some buildings in belgrade have been remonted....but not all...
21.12.05
english allergies
So now i am back in england trying to sort out medical issues.
The scab has not gone away so we went back to the vet to investigate the situation. It has been decided that this is most likely being provoked by an allergic reaction to something....what that something is will be hopefully determined in 3 weeks by allergy testing. In the mean time however, the horrid collar must remain attached!!! as you can see it greatly restricts jumping and leaping abilities, thus it inhibits my lifestyle and infringes on my daily movements and routines.
What was funny was trying to find out why when this problem occured in france, it was cured immediately by one little shot, and here in england it has been an ongoing open sore for 2 months. So in an effort to solve this enigma, i telephoned back to the vet in paris....who put me on hold while looking for the records....at which point the english doctor started muttering about certain countries where people dont know how to use computers and are still living in the ancient times of cards and filed documents. When the woman in france finally gave the name of the medicine, the english doctor admitted that it would probably make the scab go away rapidly.....but it is illegal in england to administer such medicine without lengthy analysis. So we have to wait three weeks, make the tests, and THEN get the magic medicine.....i am not even going to mention the price of all of this, it is simply to depressing to even think about.
I really do wonder what is the point in living here. Serbia seems the height of civilisation by comparision. not even the sausages are as good here! sometimes they are even contaminated with wierd mad cows diseases!
The scab has not gone away so we went back to the vet to investigate the situation. It has been decided that this is most likely being provoked by an allergic reaction to something....what that something is will be hopefully determined in 3 weeks by allergy testing. In the mean time however, the horrid collar must remain attached!!! as you can see it greatly restricts jumping and leaping abilities, thus it inhibits my lifestyle and infringes on my daily movements and routines.
What was funny was trying to find out why when this problem occured in france, it was cured immediately by one little shot, and here in england it has been an ongoing open sore for 2 months. So in an effort to solve this enigma, i telephoned back to the vet in paris....who put me on hold while looking for the records....at which point the english doctor started muttering about certain countries where people dont know how to use computers and are still living in the ancient times of cards and filed documents. When the woman in france finally gave the name of the medicine, the english doctor admitted that it would probably make the scab go away rapidly.....but it is illegal in england to administer such medicine without lengthy analysis. So we have to wait three weeks, make the tests, and THEN get the magic medicine.....i am not even going to mention the price of all of this, it is simply to depressing to even think about.
I really do wonder what is the point in living here. Serbia seems the height of civilisation by comparision. not even the sausages are as good here! sometimes they are even contaminated with wierd mad cows diseases!
20.12.05
from buda to ferihegy
Slept 10 hours. It was the first time in over a week i had had anything like real sleep. Masha and i decided we needed to continue our post serbian recovery by heading to szechenyi for the thermal baths. That was soooooo niiiiiiiiiccccccceeeeeee..............
Once we finally managed to pull ourselves away from the hot water, we went to meet ferenc and mashas friend ksenia for lunch at the pizza place next to ceu. It is nearing the holiday season so everyone is coming and going: ferenc just got back yesterday from leipzig, gabor arrives tonight from london, masha is off tommarrow to moscow, bogdan was sorting our his ticket to bucharest......we are all mobile, even by disturbing standards.
After lunch we sorted out the books we had dragged back from belgrade and went for wine with marton.....but then it started to get late and i had to ask marton to call me a cab for the aeroport, which is where i am now sitting trying to pass the time before my bloody flight....they have remonted and reopened ferihegy 1, which when i lived here used to be for cargo flights only. Now it serves all the ghetto airlines, or in other words the ones i fly, so i guess i will have to start to get used to the place. It doesnt look too bad, but it isnt much better than luton.
It is, however, nicer than beauvais, but as i have already noted in these pages, there is nothing worse than beauvais....
Once we finally managed to pull ourselves away from the hot water, we went to meet ferenc and mashas friend ksenia for lunch at the pizza place next to ceu. It is nearing the holiday season so everyone is coming and going: ferenc just got back yesterday from leipzig, gabor arrives tonight from london, masha is off tommarrow to moscow, bogdan was sorting our his ticket to bucharest......we are all mobile, even by disturbing standards.
