New beginnings

I can't quite believe that I am back on the blogging trail after so long away, but H had decided that we need a project for the New Year and so I will be group blogging here along with my 3 closest friends, H, J and M, whom I went to University with in 1994. I already think that I will end up blogging more than they will, althought perhaps they will surprise me with their comments on life now and then.
I hope that we get to understand each other a little better, with thoughts on what brings us together, as well as what makes us different. God knows that our lives are all on alternative trajectories, but I suppose that is what has made things interesting over the years.
Maybe it will inspire me to get back on my own blog and make some electronic notes on what happened after the plane landed back on Yorkshire soil....actually, not that much now I think of it!

Journey's end

Only 24 hours from home, and an end to three years of living in Hungary, seven of living abroad. I'm going back to something completely new, and something very old and familiar. To say that I would be sad to leave my expat life would be an understatement, but I have to add that home is calling to me like a siren across the sea. I can't wait to wear a cardigan in summer, complain that the Christmas music starts in October and attend a bonfire night for the first time in years. I want to snuggle up when the nights draw in and enjoy my friends open fire and amazing cooking. I am English after all, have felt more so since I moved away, but long to be one of them in beautiful Yorkshire once more, not from a distance any longer.

How has the time gone so slowly, and yet so fast? Where have these three years gone, in a haze of madness, learning Hungarian, a wierd job, and some of the most wondrous people I have ever met in my life. I know that in England, a new life awaits that will be so, so far from this, loads of new faces and challenges I am ready for, ones that will make my brain work like it never has before. I think that now I will sign off, this time for ever.

The Hungarian Plains

I'm off to the Black Forest on Monday, so I certainly was not supposed to be going anywhere else so close to the end of the year with our students, but one sick teacher and a packed bag later I found myself off to the Hungarian Plains with 44 of the smallest students I have ever taken away on a residential trip before, 7 year olds. I love going on these trips as I find that you go to places you would never see in a million years, and this part of the Plains was no exception. It is staggeringly beautiful, and mind blowingly flat. So flat, that there is no vista, just land for miles.

The kids got to ride horses and go and see a working farm, by far and away my favourite bit was getting to see some Mangalica pigs, curly haired, Hungarian native pigs that live a much longer life and produce incredible meat, I even read an article saying that loads of chefs in New York were starting to breed them, such was the gastronomic wonder of their meat. Made me happy to see them wandering in the yard soaked in mud, happy little things.

We also watched a horse show, ate so much Hungarian food it is a wonder the kids could walk, including the best gulyasleves I have ever had. We rounded off the days away with lots of playing in the shade, and watching a herd of horses in the fields around us charge into their very own pool in an attempt at keeping cool, something I never accomplished, the heat on the Plains is intense, there is no-where for it to go, relentless and never ending, like the Plains themselves. This is a very little travelled to part of Hungary, but definitely worth it if you are the adventurous type.

Things to do in Budapest before they pry my residents card from my hand...

1) Go to Jelen, they have great Serbian cevapcici apparantly. (Behind Corvintetu)
2) Budapest Zoo
3) 400, new cafe bar on Kazinczy
4) Holocaust Museum
5) Kadar Etkezde, on Klauzal Ter
6) Gyuri Basci - Cheap food across from Feysek
7) Gul Babas Tomb near the Roszadomb
8) Kis Parasz - New Thai place on Kazinczy
9) Actually walk up to the Citadella- choose a cool day for this one!
10)New York Pizza - Szondi Utca
11) Cafe Jardin de Paris
12) Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts
13) Millenaris Park
14)Museum of Electro Technology
15) Kiscelli Museum
16) Gresham Palace for cocktails

This should keep me busy don't you think? Hopefully K will do a couple with me, and I can also get my brother, sister in law and nephew to do a few too when they come. Think I might try and tick one off on this sunny Saturday...

By the River Danube I sat down and wept

There are only two days of May left, which feels like utter madness to me. It seems like mere moments since I was having a great whinge about this being the longest term, and how there were weeks and weeks left before the wonder of summer holidays. Those halcyon days that make all teachers feel like their students when the bell rings on the last day of term. That day is flying towards me, and I don't know how I am supposed to do everything that I should in the next 4 weeks. One whole week is in Strasbourg and Freiburg anyway on a school trip, so that should really be 3 weeks. I can feel my pulse racing as a type.

