at all the beautiful weather that I had gotten used when I first arrived in the city. I had also been put in a bad mood after a full day of classes, and then instead of going home where I really wanted to be, I offered to accompany Isabelle on one of her crazy runs to Carrefour. It was still going to be a long afternoon...

To get from one end of the Stare Miasto to the other, Isa and I walked through the Planty (parks) that ring the old town. But then to get to the shopping center and Carrefour, you have to go through a small underpass beneath a bust street. The shopping center is right next to Krakow's train station, so this underpass sees a lot of pedestrian traffic in a day. Of course, there are small shops and stall that line each side to take advantage of all this high visibility.

It was in this underpass, in the right side, just before the exit into the shopping center plaza, that I had my first and my best pączek. I had been dying to try a pączek since it was one of the few Polish things and words (only known to me by its plural "pączki") that I knew before coming. It is a fried round of dough, filled with a special rosehip jam, and covered in a delicate glaze. Basically it's a doughnut. I bought one of these little balls of fried goodness for 1.10 zloty, and from the first bite it was as if I had only a mouth full of sunshine. The glaze was a perfect layer of sweet and just a tad crispy, the interior was fluffy and golden, and that rosehip jam is still a foreign delicacy to me. What struck me the most about this doughnut was that the taste took me back to a place thousands of miles away. It took me to a place where I knew the rest of the day was going to be okay. The taste and the texture and the feeling all took me back to my favorite corner bakery in Winona, MN, a staple of my childhood, Bloedow's.

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"Lecsó"

Tamás Fözö, my Hungarian, is a cook. Literally. His name, "Fözö" means "cook" in Hungarian. However, irony of ironies, he does anything but. I mean, he basically eats for survival and goes through pounds of instant cappuccino mix. That's my Tomi. But one day, as a super special treat (and in honor of Annie's visit) Tom Cook made the traditional Hungarian dish "lecsó". It was a circus in the kitchen for a while, but the finished product was great. Here is the recipe in Tom's own words as I made him write them down:

Lescó for 4 Persons

1. onion cut, 1-2

2. 1 kg paprika (peppers, in English)

3. 1 kg pomidory (tomatoes)

4. 2-5 eggs

5. 1 very small spoon of salt & sugar

6. some meat, maybe kielbasa

Everything has to be sliced!

Paprika has to collapse! WAIT!

We don't need water because the paprika has her own.

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Finally, I include this bit just be cause it's a little fun. Cookies. I have made three different cookie recipes since I have been here: Peanut Butter Cookies with Annie and Tomi, Thumbprint Cookies with Sabine and Amelie, and last night's Banana Bread-esque Vegan Cookies. I was just in one of those moods to bake. However, I had to get a little creative with my ingredients since I had no eggs and just a little butter. Not to mention that we don't have any measuring cups or spoons. But come on, I am probably one of the few students in this whole dorm that has both baking soda AND baking powder. Here are are the final results. Flour on the bottom, sugar on the top, and egg-less banana goodness in between. I am quite proud of myself.

Pics and such

Some scenes from the b-day holiday to London:




















Some are self-explanatory.














The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum: thousands of years of orthographic history at my fingertips!














To prove that Charles Dickens was human, after all.























Tom's sister, Audrey. Thanks for all the food!











After a staying up all night to catch an early bird flight back to Krakow. Somehow, physical exhaustion makes it easier to deal with the announcement of the pilot when he comes on to say that the plane is having engine trouble...

Happy 23 to Me!

Who knew that when I began this blog as a way to record the things I experience in Poland that I would be entering a post about spending my birthday in London? (You don't have to answer; that was a rhetorical question.)

To begin at the beginning, I have a crazy Hungarian friend. The word "crazy" needs to be enphasized many times, but Tamas -as is his name- is turning into one of my dearest friends in Poland. One thing I can always count on Tomi for is for giving into the impulses of Ryan Air. It was maybe three weeks ago that Tomi had the idea to go to London this weekend. Of course I said I would go with him. (Some of you reading this might be able to understand my real motivation.) The day before our departure, the two of us booked another flight to Madrid in February... The point is, I am here in England with him, meeting his sister and staying with his friends.

On the one hand, our weekend has been filled with the traditional "must-sees" of London's top sights. On the other hand, In conversations with all of Tomi's friends, it has been a really interesting look at contemporary immigrant life. I am learning a little bit of Hungarian as an added bonus. :)

As soon as I get back to Krakow I will upload some pictures of the highlights of this mini vacation. The list to include: a nighttime view from the London Eye, uncharacteristically gorgeous November weather, Tom being crazy, AND (my all-time favorite) Charles Dickens' commode.