After lunch we sorted out the books we had dragged back from belgrade and went for wine with marton.....but then it started to get late and i had to ask marton to call me a cab for the aeroport, which is where i am now sitting trying to pass the time before my bloody flight....they have remonted and reopened ferihegy 1, which when i lived here used to be for cargo flights only. Now it serves all the ghetto airlines, or in other words the ones i fly, so i guess i will have to start to get used to the place. It doesnt look too bad, but it isnt much better than luton.
It is, however, nicer than beauvais, but as i have already noted in these pages, there is nothing worse than beauvais....
budapest
I got the train back to buda with the gang minus vlado who had to stay in serbia for his family’s slava, that uniquely serbian form of guest torture. We started out on the second class wagon (logically as we had second class tickets) but the heating system was broken down, so the 3 boys put masha and i up to using our serbian skills to get moved to the first class wagon, which was warm and nearly empty anyway.
We talked the 7 hours from belgrade to buda, except volodia who sat quietly. I had always assumed that he just took no interest in earthly affairs, but it seems i was wrong in my assumptions. At one pôint marton and balazs launched into some complicated and lengthy chat in hungarian which masha and i couldnt follow so we started to gossip in russian about boys and our personal lives, but at a certain point i looked over to see volodia had ceased his meditations and was listening very attentively to our bimbo conversation. He was not even trying to be discreet he was litterally hanging off the edge of his seat straining to catch every detail....we were shocked, it had just never occured to either of us that he was interested in anything other than karamzin and 19th century historiography. So i guess we learned something!
When we got back to buda, masha and i headed for ceu so i could download stuff off JSTOR, which i printed out on markos account, and then we moved on to menza, our favourite lunch/ dinner stop. I dont know any other place to get a decent meal for 850 forints. We then moved on to simina and bogdan’s house (where vlado lives as well, when he is not in belgrade) bogdan is a surprisingly good cook, so he insisted on feeding us some of his specialities, despite the fact that we had both just eaten and had no room left. But we drank champagne and smoked cheap romanian parliament’s and gossiped. I think i talked to simina more that night than during the whole year we were together on MA, but at a certain point she stood up and announced that she had to go to bucharest in 10 minutes....so she got up and left.....
Drained by our serbian zurka, masha and i headed off to bed.
We talked the 7 hours from belgrade to buda, except volodia who sat quietly. I had always assumed that he just took no interest in earthly affairs, but it seems i was wrong in my assumptions. At one pôint marton and balazs launched into some complicated and lengthy chat in hungarian which masha and i couldnt follow so we started to gossip in russian about boys and our personal lives, but at a certain point i looked over to see volodia had ceased his meditations and was listening very attentively to our bimbo conversation. He was not even trying to be discreet he was litterally hanging off the edge of his seat straining to catch every detail....we were shocked, it had just never occured to either of us that he was interested in anything other than karamzin and 19th century historiography. So i guess we learned something!
When we got back to buda, masha and i headed for ceu so i could download stuff off JSTOR, which i printed out on markos account, and then we moved on to menza, our favourite lunch/ dinner stop. I dont know any other place to get a decent meal for 850 forints. We then moved on to simina and bogdan’s house (where vlado lives as well, when he is not in belgrade) bogdan is a surprisingly good cook, so he insisted on feeding us some of his specialities, despite the fact that we had both just eaten and had no room left. But we drank champagne and smoked cheap romanian parliament’s and gossiped. I think i talked to simina more that night than during the whole year we were together on MA, but at a certain point she stood up and announced that she had to go to bucharest in 10 minutes....so she got up and left.....
Drained by our serbian zurka, masha and i headed off to bed.
19.12.05
beograd 2
I have spent the past several days in belgrade with an eclectic crew from ceu: volodia, nash pravoslavni sveshenik, marton, our lost hungarian intellectual, balazs the genius, vlado the serbian stallion/balkanski spion and of course masha. it was really good to see these guys again. it has been over a year, which is a long time
We spent alot of time on department things: meeting members of various feuding serbian institutes such as the institute for modern history and the institute for modern serbian history, two separate institutes which co-exist on the same floor of the same building but do not work together or share a coffee maker! The ultimate sign of balkan non cooperation! So we met people from both institutes, just on different days. The routine is always the same: you come in , the welcome you and some girl wearing the seemingly same outfit in every company disappears only to emerge again a few minutes later with a kitschy tray of serbian coffee and sugar. So then you are compelled to drink the coffee and just have to sit and pray that rakija will not follow, since they are a lethal combination when together. Each talk lasted several hours. Some were somewhat useful, but alot of the would be intellectuals seemed closer to jader apparachiks than to scholars. Many seemed happy to sit in their unchallenging jobs, getting small but livable saleries and not asking any questions. Endless meetings with provincial lords ruling over unremonted fiefdoms.
