Budapest - By day and night

More or less the only thing i like in my job is the way there. Along the Danube with beautiful sights on both sides of the river. The short video was shot from the tram that takes me to my workplace. The buildings that can be seen in the video are the following in the order of appearance: Elizabeth Bridge, Castle of Buda, Chainbridge, Fishermen's Bastion, The Parlaiment, Museum of Ethnography. My workplace is right next to the Parlaiment and the Museum of Ethnography.


Budapest and the Danube by night. My way back:

Den of iniquity

Gab celebrated his name's day yesterday. however, we chose a rather unusual way to celebrate: playing Poker! and trust me, there was no mercy!! not even if u were the celebrated one.
the den:as i said: no mercy!
the two Csabas.one of those friends with that specific 'ars poetica':

Gab with his present. A happy man:Gab got his sixth Pilsner Urquel glass. all different types, and needless to say, not usual ones.

Funny side

Scrappy, ruined, but charming and funky side of Budapest:i could cite the previous comment here... best of 80's, best of socialism.
R e T r o

SMILE! :)

The Wall

yesterday we went out to see Jazzékiel, a band playing jazz-based music with rapping. it didn't really work out as we imagined: there was about half of Budapest's population wanting to get in to Gödör Club...:
however, we didn't panic: instead, we bought a few cans of beer, than settled down right next to the stage. only outside the club... :) but thanks to the not very thick glass wall we could see and hear everything:of course it wasn't only us who listened to the gig outside. it was quite funny when a few young guys recognized some friends of them inside the club and wanted to communicate. like some retards.
'Caaan yooouuu heeeaaar meeeee?
Nooooo?
Whaaaat aaaare yooouuuu uuup toooo laateer?
Whaaaat?
Heeeeee?'
this was the point when we stopped watching them.

After the gig we moved on to a billirad saloon. the place was like a maze. they even put the ground plan of it into the menu.
don't let yourself be fooled! this guy is not as boozy as it seems. even more! :) hehe.
Cheers Gege!anyway, i've got a few more friends who's 'ars poetica' would be best expressed by this photo :)

going home was not less fun than the whole night itself. 6 people for 5 seats. what is the obvious solution? the boot! we put Jani into the back of the car. he seemingly did not object the idea:he was in his elements: he scared the sh*t out of us when a hand appeared behind us from the nothing. then the mean murderer showed himself too. we laughed our heads off.

Statue of Liberty, Bridge of Liberty, Land of Liberty...

...Welcome to Hungary!

Kafka

i recommend this writing by my friend to Hungarian readers:
Kafka - szakmai gyakorlat egy hivatalban

No Fear

Tina, our new watchdog:

yeah well, watching the flowers...

(Tina stayed over with us for two hours on Sunday)

Cordon sanitaire

Fence around the Parliament. MPs are protected now but who's gonna protect us from them???
The fence has been erected after last year's riots on Oct 23rd and is due to be removed next Monday.

12 Points from 1848 - few hundreds of idiots today...

it's typical contraselection: normal people are afraid that there are gonna be riots in Budapest (taking the example of the events on our last national holiday - 23 Oct), so many of them refrain from going out to the streets and celebrate. then the small minority of junkies, idiots and mainly hooligans take over control of the happenings from the peaceful majority and eventually spoils one of the most graceful celebration in Hungary.

Some historical background of the celebration:
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many revolutions that year and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. The revolution in Hungary grew into a war for independence from Habsburg rule. Many of its leaders and participants, including Lajos Kossuth, István Széchenyi, Sándor Petőfi, Józef Bem, are among the most respected national figures in Hungarian History, and the anniversary of the revolution's outbreak, March 15 is one of Hungary's three national holidays.
for more information visit: wikipedia

a very famous summary of the Hungarian objectives was the leaflet seen below:

'What do the Hungarian People want.
Let Peace, Liberty and Harmony prevail.

1. We want freedom of the press, the abolition of censorship.
2. A responsible Ministry in Buda and Pest.
3. An annual parliamentary session in Pest.
4. Civil and religious equality before the law.
5. A National Guard.
6. A joint sharing of tax burdens.
7. The cessation of socage.
8. Juries and representation on an equal basis.
9. A national bank
10. The army to swear to support the constitution, our soldiers not be dispatched abroad, and foreign soldiers removed from our soil.
11. The freeing of political prisoners.
12. Union with Transylvania.

Equality, liberty, and fraternity!'


how far are we from there...

Van Gogh

Budapest hosts the biggest Van Gogh exhibition in Central-Europe in a hundred years. I intentionally did not put his most well-known artifacts here. Partly, because neither The Potato Eaters and nor the Sunflowers, his most distinctive paintings were on display, and partly because I just realized how much more he achieved in his art. Starting with a very dark, cold and pretty harsh imagery, he incorporated the techniques of the impressionists, Japanese woodcut and many more other painters, and reached a point when he produced masterpieces that u can see here. Of course this road was far from being straight, he was fighting a severe internal battle, about what many know and I don't want to deal with now. What impressed me was how clever and conscious he was in developing his arts. The house on the right was one of my favorites. Some people looked at it disdainfully which I couldn't get. Though I was happy that I captured sth in this painting that they didn't. :)
Anyway, my favourite one was those shoes on the top. So simple and so expressive. You can see remarkable tension on it.
I don't know whether it is the impressionist influence, or just Van Gogh's inborn talent, but I like sth in this picture too (or is it just simply nice?):

Maybe it's only me who finds this crazy, somewhat distorted landscape charming.




Anyhow, thank you Vincent for giving us a few peaceful moments when we can emerge from the deep, grey everyday life.

Graz n us

finally i managed to download my pics from my camera to my computer. it's good to remember these nice moments. i'm not sure but i think this was my first time in Graz, Austria but it was definitely the first visit for Gosia
hooo, we climbed up theeeere! instead of taking this spooky lift built in a cave: Uhrsturm:
From a bird's view:
Graz, die Kulturhauptstadt. so what does a town need to do to obtain this rank? just a few completely meaningless projects like this...:

Most boring spring to come

Gosia's back, i'm working and studying. boring. already waiting for April when i'll visit Warsaw. even the coming spring can't cheer me up...
hopefully there are gonna be some good gigs in town and i made up my mind to start playing the violin again.

These times...

...are 'fantasztikus' times :)