HungaryWood

Okay, it may not be Hollywood or even Bollywood, but for the last three days our street has been partially closed off to parking. On one side of our utca, huge vans lined the street. They were for film crews who were filming a movie, but no one seems to know much about it. Rumors are that it is a documentary. We can rest assured, it will not be in English. We can also be confident that though Jude Law was filming a flick in this glorious city, he was nowhere to be found on Akácfa utca. He has trolled the streets in the recent past, causing quite a stir as Classicalite reported, but alas, there were no LawLess sightings in our daily routines. Apparently, Mr. Law was not so law-abiding with his drunken behavior. Well so many Brits come here for the cheap beer and the beautiful women, he is just being typical.

Jude Law is reportedly shooting Melissa McCarthy's latest comedy flick Spy in Budapest with 50 Cent and Jason Stratham among others, but that clearly isn't all the womanizer is up to in Hungary.

How nifty is this? Our street has a Wikipedia entry. The irony is that I despise Wikipedia for most things that involve intellect.

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The Hood

Anna, our interpreter whose brother is our cabinet man, sent an e-mail needing the exact measurements of the hood for the stove. This is a bit tricky since our hood is on order, will be three more weeks before its arrival, and the store had no measurements to provide us. We took matters into our own hands and decided to shop elsewhere. Ron went exploring while I was in school, found one locally and had me meet him after I finished for the day. Nice, but no cigar. First of all, they did not have any in stock. Their other store on the Buda side might, but we could not convey that they should call for us store to store. Actually, it was not necessary anyway, this hood was stainless steel and black. The stove is stainless steel and the cabinets are cappuccino. I was not crazy about the black. Some former students had invited me for a beer, so I was going to be tied up in the afternoon, so Ron went exploring on his own. His mission was to find a 60cm wide hood in stainless steel. Simple! He found one and bought it, brought it home, unboxed it and held it in place. It was 2cm too wide. After a little ranting, which I should have videoed since it is a rarity, he decided to return it and buy the 50cm hood instead. When we both returned home, he empty handed, he explained that he thought he smaller hood would look silly. Call Anna and tell her the dilemma. No problem, the cabinets can be adjusted for the 60cm hood, which has been restocked at the store. No, he did not take off to buy it again, we had Michael coming over to watch a movie. Tomorrow is another day for fun and aggravation. In the meanwhile, I was socializing with two former students who had met in one of my classes early on in their academic careers. Both having at least four courses with me and with each other started dating. Their reason for the drink invitation was to announce their engagement now that they have both graduated with a May wedding. They want both Ron and I to attend. They had been at our place for a student Christmas party I used to give each year, so they both know Ron. I was elated at their announcement and am looking forward to their nuptials come May.

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A Bit of Humor Some May Not Find Funny

I know the housing problems are nothing to laugh at for quite a few people, but this video was too funny to pass up sharing. The original film was Der Untergang a German movie about Hitler's last days. The English title is The Downfall. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it. If you speak German, try to ignore the dialogue and read the sub-titles only. This is where the humor is. Since we do not have a mortgage and own our place free and clear, I snickered and chuckled along. If it makes anyone feel better, all the humor evaporated when he mentioned this 401k.

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Lights, Action, Camera

We woke up this morning to find our whole street had been invaded and taken over like a coup. We are still not sure how they pulled it off, but both sides of the street were filled. Where the cars that were parked there originally disappeared to, still remains a mystery. Every available parcel of parking space was now accommodating a film crew bus. Well, not just any bus, these were more like stretch limousine buses with FILMBUSZ on the sides. Along side of them, there were a string of white station wagons double parked along side of them in addition to the same type of cars parked on the other side of the street. There was barely room for a Trabant to pass down the street without scraping its cheap paint job off of the sides. Film crews were running around the streets, but no cameras or theatrical lights were visible. Our guess is that they were filming in the Old Man's Pub, obviously over-kill for a beer commercial, but the reality eludes us. In other news, I have been finishing up my chapter for the Frommer's "Eastern Europe" book. The template they sent has been driving me crazy. They use Word 2000, while I am using Word 2007. It seems ironic that a company that size is using such outdated programs, but perhaps it is due to the number of countries they have to deal with. The template loads, but when I go to make changes, the whole thing changes into an alphabet soup of styles. Highlighting a section and clicking on this section only, did not seem to help. Hatefully, I had to send a whining note to my editor, the fourth editor at Frommer's I have worked with. She has been great, so this will work out.

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The Communiqués of R to the 2nd Power 15

One book claims men are from Mars and women are from Venus. I propose that two men can be from different planets just as well. Ron: "got here after making it through the night with amtrak. arriving 7

a.m. rita, mark, and elise there waiting, then took me to nice

breakfast place and to botanical gardens. elise is planning most every

minute, so i'll probably have to negotiate the pace soon. out tonight

for supper and a club show. tomorrow to church with r and m, and

insist on slowdown time.

i hope no news from you today is at least o.k. news. missed your great

notes, but know you have tons of stuff going on.

ok, i will confess now and get it over. one of elise's (her fault!)

adventures was noon showing of 'sex and the city'. don't hate me too

much.... it's so good that i want to see it again with you.

i'd better call billicks now and get ready to go." Ryan: "

Why would I hate you over seeing a movie without me? I have plenty of other reasons that take priority. This whole back and forth reminds me of that old 12 days of Christmas series of letters that starts out with Dear John, Thank you so much for your generous gift of a partridge in the pear tree, I am so overwhelmed with your kindness... And ends with Stop sending these damn presents. The birds are shitting all over the maids won't stop milking, spilling milk all over, the lords are leaping all over the place and I am putting a restraining order on you.