masha and i also made the obligatory inspection of all belgrade bookshops. fortunately they are all located along the one main shopping street. i think this is the 3 or 4 th time we have made these rounds together in belgrade over the last 4 years, so it has become something of a tradition. even thought i had/ have no money whatsoever, i still ended up buying a whole pile of books. there is a new one out buy a serbian writer who was living in moscow. the book is called deca putina and it looks really interesting, as it is about our generation... so of course i bought it even though it is in no way connected to my research...then i spent more money buying books which are in fact connected....and so on...the usual story.
belgrade looks the same as always, but they are opening some new shops and things seem better than when they were at their absolute worst a few years ago...so we can hope that those times are gone for good.
vlados flat is amazing and we spent some good times hanging out and gossiping (and having psuedo intellectual conversations as well i suppose) his baka is amazing and does all the cooking. she lives in a flat just accross the yard, and she calls every morning to see what vlado wants to eat for dinner. then she brings it over at the exact time he specifies. she kept trying to overfeed me and masha. she told me that 'izgladas kao da imas 16 a ne 20 godine" i didnt bother to tell her that i am well over 20 years old....i didnt want to shock her too much (at that moment she was still reeling in horror from my confession that i do not eat meat!) but now i feel like i have eaten so much over the past few days that i have a stock for one month...which is just as well...
We spent alot of time on department things: meeting members of various feuding serbian institutes such as the institute for modern history and the institute for modern serbian history, two separate institutes which co-exist on the same floor of the same building but do not work together or share a coffee maker! The ultimate sign of balkan non cooperation! So we met people from both institutes, just on different days. The routine is always the same: you come in , the welcome you and some girl wearing the seemingly same outfit in every company disappears only to emerge again a few minutes later with a kitschy tray of serbian coffee and sugar. So then you are compelled to drink the coffee and just have to sit and pray that rakija will not follow, since they are a lethal combination when together. Each talk lasted several hours. Some were somewhat useful, but alot of the would be intellectuals seemed closer to jader apparachiks than to scholars. Many seemed happy to sit in their unchallenging jobs, getting small but livable saleries and not asking any questions. Endless meetings with provincial lords ruling over unremonted fiefdoms.
masha and i also made the obligatory inspection of all belgrade bookshops. fortunately they are all located along the one main shopping street. i think this is the 3 or 4 th time we have made these rounds together in belgrade over the last 4 years, so it has become something of a tradition. even thought i had/ have no money whatsoever, i still ended up buying a whole pile of books. there is a new one out buy a serbian writer who was living in moscow. the book is called deca putina and it looks really interesting, as it is about our generation... so of course i bought it even though it is in no way connected to my research...then i spent more money buying books which are in fact connected....and so on...the usual story.
belgrade looks the same as always, but they are opening some new shops and things seem better than when they were at their absolute worst a few years ago...so we can hope that those times are gone for good.
vlados flat is amazing and we spent some good times hanging out and gossiping (and having psuedo intellectual conversations as well i suppose) his baka is amazing and does all the cooking. she lives in a flat just accross the yard, and she calls every morning to see what vlado wants to eat for dinner. then she brings it over at the exact time he specifies. she kept trying to overfeed me and masha. she told me that 'izgladas kao da imas 16 a ne 20 godine" i didnt bother to tell her that i am well over 20 years old....i didnt want to shock her too much (at that moment she was still reeling in horror from my confession that i do not eat meat!) but now i feel like i have eaten so much over the past few days that i have a stock for one month...which is just as well...
17.12.05
Kraj srpske bajke
Spent the last night trying to recruit serbian BA students for the MA programme at CEU. Exactly how i got stuck up on a platform to promote this venture is a bit of a mystery to me, as i am not even a CEU student, but what the hell....
It was the typical balkan deal: a room of students, of whom only 2 were female.....we presented the programme and then there were a lot of questions all along the same lines: “i am interested in social anthropology, can i study that at CEU?” or “i am interested in liberalism, can i do that?” but i think we managed to pursuade a few of them to apply. One guy even seemed really good, and there was another one that was more or less alright.
After the propaganda session, we moved on to an invite only party in a bizarre ....place....
