Why Didnt Anybody Inform Me I Could be a Fire Dancer?

Turkish baths...an experience.

I went there yesterday, because all of the tourist literature says you must go to one of the baths while you are in Budapest. I had mentally prepared myself for a day of walking around in the nude in front of lots of Hungarian women. Unfortunately, it was a mixed sex day, and instead of lots of naked women I instead wore a bathing suit and was surrounded by overweight women convinved they could wear bikinis, middle aged men wearing speedos, and entirely too many public displays of affection (of which there are already an uncomfortable number throughout the city).

First, I had to get into the baths which proved to be interesting. The ticket woman didnt understand English so I paid more than I needed to. Then I needed to figure out where I was supposed to go, and instead ended up walking around in circles like an idiot. When I finally did find where I was supposed to go, the attendant decided he didnt like me and mz non Hungaran ways and locked me into my changing room. When he finally unlocked the door so that I could escape he shook his head at me, scowled, and was clearly thinking "I hate you, dumb American girl."

Then I had to find a towel, and then finally walk through another maze until I finally made my way to the baths. Which were lovely and relaxing, and warm, and pretty much exactly what you would get if you sat in a hot tub all day.

I then went on a very long walk to avoid public transportation, and went back to the Budapest Fringe festival where I saw some Jews from Vienna (that really was the bands name), a jazz band, and another funk,jazz,rock band. We also saw a pecular ballet thing filled with sticks that were on fire. Why did nobody tell me that I could be a fire dancer instead of going to college? I am a little disappointed in everyone that guided me before college.

Being a fire dancer would also have greatly helped today when I joined in with a couple thousand hippie Hungarians in a peace demonstration. We all waved sticks of fire, stood around in the shape of a peace sign with our torches, and then danced around to bongos. Beautiful. Im not sure that it was especially safe when several thousand torches started having embers fly everywhere. Oh well. I survived, and my hair didnt catch on fire.

Tomorrow we leave for Vienna.

Happy Birthday Daddy.

Love you all.

Carolling through Europe

Christmas seems to be big here in Central Europe. At least for the musicians on the street. Is has been a common occurance to here "What Child is This" on recording, and whistling renditions of "Jingle Bells". It has happened in Prague, Budapest, and now we will just have to wait to see what happens in Vienna.

Yesterday we got away from the dilapatated part of Pest filled with run down buildings and lots of grafitti, and adventured through Buda. We saw another palace, a few more churches, a bridge...ya know-the usual. It was beautiful, and not overrun with tourists like Prague was. Kara referred to Prague as being in a doll city, I called it a snow globe. There, even the snow flakes were too perfect and pretty. Here, everything is beautiful but there are also real people surrounding you, taking their children to parks, having picnics besides the Danube (because it is considerably warmer here), and the like.

We found out that Hungarian food is way beyond filling (or just that we havent had a verz filling meal this trip- either way we were stuffed). I tried the fish soup, which to my surprise had a huge lump of a whole fish in the middle of the bowl. I am sure I looked like an utter beauty beauty as I had to continuously spit out the bones I was accidently ingesting.

Our host took us to the Budapest Fringe Festival, which is a three day festival of music, dance, and theatre that is completely free (which means wonderful and beautiful). We also went to the Godor Bar where her sister had a gig last night. It was a pretty big deal for the band, being that it was a big venue for Budapest. Two Hungarian pszchologist female rappers performed after them.

It seems that we wont be leaving Budapest until early Monday morning now. Tickets for Sunday night had sold out by the time we got around to booking them. Oh well. It means less time in Vienna, but I am fairly certain we will be able to power our waz through the city in a day and a half.

Sorry that there are no apostrophes in these postings...the keyboards over here do not seem to find them necessary (hence the lack of contractions...boo).

Love you all and miss you.

Skip the Spongecake

Warmth...finally. Warmth meaning around forty degrees of course. However, I was not wearing gloves and hiding from snow today. Beautiful.