Each day you have pleasant reveries to share, while each day I have some battles to fight. The ladies left yesterday. The night before one asked me what they owed and I said 290 Euros. She said how about the discount for the book we gave you and having the Frommer's book. I said that did not kick in until July 1st. She seemed to be slightly disgruntled, but said "That's fair". I wanted to say, but did not "The three loads of laundry you did, the long distance phone call you made to reconfirm your tour, the broken bed, and the kilos of cheese eaten really do more than make up for the cost of both books you bought, one of which you will take home with you."

Yesterday, they had a late train at 7:40 PM, but she wanted to go to the thermals by 7:00 am. I said breakfast was in the fridge, help yourself. It has been so hot here at night, I have been sleeping more poorly than usual. My foot has been cramping in the middle of the night and then spreads up my leg. I have to jump out of bed and try to walk relieve it. I am sure it is an after effect of my mother having polio and I am headed for a crippled future. I wake up to get breakfast feeling like I have spent the night in a barn. When the other woman left at 10:00 to meet up with the first one, I decided to hang around until I got paid and the keys. After stripping the bed, mopping floors, and cleaning up otherwise, I took a 2 hour nap. They returned at 6:30, gave me the money without an issue, asked me to sign the Frommer's book, gave me a country flag magnet and got a hug out the door. They were really sweet and fun to talk to.

The family of three arrived on Friday in the large room. Lovely, lovely family from Phila. She is from NJ originally. Last night after the girls left, they were here and I said I was going out for awhile. I went to find the laundromat the girls found for their fourth load of clothes. Then I went to Heroes Square to see what remained of the Magyar Horse Exhibition the Hussars. The Yellow metro stopped at Baja u causing everyone to get off. The street was a festival from there to Heroes Square. Little booths of the usual food, and a booth for every little town in Hungary to promote tourism, all in Hungarian. I plowed through the crowd for some time, but it was still so hot at 8:00, I could not take the heat from the people and went down the side. All of HS was blocked for the show, which continues today. I walked around a bit and then came back down a side street to avoid crowds and walked to the hummus place for dinner. Looks like M is closed for good.

When I got home, the door window was still open and only the top lock was locked on the door. I had left the three here, so I was expecting them to be in the room when I found the window open. They were not. Thankfully, I had the foresight to close the kitchen window when I left. They returned about 30 minutes into my dinner with pizza from Pizza King.

This morning I got up to make breakfast and had the coffee going. I was cutting bread and cheese. Charlie was up already and on the computer. When I turned around, the coffee pot had spilled all over the counter, leaving about one cup in the pot. It was firmly in place and I had washed the filter before making it. It ran all over the counter and my clean floor, taking 20 minutes to clean up. Charlie oblivious to the whole thing until I was finishing up, though I was cussing while cleaning. I then washed the pot, filter and all and made another pot. Same thing all over again without any discernible cause. I am going to run vinegar later to see if this helps.

Things I wanted to do while you were gone to make me feel like I was having a "mini-vacation" and to be up-to-date for guests and the book.

1. Rudas - haven't had time to go.

2. Kiraly - guests coming or going on men's days, haven't gone

3. Széchenyi - never made it.

4.Palatinus pool on Margaret Island. Haven't had time to go. I planned on today, but the forecast is for thunderstorms. Just heard thunder.

5. Culinaris - a pint of Hagen Daz ice cream that I eat all by myself. Haven't had time to go.

6. Italian vanilla cake that I ate in one sitting by myself until I was sick. DID IT TWICE!!! Stress eating and heavenly.

So I confess, I am not having a pleasant time. The amount of joyful experiences I have had could fit on a post-a-note with plenty of blank space to spare. Am I happy you are having a good time? Yes! Am I going to be a raving lunatic by the time you return? You bet!

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Steam-Hammam

We watched the movie Steam - The Turkish Hammam for the second time last night. It is an Italian movie sub-titled in English. The next morning, we booked tickets to Istanbul for spring break. The last time we were there was in 2000, so we are due to return.

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Our 13th Anniversary

As difficult as it is to believe, today is our 13 year anniversary. During the day, we did not do anything special, but in the evening, we met up with Kate the Fulbrighter and then another Fulbrighter, Chris. The four of us went to see "Click". The plan was to continue on after that to Bombay Express for the 'All-You-Can-Eat' Indian foof dinner. The movie was out so late, Kate begged off. She had given a video of "Dirty Dancing" a tongue in cheek joke since she is a professional dancer. Chris stuck it out with us and we also met up with Walker and Bill at the restaurant. It was a great day in the neighborhood.

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