You walk into what appears to be a normal flat block in the centre of belgrade. On the second floor is a sign indicating the “serbian yachting club” you have to prevent yourself from asking out loud why a country with no coast line would have a yachting club. So instead, you knock on the door (in some special way?) inside is what looks to have once been an amazingly cool flat which has now been converted into some odd combination of flat/ jazz lounge/ bar/ old boys club. It was extremely odd. The company is strictly controlled. There are parties once or twice every week, and smaller ones spontaneously. In order to know when the party is, and what will be the theme/gig, selected people get a circular email informing them about it. The rest of the time, no one knows what is going on in the place.
the music was alright and the people where beautiful so i felt underdressed, not having been warned as to the situation. But i enjoyed the free wine and the sight seeing.
The only problem is i have been on parties and bars and clubs every night and i need to sleep. I am so exhausted that my mind is barely functioning and i am in danger of turning into an automan.
It was the typical balkan deal: a room of students, of whom only 2 were female.....we presented the programme and then there were a lot of questions all along the same lines: “i am interested in social anthropology, can i study that at CEU?” or “i am interested in liberalism, can i do that?” but i think we managed to pursuade a few of them to apply. One guy even seemed really good, and there was another one that was more or less alright.
After the propaganda session, we moved on to an invite only party in a bizarre ....place....
You walk into what appears to be a normal flat block in the centre of belgrade. On the second floor is a sign indicating the “serbian yachting club” you have to prevent yourself from asking out loud why a country with no coast line would have a yachting club. So instead, you knock on the door (in some special way?) inside is what looks to have once been an amazingly cool flat which has now been converted into some odd combination of flat/ jazz lounge/ bar/ old boys club. It was extremely odd. The company is strictly controlled. There are parties once or twice every week, and smaller ones spontaneously. In order to know when the party is, and what will be the theme/gig, selected people get a circular email informing them about it. The rest of the time, no one knows what is going on in the place.
the music was alright and the people where beautiful so i felt underdressed, not having been warned as to the situation. But i enjoyed the free wine and the sight seeing.
The only problem is i have been on parties and bars and clubs every night and i need to sleep. I am so exhausted that my mind is barely functioning and i am in danger of turning into an automan.
15.12.05
zagreb
catching up time. i challenged marko to a sudoku competition and i am pleased to report that i won every round. i finnally left him the book of puzzles since i could see the early stages of sudoku addiction forming in his mind.
we had lunch at his parents place. this has been the week of overeating...
i also caught up with zeljka and toni and i finnally got to meet their son who is now 8 months old. i ran into a shop near trg jelacica to buy a presant for the kid, which turned out to be a good move as he loved it and kept pressing all the buttons on it (they all made different horrible sounds)
zagreb is in christmas mode, everything is decorated and shiny looking. they are making concerts everynight in the trg, although most of them are pretty bad covers of bijele dugme and the like. but then zagreb is the provinces......
we had lunch at his parents place. this has been the week of overeating...
i also caught up with zeljka and toni and i finnally got to meet their son who is now 8 months old. i ran into a shop near trg jelacica to buy a presant for the kid, which turned out to be a good move as he loved it and kept pressing all the buttons on it (they all made different horrible sounds)
zagreb is in christmas mode, everything is decorated and shiny looking. they are making concerts everynight in the trg, although most of them are pretty bad covers of bijele dugme and the like. but then zagreb is the provinces......
11.12.05
sunday evening in budapest
am sitting in an cafe in pest that has FREE internet, unlike the ones in england....masha is next to me writing an email to ferenc, who is in germany;; lucky him
so in response to public demand, i am includding my beautiful foto, as jeronimo requested. and as lemurana noted, i am in my usual relaxed state, next to the heater!
saturday
11:30: Horrendously busy. I have to do a pile of shopping, meet with one of my students and giver her her corrected paper back, then get markos bloodly lamp at habitat, buy my bus tickets....agh!
16:30 Luton:
So i am amazed to notice that luton airport has undergone a stint of evro remont. The last time i was here, last february, the place looked little better than beauvais, and nothing, really nothing, is worse than beauvais. So i was happy to see that luton at least has a sushi bar with wifi access. Some vague glimmer of civilisation.
The place still attracts the most ghetto tourists in the uk though. Overweight, pasty faced yobs off to spain. I dont know how the spanish can tolerate all these types, they are pretty horrendous. And they all got on the plane with bottles of beer stuffed in their pockets. Ugh.
