Budget Nomad: The Heat, the Sunshine and Sunshine

Sunday, July 28, 2013

The Heat, the Sunshine and Sunshine

While the sun is still shining, we will be watching Sunshine and then we will watch the sun rise in the early morning. After we had discussed the movie Sunshine (A napfény íze 1999), ages ago with two of our friends, both professionals, they wanted to watch it. It is a brilliant film about Hungary during the Nazi occupation, with Ralph Fiennes playing three roles through three generations of one family. The director is István Szabó. If you have not seen it, it should be on your Netflix list for certain, but be careful as there are a number of movies named “Sunshine”.

It has taken extraordinary pains to coordinate these two lovely ladies. My first priority was not to have personal company at any time we had B and B guests. I don’t think it is right to infringe on paying guests to have personal company in the living room watching television. This was the first limitation in picking dates. Then, our dear Reverend Doctor Hunter Roberts has to Skype call her US clients during the week, so any weekday is out for her. Our other dear friend is a US Embassy diplomat, so she is tethered to the ambassador and her duties. It is easier to herd cats or fleas than it is these two along with our own scheduling snarls.

We finally agreed on Sunday, July 28, 2013. Today! Karyn agreed to pick up pizzas at our favorite Italian restaurant and bring them over. Hunter is a wine snob, so she was delegated with supplying wine. We are supplying the movie, comfy seating, a huge salad and fabulous company. At 6pm, we convene for this 3 hour movie.

Hunter sent me an SMS earlier asking if we had air conditioning. The temperature is tottering around 90 degrees plus a few degrees here and there. This is fairly typical for July, but a bit hotter than usual. I only could laugh at the message. Air conditioning? How long has she been in Hungary? Three years at the least and she doesn’t realize that air conditioning is as common as finding polar bears in Nebraska. Give me a break! I am waiting for her to cancel out at which time I will create her replica in doll form for some Voodoo doings. After all the back and forth calls, messages, and e-mails, she had better not bail out on this spectacular event or risk blacklisting.

So, in preparation for this evening, I knew I had the movie on DVD. Ah, but the glitch is that our DVD player broke down months ago and we have not bothered with it since. Panic set in, but I realized I did have a copy of the movie on the computer, which can go on a USB stick, which then in turn can plug into the TV.

Just as if I were setting up a significant happening, I did a test run of the movie on the computer this morning. Using VLC Player, I just clicked well into the movie to see if it was playing without a hitch. Uh, why am I seeing a team of astronauts talking? Holy Cinema and Popcorn, Batman, I have Sunshine (2007), which according to IMDB is about “a team of astronauts are sent to re-ignite the dying sun 50 years into the future.” The flood of words that ran the rapids of my mind is not fit to print. Let’s just say I did find the movie du jour and all is well.

What I forget was that the movie is 3 hours long. Normally, this would not be a bad thing, except we have a 6:45 am flight to Malta tomorrow morning. Doesn’t look like much sleep in our forecast.

So we are bearing the sunshine, by baring as much as is socially acceptable and bearing the clothes we must wear while watching Sunshine and then getting up too early in the morning with the sun shining.