Rattling windows

Sleep last night was strange, at turns deep, then bolting awake from the noise that the wind made when it was rattling my wooden shutters.It is wednesday now, but no matter how much I am enjoying work, I still find myself longing for the weekend already, if only for the sleep. Over the last few days I have been talking to a few old friends, which makes my life in Budapest seem exciting and distant at the same time. Sometimes, I long for the familiarity of Warsaw or Paris, those cities that are already discovered. I realise that it will take a long time to feel that way about Budapest.

I feel wierd today, sleepy and lethargic. I need tea, lots and lots of tea.

Ich bin zen jahre alt

I would not want to give the impression that I am a linguist. This is very far from the truth indeed. I like languages, learning them and speaking them. In my bid to find new ways that my students can learn I found myself offering to teach a 10 year child German as he is very keen. I studied German when I was 11-14 which is quite a while ago now. 'How hard can it be?', I thought to myself. I can teach a beginner things like greetings, the weather, colours, numbers and the like.

Well, it would appear that I recall nothing about the rules of the language. I know how most of the words should sound, but can't explain the phonics. I have forgotten what one of those B looking, s sounding letters are called. All in all, this is just another challenge, it should be fun at least when I produce a student with the wierdest understanding of German in the world. Any linguists out there who want to skip being appalled and start helping?

565

I have posted 565 entries on this blog. Lots of changes have occured since I set it up when I first lived in Poland to chart my move from Warsaw to Paris. Some days, the enormity of the fact that I have moved to my third European country in 4 years hits me and I wonder where it will all end up. I am liking Budapest more and more, and I feel like I will have a happy few years here. Talking to Ally this morning for a good two hours made me realise that I have made some amazing friends along the way. They are what link me to those places, more than the cities that I have loved and left.

D and L are planning on coming for the weekend before the end of September. I have not seen D since I left Paris and we don't speak as often as we should. I know that she reads the blog though, so she is more informed about me than I am about her. I am so excited about having them both in my little Budapest apartment with me and staying up late drinking red wine and catching up on all the things that slip by when you don't see your friends every day. I have some amazing memories of Paris that nearly all include her and L.


With the current French financial problems though I have a bit of a block when it comes to Paris itself. The city seems like a scary place to me now and I know that I will not return there until the debt has been paid off, it just wouldn't be right otherwise. I am mad at myself for allowing that to happen because Paris is special, maybe just as much as Warsaw. I learnt as much about myself there as anywhere. When they come we will talk about the city that we shared together, the city we discovered, just the three of us, the world that we created in the most romantic city in the world. I am just as anxious to hear about the new Paris too. The one that D lives in now that she is in love with G and entering her fourth year there. So much movement in all three of us. I simply cannot wait to see them.

Rooftops in the Jewish quarter

Desperately seeking the weekend

I have just been for Pizza with my colleagues, but am now back at school for a parents evening. It is well after six and I know that I will not be home before half past ten. I don't mind being here, but I am also very ready for the weekend to start. My apartment is clean, I have lots of things planned for tomorrow and Sunday. I want to shop and museum it about a bit after two lovely, long, lie-ins.

This marks the end of the third week of school and talking to N a couple of nights ago made me realise that it is only 5 weeks before she and her daughter will be visiting Budapest. Maybe I will have a few new things to show them, more than I do now. I am still enjoying work very much, but I am scared that if I say more I will jinx myself. Budapest feels like home only sometimes, but those times are getting more frequent.

Last night I visited M in the Buda hills to see her house now that she has moved. When we first met in the summer I remember thinking that I liked her very much and with each coffee, or walk in the city, I like her and the kids more. Her house is amazing and even has a pool. I walked down to the tram and travelled back over the river to my more densely populated Pest side with N, a Pakistani cleaner who has a husband setting up a Bengali restaurant and wondered if I didn't like marriage as I do not have a husband. In this city, there can be a million things going on at once, and I like it that way.

Living a life in Hungary

I went to the post office for the first time the other night. G came with me, she is one of my new Hungarian colleagues, just in case the people asked me Hungarian questions that I couldn't answer. It was all fine and I even managed to pay some bills, how wonderfully normal and residential. One my way home I popped into my Indian market to get some food and I was set.

I arrived at my building to find a young man smiling at me and chatting away in Hungarian before offering me his hand to shake. I politely explained that I did not speak Hungarian, so he carried on in English. It turns out that he lives in my building and when we got out of the lift he waved to me as I went into my apartment. That makes two whole neighbours that I have met now.

Sometimes it is the normal stuff that makes me smile. As the days of my life in Budapest start to float by and I realise that I have actually lived here a few weeks now, I notice that things like a trip to the post office make me understand culture and people better than museums ever will. Mind you, I am still determined to get to the House of Terror this weekend.

Valami klassz

The city is changing now, and as I live here I am around to see it. I feel strange today as there was so much rain last night that I hardly slept. The Danube is flooded and on the bus this morning I stared out and wondered if Margit Island would be under water tomorrow. That is not valami klassz, obviously, something else is.

My personality needs some fine-tuning, and I feel that now is the time to do it. I am in massive trouble financially, but I can finally feel that I am ready to do something about it. These epiphanies have been a long time coming, but at least they are here now. I have my bank from Paris chasing me, but at least now I am ready to face the music and hopefully get things sorted. I spend so much time trying to hide the things that other people shouldn't know that the things I hide behind totally obscure me.

I know that it has been difficult for me to examine and deal with my flaws (of which there are many),but I have come to the following conclusion: It is Ok to be a mess sometimes, and it is perfectly OK to admit it.