Budapest is quite different from Prague. We only explored a little bit today, mostly the Jewish quarter of Pest. It was eerie at parts, and not at all the manicured city that Prague is. However, they do seem to have a lot more ice cream much more easily accesible than in Prague.

Word to the wise: If in Budapest buying ice cream, and the lady tells you it is spongecake, vanilla, chocalate, walnut, and raisins, do not say to yourself "Mmmm...delicious." Instead, learn that spongecake equals rum, and you will be eating alcohol instead of delicious delicious sweet ice cream. Oh Europeans and their silly alcohol. They all seem to love it lots, and making Kara and I try their spirits. Today were the Hungarian spirits flavored with honey and peach. A strange concoction to say the least.

Our host here is wonderful. She seems to be a crazy artist, who does not really work to make a living and instead knows all of the strange, off the road things we should do while we are are in Budapest. It seems we will be leaving for Vienna late on Sunday night so that we can go see concerts, dance festivals, and peace demonstrations.

We also discovered the wonders of European art in postcards and roadsigns. The Jewish post cards we discovered are priceless on many levels, and the road crossing signs that change for each one are amusing to deciphor.

In other news, William and Mary gave me a service grant for the summer. Congrats to me. Now I get the fun task of figuring out how to live in San Francisco on almost no money. Sweet.

Love you all and miss you.

This Isn't Rum

Day two of Prague included lots more adventuring, a bizarre food consisting of fried dough and ketchup, Kara's arrival, and Irish boys in Prague.

The early morning part I spent walking around and seeing more sites. I traveled along the 22 Tram and then walked around an area called Mala Strana that lies right between the Charles Bridge and the Prague castle.

I sadly couldn't find any ice cream to buy. Apparently it's not quite as popular when it is snowing. I did however try a delicious pastry, some sausages, and a not so delicious piece of fried dough called Longose which consisted of garlic sauce, ketchup, and grated cheese on top. I wasn't really expecting much from the that one, but I couldn't resist after finding something so bizarre.

Kara arrived Mondaz night and we met our new couch surfing host, Sandro. He lives way outside the center in a dorm, which turned out to be nice because we were able to meet a lot of other students and go out with them, celebrating our first Czech beers. We met people from all over Europe. All of the men at the bar felt it necessary to caress my dreads. I still cannot figure out why they thought I would like that one.

Tuesday Kara and I did all of the sites you have to do when you are in Prague such as the Castle and Charles Bridge. We also found a free tour to go on, which we took advantage of. We like all things free.

As we were crossing the Charles Bridge it turned into a blizzard. It had been snowing all morning, but it just got ridiculous at this point. And then it started to thunder, which is something I have not experienced before, snow and thunder at the same time.

And then came the best part...bagels for lunch. We have seriously been missing bagels in Cyprus and could not pass up the opportunity to eat a Bohemian Bagel. Yumyum.

Later on in the day, while we were walking the grounds of the castle, we finally found ice cream. The lady thought we were crazy as we were trying to buy it as it was snowing outside. Unfortunately, it was frozen solid and she could not scoop it out for us. Luckily, we found an indoor cafe later on and could buy our ice cream later on in the door.

Our hosts last night were fantastic. They cooked for us and took us to a Czech bar where they bought us beer and laughed at our foosball skills. Some of their friends came out with us and it was wonderful. They also thought we needed to try Czech rum (which apparently I had tried earlier in the day in the form of grog, which Kara thought was spiced wine, but instead turned out to be Czech rum with hot water....I threw it out after smelling it). They told us that the rum experience would be terrible, but insisted we must try it, so they ordered us shots. We braced ourselves, closed our eyes, and downed it. And then opened our eyes and said "That was delicious". A second later, one of the guys said "That was not rum". Apparently we had been served sherry instead, and five minutes later were forced to try the rum, which was indeed terrible.