I thought that all I was thinking about was work, that I was so ingrained in my routine that I had no time for Budapest as a city left, that nothing could happen outside of pure survival of these last weeks at school. But as I slowly get organised packing, looking at the things in my apartment, I find that a nostalgia creeps over me that I simply did not expect and was certainly not ready for. I've here for three years, and God knows it took me long enough, but I really do like it now. I especially love my Jewish district, I walked to the shop this morning, past the little stalls that spring up on a Saturday in Klauzal Ter, and a sadness washed over me. Life will be so different next year, Eastern Europe has been my home for over half a decade, what will it be like to be English in Engalnd next year. It all just sounds so normal.

Old News

So, I suppose that I have not really made a secret of the fact that it was my intent to leave Buadpest this year, and, as always, I have held off writing anything on the blog until it was all definite and sorted. As I finish the first week of my final term at school, I guess that it is all over now bar the shouting. I handed in my notice a few weeks ago and have decided that I am off back to the UK after 7 years living abroad.

Now, I'm not rich, not even what you would call 'well off', and this year is going to be a real struggle financially. But, it is something that I have wanted to do for a while so I will take the hit and live off beans on toast for a year. In September I will be returning to a Northern University to study for my MA in Theology. This is so far away from the day to day routine of workinng that I am both excited and terrified about having a year as a student again.

So, while I wait out the last few months in Budapest, I am buying course textbooks and telling myself to save every last penny I have while I still have the chance. As with every time I have decided to move on from a country, the place you will leave suddendly takes on a sheen that you have never noticed before. Budapest really is gorgeous in the Spring and Summer and so the blue skies and greenest of trees start to open the spirit of Hungary and make me miss it before I have even left. 9 weeks of work to go, and a week in the middle of that in France and Germany, I'll be back in the UK before I know it and all the culture shock that will entail. I've been away for a long time now...

A Billion People

Before I visit some-where I read a lot about it, buy guidebooks, look on the net, ask people who might have been there already. I've read a great deal about China, am aware of their human rights record, am appalled by their treatment of the Tibetan nation and have seen movies from The Last Emporer to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I think that travelling all around Europe, a few Muslim countries, and the US, I have never really under gone what I would call 'Culture Shock'. I had a friend who went to Mumbai and spent the first 48 hours in her hotel room as she was just so amazed and confused by the noise, smells, and crowds she saw when she arrived. Obviously, my trip to Beijing was not that extreme, but I did find myself simply staggered by the scale of the city.

The first moment came when I stepped onto Tiannamen Square. The scale is out of this world and images of mass rallies came sweeping trhough my mind. I was surrounded by huge groups of Chinese tourists, apparantly, it is very common for villages or towns to make pilgrimages to see Mao, and see the Forbidden City. In my youth I used to frequent rock concerts, seen Guns 'n' Roses, Metallica and been to summer festivals of a hundred thousand people, and yet shuffling through the square felt massive on a scale I have never seen. Follow this up with a trip on the Metro on a random Wednesday afternoon worse than Paris in rush hour, and you get an idea of simply how many people there are around you all the time.

Beijing is almost too big to explore, you couldn't walk from one end to the other. But it is exactly this that made it such a fascinating place to visit, huge spaces, a self contained secret city that took hours just to walk though, streets that have been there for years, some that seem to have popped up in a matter of weeks, it's all there. It took me a few days to get my bearings, there are so many taxis, metro changes and buses to get anywhere it seems like you are travelling across country to get to anything. I still don't know if Beijing is heaven or hell, but I know that it was a wonderful experience, one that is going to leave me thinking for a while. In the mean time, Budapest seems so much more friendly, more walkable than ever before.

A Picture of China

Jet lagged

I was desperate to blog when I was in China. I sort of knew that blogger was banned in China, as is facebook, but it was still strange after all these years of having instant access to posting my thoughts online to not be able to do so when I had so much to say. China was confusing, incredible and bewildering. I have always been desperate to travel and while I consider myself to have seen a great deal of Europe, trips on the long haul have not seemed to be that frequent, and visiting cultures which really are amazingly alien has eluded me thus far.

My trip to China was unusual from the outset, as I was staying with my brother, sister in law and nephew. It made the whole experience both familiar and other worldly at the same time. I have a familiarity with Chinese food, culture and language through my family ties there and some things I felt quite connected to. There were other aspects of my trip that simply blew my mind. Seeing the Great Wall of China was one, it didn't matter that there were tourists of all nations around me, I just couldn't believe that I was standing on there, gazing over centuries of feudal rule.

I have a lot more to say about this trip, but most of it will have to wait as I am so tired, so behind on my sleep. I know that the one reason that I haven't planned trips like this before is because I don't like the idea of long haul flights. Ten hours on a plane seems like an eternity, and I still can't believe that the flight home is over, it was the journey that lasted forever. Mind you, it can't be that bad as I am starting to think that this going to huge life-changing travel stuff may the way forward, Easter 2011...India anyone?

