I just finished a sequel to my rap video. Check it out and let me know what you think (oh, yeah, totally NSFW or children or uptight hoohas)!
It was the beginning of my favorite kind of joke: BF and I walk into a bar on a Wednesday night.
The scene felt familiar and the full, but not crowded, wood-panelled room seemed like the kind of neighborhood pub we both preferred. I strode up to the bar, thinking “I could totally be a regular here” and, noticing the FREE WI-FI sign “I’m going to come here everyday and write and drink and be all bohemian and shit.”
The bartender looked from me to BF and back to me and said something in Hungarian that I didn’t understand, but I assumed was “Can I help you?”
“Yes.” I said in very slow, tortured Hungarian, “I want two beer.”
Not making a move towards the tap, the bartender once again let fly a string of words that, despite my recent mastery of colors and numbers, I failed to catch.
“Yes…two beer.” A little less confident in my vocabulary.
The look in the bartender’s eyes told me he was similarly frustrated as he spoke rapidly.
“I sorry. I can not Hungarian.” I told him desperately in the last Hungarian phrase I can manage.
He nodded, and then waved over a young man standing at the end of the bar. He said something to the young man, who turns to BF and I and says in English “I am sorry. This is a closed party. Good night.” Which was the exact moment I realized all eyes in the place were on us, the intruders into the private evening among friends, the Americans ignoring what was surely a very clear sign and striding through their bar and demanding “two beer”.
So that’s what it’s like to live here- totally familiar and yet completely foreign.
MC Dreadface. Best. Rapper name. Ever.
What I imagine MC Dreadface to look like.
I realized, after I wrote my post declaring that I was posting every day in November, that I had, in fact, already failed because my first post came on November 2nd. I’m going to blame that one on the fact that I live in a foreign (to me) country and I’m still confused by time the zones. Actually, I was in on a trip in Poland when we turned the clocks back in Europe, a full week before daylight savings in the U.S., so it’s possible that I’ve actually slipped into some space/time continuum and it’s really 1989 here. But just to be safe, I’m posting twice today to make up for it.
Speaking of, BF and I returned from Poland on Thursday afternoon via an 11 hour night train to Budapest that left us with the conclusion that we are just too fucking old for the night train. But despite the lack of sleep and inclimate weather during the five days (picture in your head what you’d think the weather in Poland would be like and you are probably right on- gray and cold), we both have declared our Poland excursion a complete success.
We started in Krakow, which is a phenomenal city and then moved on to Zakopane, the Aspen of Poland.
- Old Town Krakow, looking towards the main market square (the largest in Europe)
- Storming Wawel Castle in Krakow.
- Flea market in the Jewish quarter of Krakow.
- On a hike in Zakopane. We couldn’t get too far into the mountains because of all the snow.
- More mountains.
- We were so excited by Krakow’s great variety of ethnic foods that we ate Indian, Italian, and Mexican while we were there. In Zakopane, though, we finally had a traditional Polish meal. These are pierogi.
- I’m not going to lie- my favorite part of the trip. We went to this water park in Zakopane where they had these amazing water slides that I couldn’t get enough of. Well, amazing after I shoved the 9 year olds out of my way. Line cutters.
Once upon a time, I was good blogger. I enjoyed it, I posted regularly and I loved getting to know other bloggers. Then, life got crazy and I sort of just quit.
But this morning, I read a few posts about NaBloPoMo and I was all, “this is exactly what I need! I never post, but I should commit myself to posting every day for a month. Nevermind that this is going to be one of the busiest travel months for me, I should totally do this.”
And since impulsive decisions are part of my charm (or so I tell myself), I will attempt to post everyday in November. Ta Da!
THE END.
Every couple of days I like to peruse the front page headlines of My (former) City’s local newspaper and then make asshole-like comments about them.* And now I’m going to share them with you. You’re so very welcome.
*actual headlines in bold, asshole-like comments in regular type.
Teen found hiding in attic Sounds like someone just discovered the sixth grade reading list.
Ky. principal shows sex tape; retires. Retires to the bedroom is more like it, right? Can I get a high-five? No? Okay.
Councilman helps nab ‘knuckleheads’ Also nabbed: scallywags and ne’er-do-wells
Sibling argument ends in shooting. “I’ve had it with your motherfucking hands on my motherfucking no-man’s land!”
Photos from around our new town of Eger, Hungary.
What we see when we turn right out of our apartment complex.
Sign at the end our street pointing to all the attractions.
Our new favorite restaurant- the HBH.
Looking in the direction of our apartment from the the town center.
Dobo ter (ter means square). This is the center of activity.
The downtown is full of these shop-filled alleyways. You can see the castle at the end of this one.Hello to any readers I have left! It has been over a month since I moved to Hungary and I’ve written nothing. I know, explanations of absences are boring and generally unnecessary, so I won’t spend too much time giving you one. I’ll just tell you that the transition has been harder than I expected and it has been and still is a struggle to find my place here. Adding to that, I have received an unexpected and overwhelming response to those silly rap videos I posted on youtube. I’m not sure why, but they took off, and there has even been a little bit of “industry interest.” So I’ve been working hard to take advantage of the attention while it lasts (and trust me, if anything comes from this interest, everyone will know about it because I won’t be able to shut up about it).