Today we did last minute site seeing. I also got a ticket from the metro police, because I am an idiot and forgot to validate my ticket. He had nothing to do with my sweet charm and forced me to pay a fine. Boo. Then we journeyed on to Budapest where we will be until Saturday or Sunday.

Pictures will have to wait until I am on my own computer, but they will be plentiful.

Love you lots.

A Snowy Easter in Prague

Happy Easter everyone! (Or just Happy Sunday if you don't celebrate).

So after wondering around a little more, I finally found my way to the place I am staying. I am staying with Christine, who lives about 5 minutes on tram from the center of Prague. She just left me a pair of keys, and so I've been able to come and go as I please which has been wonderful. I tried to meet up with her last night, but found myself lost in the middle of Prague and after 2 hours of wondering around, I decided to return back to the house. Prague at night is quite wonderful though, and it was to see a bit of the city. Figured I should catch up on some sleep (the short nap I took out before leaving was not quite enough), so that I can enjoy the rest of this trip.

The city is absolutely beautiful. I haven't found a part that I'm not completely in love with. I think I've finally conquered the subway and tram system, and have stopped riding around in circles (which I did multiple times yesterday). Maybe I'll just stay here instead of going back to Cyprus.

Today I got up and decided to find a mass, not that I would be able to understand a word. I made it to the Church and found myself behind the gate guarded by a churchman. I know I probably should have been paying attention to what was going on beyond the gate, but I seriously wasn't going to gain anything from the Latin readings, and watching him shoo and shame people with cameras was hard to resist. Finally I was allowed in, and the church was absolutely magnificent in beauty. After mass, I walked around the town center which was full of people, and Easter festivities. I didn't spend too much time there tho, as Kara will want to see it when she arrives here tomorrow (our flights were unfortunately messed up, and she went to Berlin for two days while I adventure through Prague). I did go up one of the towers, because I don't think it will be open when she is here, and saw some absolutely amazing views.

After that, I headed outside of the city to a few different areas. I'll explain all the things I did in picture captions, so look at them. Basically I climbed a bunch of towers, saw a few churches, and walked around a lot lot lot. Unfortunately, I didn't eat any ice cream as I was freezing because I had stupidly left my gloves at the apartment. Tricia, I will do it for you tomorrow; I never say no to good ice cream.

Sitting down on a bench to enjoy my peanut butter and bread that I have been carting around with me, since I am attempting this trip on practically no money, I got to have a nice chat with a man offering me wine. Okay, maybe it wasn't a chat per say as he really just kept motioning between me and the wine bottle, and I kept nodding no. Then he moved on to offering me a loaf of bread with just as much gusto (although I'm confused as to why he did this, as I clearly already had one). When he finally realized I was not going to take his bread or his wine, he finally moved on to chatting which resulted in not much more than the two of us discovering that our brothers live in Chicago, and a whole bunch of nodding, smiling, and shoulder shrugs.

Prague also may have the world's best behaved dogs. No one uses leashes anywhere, and yet all of the dogs are well behaved and never roam off. Amazing.

Tomorrow I will probably just do a lot more walking. Might have to get a little more inventive, as Prague closes down on Mondays. It will be nice to have my travel partner come so that we can see the famous sites on Tuesday. I'm sure I can figure out magnificent things to do...or else I will just drink lots of Czech beer as it is dirt cheap and I haven't been able to enjoy it yet. Clearly you can't go wrong with 1 euro beers. No wonder the Czech Republic is number one in the world for beer consumption, with an average of over 150 liters per person drunk each year. These are the things we learn in my Current European Issues class...life is wonderful.




Love you.

Free from Cyprus

Sorry there have been no updates lately, but nothing worth reporting.

However, I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Prauge so I guess my life just got 234634 times cooler. I am going a little crazy as I left my house last night at 6, sat in an airport for nine hours, flew for three, sat in a train station for three more, then rode a train for five more. From what I saw of the countryside it is beautiful but I dozed off for a lot of the ride. Since I have arrived in Prague I have not seen much, except for the underground. Things I have leanred so far....