Aller Retour

I landed yesterday at lunchtime, and went straight into my meeting pretty much. When that was all over, I waited for D by taking the Metro straight to Trocadero and onto that Platform where all romantic comedies end up when the characters go to Paris. You know, the vast white marble space that overlooks the Eiffel Tower. I lived in Paris and had never been there, but I went yesteraday. My patent black shoes clicked their way over the what must be one of the most famous veiws in the world. I stopped, sighed and thought 'That's why'.

Here I am now, writing from the Internet cafe on the corner of Rue Soufflot, the one that I blogged from the entire time I lived in Paris. I am looking at the same things across the street, feeling some familar feelings and looking forward to a few more days in the city that seems so full of light and life. After today, G and K will arrive in the morning and I will start all over again, tours on buses and hidden corners that I found when I lived here, although very little of Paris remains undiscovered these days.

I don't know where I am going, and I know where I have been, but this has been the most glorious of breaks. It has given me a chance to breathe at a time when I felt I had no breath left, and has reminded me that where-ever it is, it is not there.

Everyone loves a list...

So there are lots of things on the horizon and I know that as soon as I have a new place to go, life will breathe a sigh of relief and settle down before it speeds up.
Mostly in the European region, at the moment there are The Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK on the list, with a crazy left field China steaming down the wings.

The years already seems to be whipping past, and I can't believe that it is already February. There has been a million tons of snow over the last week and there is more to come. This will be my third move overseas and this time of year, the January and the February and the looking make the waiting period seem like it lasts as long as the winter seems to. All I need to do is tuck myself in, get a hot water bottle and wait for the Spring.

Oh, and to go with my new start and return to the blog, I got myself a lovely, shiny, new camera for my birthday last week.

Burst

It is nearly four months since I last blogged, my Blogger home page informs me. After all those years, I know why I stopped. Work had become so complicated and every day was filled with things that I would never in a million years put on my blog for the world to see. Yet here I am a few months later feeling like I might have a few things to say again.

I left work early today to go and get a parking permit from the local council offices. An hours waiting, followed by a long walk found me at the Alexandria bookshop on Andrassy, the massive new one with a cafe that illicits sighs of wonder at the golden ceiling. Looking for books about other cities, I couldn't find what I was looking for. This is my third year in Budapest, and the time has come to move on. In June, I will move some-where new, I just feel like it is all out in the ether enough to be able to say it on here.

It is incredibly difficult and very exciting being in the phase of looking for new chances and challenges in any number of places. I find that now, as ever, I am drawn back to Paris. Perhaps I have unfinished business with this city, maybe I just want a job I can enjoy and Sundays in the City of Lights. It is possible that Paris is drawing me back in, but there are other places to think about too. What about home? Seven years stand between me and England, time that has made me feel more British than I ever did when I was living there.

One thing is clear, things have to change. Walking home from Alexandria, I passed a small Jewish bookshop that has opened on Klauzal Ter. Gazing past all the tempting, homely books on Jewish cooking I saw this book. Something inside me burst and I could feel myself deflate as I found myself in the midst of a waiting game once again.

"Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue."

Bob Dylan (It's all over now, baby blue)

Attention

Why is it that I had to wait for some-one to notice my absence before deciding to blog again? The summer is all over now and outside the window I can hear the rain falling so hard that it almost sounds like applause. I have had the wierdest three weeks of my life at work, and now that it feels like autumn is finally on its way, a nrew phase begins again. September is the new january apparantly.

One way or another, this will be my final year in Budapest, and whilst last year I kept away from my blog for fear of giving too much away, I would like to be better at recording what I actually do while I am in and around Hungary. There is a lot going on at weekends these days and it would be nice to try and remember some of it, rain and all. At the moment however, there is only work and sleep, with precious little in between. It is astonishing to see how the routine climbs back into first place.

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
Dolly Parton

Over the sea to Skye

This summer has been in very definite chunks of time; a week in Budapest, two weeks in Yorkshire, Paris, more Yorkshire, Isle of Skye and then Budapest. Now that I am back from the Isle of Skye, all thoughts return from holidays to real life and a return to Hungary. This has been the summer that lasted forever, with the simultaneous feeling that there has been lots going on and also long stretches of very little.