23:30 Budapest
it is good to be back. I arrived at mashas and like two idiots, we started smoking cigarrettes....and comparing our bibliographies! Then, remembering that it is after all Saturday night and we are young and supposed to be adventursome, we decided to go to a bar/lounge....but there was a large group of hungarians making a party and it was loud and completely absurd, so we made a quick retreat.
16:30 Luton:
So i am amazed to notice that luton airport has undergone a stint of evro remont. The last time i was here, last february, the place looked little better than beauvais, and nothing, really nothing, is worse than beauvais. So i was happy to see that luton at least has a sushi bar with wifi access. Some vague glimmer of civilisation.
The place still attracts the most ghetto tourists in the uk though. Overweight, pasty faced yobs off to spain. I dont know how the spanish can tolerate all these types, they are pretty horrendous. And they all got on the plane with bottles of beer stuffed in their pockets. Ugh.
23:30 Budapest
it is good to be back. I arrived at mashas and like two idiots, we started smoking cigarrettes....and comparing our bibliographies! Then, remembering that it is after all Saturday night and we are young and supposed to be adventursome, we decided to go to a bar/lounge....but there was a large group of hungarians making a party and it was loud and completely absurd, so we made a quick retreat.
friday
Last day of term both at uni and at work. I got a new contrac for the coming term, so i am back to work with more hours and more pay on 9 January....although i have a paper to write before then! In the afternoon i ran around and tried to get one million necessary things done. Then in the evening we had the official treachers pianka, paid for by the boss. The food was really good for england. The whole thing would have been 22 pounds plus alcohol if i had had to actually pay for it myself. I had gnocchi with sun dried tomates, followed by vegetarian lasagne and a chocolate cheesecake for dessert. I could barely walk home i was so stuffed and drunk (there was about one bottle of wine per person, and i did pretty well consuming the one placed next to me) i talked to tom (a collegue) about his art (he is a struggling artist) and to vani (another collegue) about her parents arranged marriage.....but i am really jealous as she is off to india via jordan on Sunday!!!i wish i were going as well!
thursday
Had the big meeting with my supervisor about my paper...but actually she didnt say that much about it! She did however tell me where i can but coffee and vegeta in london....useful stuff. Then i had the great last dinner with gabor. He is returning to hungary on the 19th, so our biweekly dinners in stolovaia are sadly at their end. Kati is here in london as well so she came along as well. We went to our favourite indian place at kings cross and enjoyed stuffing our faces to the tunes of bollywood kitsch. There was one really great video on the indian mtv that had this indian couple trying to find each other in moscow. They run all over chisti prudi and tverskaia and novi arbat and even ask the militsia for directions (and mysteriously font get their documents checked, despite being indians) kati updated me on all the latest hungarian gossip...and the romanian reign of terror that hs been established since i left. Perhaps i should consider myself lucky that i left when i did, but then i still would prefer to live in budapest, romanians or not.
8.12.05
the week's end
too much has happened in one week. it is the last one of the term and i just want it to be over...i had a meeting with my boss, because i really need to increase the number of hours i am working in order to live normally. i asked for a full time contract, which is apparently impossible since i am not accredited, but it looks like we might reach a compromise, in which case the number of minimum hours i am gauranteed will go up to a more livable amount. i should have the answer within a week, so fingers crossed...
i got a second supervisor as well. we met on tuesday. she claims to specialise in suicide, a jolly topic! she is very much in the same model as my first supervisor...
and in addition, i now have 30 books to read and a paper to write by some time in january...good thing i dont have any holiday plans (other than sitting in front of the computer, obviously)
it is thursday. i just got the "feedback" from my supervisor on my paper...and i am now hanging out in the lab waiting for gabor and kati to go for dinner- indian at kings cross!
one more day to get through and the week/term will be done
thank god
i got a second supervisor as well. we met on tuesday. she claims to specialise in suicide, a jolly topic! she is very much in the same model as my first supervisor...
and in addition, i now have 30 books to read and a paper to write by some time in january...good thing i dont have any holiday plans (other than sitting in front of the computer, obviously)
it is thursday. i just got the "feedback" from my supervisor on my paper...and i am now hanging out in the lab waiting for gabor and kati to go for dinner- indian at kings cross!
one more day to get through and the week/term will be done
thank god
5.12.05
sorry guys
4.12.05
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