1. McDonalds apple pies are much better in the Czech Republic than in America. I learned this because I needed change to buy a metro ticket, and that was the only cheap thing on the menu.

2. The Prague metro system is the nicest one I have yet to see. And I certainly have seen quite a bit since Ive ridden around in several circles. I finally found my way and then realized I am changing plans, and will now have to go and conquer the metro again.

3. Gosh their escalators are scary. I have never been on such steep, fast escaltors. I believe I have to start off with a run to get up to speed, or else fear killing myself on the apparently sadistic machines.

4. Czech keyboards are strange. There ys and zs are reverved, thez have no at symbol, and there numbers are strange. I have had to erase multiple things this post. For example... If zou would like to email me while I am in the Csech Republic, please do so at merzan2wm.eduů I appreciate them verz much.

Zou see_ Incomprehensible.


Okay, I need to run before I spend all of my money at an internet cafe. Love you and will try to update frequently while I am here. If not, I return to Cyprus on the first, and am sure to have lots of stories.

Miss zou all.

Carnival: Because the Cypriots Invented Lent, Easter...Jesus

Okay...maybe they don't really believe that they invented Jesus, but I'm fairly certain they would try and convince a gullible visitor that they did. You know the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the father tries to explain how every word comes from Greek? Well...that really happens here all the time. We were touring a mosaic museum this weekend, and found out a plethora of words that all came from there. Amazing. The movie parts about hating the Turks, and the guys constantly saying "I will kill you" are both dead on. The movie is become exponentially better since living here.

Other than learning where these words came from, I had a most excellent weekend. We went to Limassol which is the second largest city in Cyprus (and has been growing rapidly since the genocide of 1974 as brochures are quick to point out). There's not much there except for the Carnival celebration we got to experience. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest, and the time we had that normally would have been spent lying around by the beach and the pool wasn't to be had. The rain held out though, so we still got to walk around.

It's also a heavily British populated area so people were friendlier...and older, and not wearing black. Saturday was spent mulling around- eating at the number one family pub which has the best children's cocktails in the world. I got to experience my first Cypriot bar fight that night. I thought the man with the bloody face, coming up right behind me on the steps to an outside club was just wearing a very convincing Carnival costume. Silly naive me. Instead he and his posse decided it would be appropriate to break bear bottles and stab people with them. Needless to say I ran away as quickly as possible to avoid the "Bottles vs Chairs" brawl.

Sunday was the highlight of Carnival which is a ten day celebration here in Cyprus. We all headed downtown to watch the parade which was filled with a lot of old Greek men singing followed by a lot of cross-dressing men. They also advertised for Playboy and proudly displayed the sign "Is Better to Heat with Whiskey then Petrol". There was lots of confetti and dancing and Greekized American music. They really really really love the song "Hands Up" as we heard both the Greek and American version several times in a two hour span. Sunday night is the big party night where everybody dresses up. I'm too poor to buy a mask on this ridiculously overpriced island, so I just went all out with the eye make-up.

Monday we left Limassol and went to Paphos with a few stops along the way. We got to see the birthplace of Aphrodite along with a few other things. I unfortunately think I have come down with a case of bronchitis and didn't completely enjoy it. So now I might be making a trek to the doctor's today...we shall see.



Love you all, and miss you!

The Island in Black

Cyprus must be the smokiest place on this planet. Although I haven't checked the figures, lung cancer rates must be at least as high as traffic accidents, the number of Russian mafia, and the frequency of human trafficking- which are all at the top in terms of European Union countries. I'm starting to feel as though I might as well join in while I'm here, since I am most certainly inhaling as much smoke as I would be if I chain-smoked five packs each night. Bah.

Real moral of the story: If you ever visit Cyprus, pack lots of febreeze, because if you are anything like me you will naturally be too lazy to actually do that much laundry, and walking around reeking of smoke gets tiresome fairly quickly.