The Isle of Skye was simply one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and I will be posting pictures over the next few days.Skye involved lots of things, all of which were affected by the weather. The wondrous landscape is sweeping, breathtaking and ever changing as the clouds, sun, rain and mist waves across the peaks and valleys. To wake up every morning and look out at the Cuillin Moutains was a joy.

The beautful joy of sitting at my little desk in the VII district and listening to the life around me whilst sipping coffee is what I am looking forward to now, as I travel home to Budapest on Tuesday morning. I have enjoyed taking pictures over the last few weeks and am hoping to have the time to sort all the pics out before the end of the week. I never imagined that I would miss my little apartment so much, that I would long for the sights, smells and, most importantly, the sunshine of my lovely Jewish quarter.

Mine all mine

Has the world not been given the memo? Why does no-one realise that Paris belongs to me? It is mine, my secret city, the one where I wander down the streets that bring forth in me the most heart wrenching emotions and make me remember why the French Capital has been immortalised in so many songs, paintings and films.

Going back there was the emotional experience I expected, but also held quite a few surprises. Firstly, I had forgotten how expensive the city is. Ridiculously expensive, like 5 times more to sit and have a coffee than Northallerton or Budapest. And the cost of everything just makes people shrug their shoulders and say 'well, it is Paris...'

Seeing D and L again felt like no time had passed at all, but it has. Three years since I stood weeping at the airport, with D, L and J watching me go through the departure gate like a scene from French Kiss, I walked on, didn't look back and moved to Budapest. There was a bit of messing about in the middle, but too long a story for here and now.

The Five days went by in a whirl of dinner parties in the 16th arrondisement, summer soldes at Le Printemps and walks in the Jardin du Luxembourg that felt some-how like the moment had passed. I love Paris, and I have loved it and missed it while I was away, now that the mad ideal I had built up in my mind has been knocked down a bit maybe I can enjoy the city for what it is...romantic, breathtaking and special. Only for me though.

Long enough

Has it been long enough to be considered a proper break? Five weeks or so feels like a long time, although not that much has happened. I am back in North Yorkshire and being slowly driven mad by the lack of transport, and thereby being stuck at home with nothing but daytime TV, a load of friends who are still at work and parents who want to 'talk about your plans for the future'. I once read that we all become children in our parents house and have to say that has felt more true on this trip than any other. I love North Yorkshire and I love my parents, I just love them more when I have my own car.

Shining on the horizon are the scintillement lights of the Eiffel Tower, sparkling just for me as I ready myself for Paris on Thursday of this week. The weather should be perfect and the idea of a noisette with D, or a Sunday in the Jardin du Luxembourg is sending me into a spin. I am still reeling with emotion about my trip to France and it is hard not to wonder what it would be like to live there again. More boring navel gazing, so I will leave those thought tucked into a drawer at the back of my mind until the time comes again for an emtional de-clutter. I am going to snap happy while I am away, with a wonderous week in the Isle of Skye to follow my city chick wanderings around the City of Light.

Boring, boring, gone.

See you all in a few weeks when I have something interesting to blog about.

Spending time

The last few weeks of term are always mad, but this year seems to just be non stop. When I haven't been wandering around Hungary on different school trips, I have been collapsing in my apartment and trying to catch up on sleep. In between the days away I have been watching season 1 of the Mentalist and getting excited about the Isle of Skye by watching Coast. The rest of the time is a vicious circle of laundry, and nipping to the shop for milk so that I can have a cup of tea.

Today, gloriously, I find that for the first time in 4 weeks I have a day when I didn't need to do anything, so I didn't. Tomorrow is the city horse race on Heroes Square and the much smaller event of Judafest in my own district, and yes, that really is what it is called. I am enjoying the city at the moment, even today with the thunder and grey rain can be special when you are able to stay inside and watch. Finally, the smell of camp fires, unwashed clothes, and damp socks has gone to be replaced by a wave of fabric softener and the promise of the summer holidays in just three short weeks.

Fields of Gold

I had an amazing, exhausting time in the Northern Uplands. Going on a trip with a load of kids is not the most relaxing past time, but it does afford me the opportunity to visit parts of Hungary that I would never have been able to see otherwise. On this visit, I went onto the Blue Roof, the highest point of Hungary and into the Bukk and Matra Hills. It really is the most beautiful part of the country that I have seen.

The last two weeks have been very busy indeed, but it is making the time go fast and I am now looking at only 3 weeks left of school after tomorrows trip to Visegrad for a couple of days is done. I am nearly at the end of my second year in Budapest and will definitely be back for a third. Dreaming of the summer holidays and the Isle of Skye, Paris and the Yorkshire Dales. It will be here soon enough, so much to get through before it does.