So, enough of that. I am posting today to tell you the story of my train ride on my trip to Slovenia. BF had to travel to the states for a wedding and a new nephew (yay!), so I decided to take a trip of my own.
*********************
“You are British, no?”
At the sound of the Eastern European accent, I lift my head from where I was stooped over my backpack, pulling out items I would need for my 9 hour train ride to Slovenia.
“Uhhh, no…” I answer, straightening up to look at a the man.
“Ah, it is just, most travelers here are British so I thought I’d take a guess.” He smiled- friendly, not threatening, I thought.
“Nope, American.”
“What country do you live in?”
“The United States”
“No…what country IN the United States do you live?”
“Oh” not bothering to correct his English, “Uh, Ohio.”
“Are you here on holiday?”
“No, I live here…with my husband.” I told him, emphasizing the husband part, on the off chance he mistook my friendliness for, well, friendliness. “I’m traveling to Slovenia.”
“Ah yes, you take the train to Zagreb and then to Ljubljana? Me too!” He replied, looking pleased by the coincidence.
Uh oh, I thought, seeing the hours of writing and reading I had envisioned for myself during the train ride slipping away.
He talked throughout the entire hour we waited for the train, mostly telling me about places I should visit in Slovenia, but also about his work and travels, his views on communism, Russia, and the United States.
By the time we had boarded and were sitting in the same cabin, I had convinced myself it wouldn’t be so bad. Sure, he talked a lot, but maybe it would be fun to have someone to chat with on the train. Besides, I could always pull out my book and read if I got tired of him.
That was until 20 minutes into the train ride he said this “So, you are with your husband six years, do you have lover?”
“What? No….”
“What about in the States? Do you have lover there?”
“No, dude, I’m married.”
“Do you not tire of making love to your husband?”
“Uhhh…” nervous laughter. “What?”
“You know, in my country we have a rule that if you are on a mountain about 1000 meters, you are no longer married. So I would like to invite you to be my guest above 1000 meters.” Winking at me.
“This is a joke, right?”
“Yes, is a joke.”
But then later, he yells out “I am sex maniac!!” and I turn to see him taking off his jeans, exposing his tiny European style boxer briefs.
“What are you doing?” I ask, turning my head.
“Oh, I just get hot, so I put on shorts.” He says as he pulled up his shorts with a wide grin.
And later. “So, your husband is in the states and you are here alone?”
“Yes, he is there for a wedding.”
“And how do you know he will not go off with the strippers and hookers at big American bachelor party?”
“I trust him.”
“How many times do you make love in a week to your husband?”
“Wow, that is a really personal question.”
“No, it is not personal! Personal is if I ask, do you like him to give it up the butt, or after he do you in the butt do you put his dick in your mouth or if he squirt in your mouth…that is personal.”
“Wow.”
“You know…it is personal if I ask do you stick your pinky in his butt or do you suck his cock or…”
“Okay! I get the picture…”
“Oh, you are offended? I just ask question because I am interested in psych…how you say…psychology… and to know a person, you must understand their sexual appetite.”
“Yeah…hmmm…I’m still not answering your question.”
“Ah…it is cool. I just am thinking of things on a higher level than you. You are just more simple and I am thinking on higher level. It is okay that we are different.” This was followed by a monolouge giving me his views on how you should know what the sexual interest level of your friends is (“you know, if they have high interest and they are not getting much sex, you know to stay away. I, myself have a high appetite, I need to have the sex very often. You, maybe, have low interest.”). By this time, my responses were limited to icy stares and eye rolls; not that he seemed to notice.
After several minutes of silence I hear, “You have stripper too!” I look back over to see him, once again, stripped down to his skivies, “Your husband has stripper and you too!” Seeing the horrified look on my face, he changes back into his long pants, “What? My knees get cold.”
“Great.” My nose now firmly buried in my book.
And these are just the highlights. Writing it down, I realize it is clear that I should have left right away, but these episodes were broken up by incessant, yet mostly friendly, babble about his plan for world revolution and his 12 year old daughter (I know, surprised me too) and Japanese people (“very respectful,” according to my new friend), and so they each time took me by surprise. That, and my stupid need to not appear to be the stereotypical prudish American (which, for the record, I totally am).
So instead, I sat there, steaming, obsessing over how to get out of the cabin without causing a scene. Afterall, no matter where I went, I was stuck on the same train with this guy for at least six more hours.
Eventually, it was not the come-ons, but the music that got me. I heard loud INXS (“you know INXS, the band? The lead singer killed himself with sexual asphyxiation. Crazy, no?”) and look over to see him with his earbuds pointed outward so that the music was pointed in my direction. Soon after, he left the cabin to go to the bathroom, and I grabbed my stuff, wrote a quick note so that he wouldn’t try to find me, “Went to find an empty cabin…thanks for the info about Slovenia!” and snuck out.
Lesson learned? Sex maniacs I can handle, but force me to listen to ”Devil Inside” and you have taken it too far.
Hey guys! We made it…BF and I are in Hungary! I’ve got lots to write about and now that I am unemployed, I finally have the time to do it. But before the onslaught of “holy balls, I live in Hungary now” posts, I thought I would post the music video for my rap. Hope you enjoy it!