They do make an attempt at least to stop it...kind of. At least in one place they did. We went to this hole in the wall restaurant the other night, where my fellow Americans and I were the only females in the place. We were also the only ways that would actually eat at 6, since Cypriots wouldn't dare to start cooking until at least 9. We were also the only ones not playing cards, and unfortunately the only ones abiding by the "No Smoking" sign hung on the wall to no avail. Gotta love the old Cypriot men.

The weather here is finally becoming nice, which in turn has made me even more of an anomaly on this island. In January I could at least wear jeans, some black boots, and only have my top half stick out like a sore thumb with my bright prints against the backdrop of gloomy black that is the Cypriot staple. Now I'm just a blatant embarrassment to Cypriot style in my flowy, colored skirts and bright tops as they still walk around with black boots, black pants, and yes- black tops. Occasionally they go a little crazy with their hair, and dye it gray. Apparently that's as drastic as they can go...I just can't fathom what they're thinking with that statement.

Other than that...not much. Ran around a lot this weekend trying to get all of my paperwork for Kenya finished. I can say that American embassies are safely guarded as I had to go through a ridiculous amount of security to have a form authorized. Got to see the Marines tucked away in their little glass box...probably as close as I will get to them for a little while longer since they are still in trouble. I've also spent a lot of time planning travel, which is turned into somewhat of a disaster. But I think it is all settled, and after not going to Berlin, and then going to Berlin, I think it is set that I will not be going to Berlin after all, but will get several extra days in Prague, Budapest, and Vienna.

Tomorrow I'll be leaving for the weekend to go to Limassol. We'll be there for Carnival celebrations as the Orthodox lent is beginning this week, and this is their Marti Gras of sorts. I think it's just because they need an excuse to be allowed to wear something other then funeral attire.

Love you and miss you all!

Oh, Hello There Gunny

Not too much going on this week in Cyprus.

A Gunnery Sergeant did break up our party that we threw for a twenty-first birthday. You can probably imagine my surprise, as I opened our door at 3:30 in the morning wearing a sheet toga and leaves in my hair, only to find the boss of the marines that had broken curfew. Unfortunately my sweet charm, winning smile, and ravishing looks didn't win him over, and instead they all marched right out of apartment in complete silence.

Oops.

Went to the beach today! It wasn't one of Cyprus's most picturesque beaches, but it definitely sufficed for the day. I must say I felt a little silly running past a women wearing a winter coat and scarf while I was wearing a bikini and jumping into the Mediterranean sea. I swear it really wasn't that cold, these Cypriots are just crazy and bundle up until 23874918734934 degrees outside. Silly people.

In more general news...I'm currently living under a communist government. I guess power hasn't officially been transferred, but the left-wing communist party member just won the presidency. Cyprus is now officially the only country in the European Union with a communist country. Pretty neat.

I've also met some Turkish Cypriots, so hopefully I'll get a more balanced story of the "genocide of 1974" (which it was not). We've met some interesting people through the Marines, one being Brian who does economic development work in the north. He's actually moving tomorrow, but before he left we got to meet the people he works with in the North. I'm pretty excited to hang out with them more. We also met the woman in charge of investigating human trafficking in Cyprus. Along with being the only European Union member to be under a communist leader, it is also the only country that is on the human trafficking watch list. It's actually one of the worst countries in the world, which I find rather fascinating.

I also finally got to see the Cypriot police in action. It has seemed that traffic laws are few and far between here on this island, and those that do exist are seldom adhered to. We see police all the time, and always with their lights flashing, however we have never seen a driver even attempt to drive safely around them. Today our taxi was pulled over tho. It was interesting, since the policeman just pointed at the driver and then pointed to the shoulder. The cop didn't even have a car to go chasing our taxi, so I'm not really sure what would have happened if our driver had decided not to stop.

Love you and miss you all!!!!