one hundred years of history

the week is passing me by and ive hardly stopped to notice. sorry sorry.
speeding from home to work to home to meditation to home to cook to sleep to wake.

im delighted its friday but i have this lingering guilt at the same time, ive been waiting for friday since i woke up on monday. and although ive enjoyed the moments during the week i find myself increasingly just 'pushing through' until the weekend when i can bask in sunny weather, wake up late, indulge in pancakes for breakfast and read as much as i like. is it wrong to do? i mean maybe i should give mondays, tuesdays and wednesdays a chance? i like thursdays because it is my day of accomplishment, that the week is almost over and i can breathe a little bit.

maybe i just need to challenge myself to be just as happy for monday mornings as i am for friday afternoons. any suggestions?
















another news: i am pages away from finishing "in europe" by geert mak. a professor recommended it to me before i moved away and its taken me 6 months of metro and train rides to finish it. if i am glad to end my european history lesson with this book it is only for the reason that it is extremely large and heavy and my shoulder is tired from lugging it here and lugging it there. time to rest it on the bookshelf now, in 15 pages at least. its perfect if you fell asleep frequently in history class and managed to turn 23 without being able to tell you when the world wars took place (as i hide in embarrassment). it covers 100 years of european history without even being boring! imagine that. a true investment.


book review here

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details from the weekend.

i think im more than just a little bit behind here. its already tuesday and ive just uploaded my photographs from the weekend. oh dear oh dear. i had a nice weekend, the weather has been delightfully gorgeous so we headed to margaret island on sunday afternoon for a few hours in the sun, laying on a soft blanket and enjoying our lunch outdoors. strong pinks and bright greens, i love the colours of spring.

leaving the island we met a charming travelling couple from cape town, older in years but sailing along the danube as if they would be my age. trekking and enjoying life, so fresh and so nice. we walked along the river bank together to prolong our conversation. stopping at the collection of bronze cast shoes that mark the place where countless jews were drowned fifty years ago. eery and beautiful, i have a pair just like these ones at home.

sometimes it is surreal to live so close to places where terrible and incredible things happened. bullet holes still mark some buildings from the 1956 revolt in the eighth district. makes my ontario hometown so tame when i think about it.

"lovely budapest, isn't it?"

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friday night studying.

what can i say, i love the library?
happy weekend!

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berlin in five photographs.

at work ive been writing a lot about berlin lately, or at least it seems. and i was tempted to look back at some of the photographs i took there a few summers ago. i was addicted at once to this capital with a history i couldnt really grasp at the time but its one of those places you'd just like to go back to. again and again. i used to take a lot of travel photographs and i dont really go back and look at them too often. but today is an exception. so where it my ado to berlin.















i thought there were more interesting things to take photographs of than checkpoint charlie which was just down the street from this photo-mural.

not something i can really describe. its a holocaust museum and is absolutely terrifying. if you're claustrophobic, i dont recommend walking between the blocks of cement.

ill photograph any orwell reference that i see. it just so happened that some pretty bikes were conveniently in the frame.

looking back, i should be ashamed i was drinking czech beer in germany. tisk tisk. i know better now. but given the choice, id probably still go for the bottle of staropramen.

i wish we had these beach chairs in canada, how cool would it make our beaches? protection from the sun and the wind, sand blowing in your face and most of all, you can store your personals in the wooden drawers below. you rent them by the day but id rent one for the entire month if i could.

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bonjour printemps.

isn't spring lovely? budding branches and clean sidewalks. spring cleaning is taking place all over this city, including our flat. finally its dusted and it feels okay to invite friends over again. i can never get enough of the greek influence on some of the buildings here, the national museum for instance. every time i walk by the angles and lines impress me. im counting down the days until i can hang out at the acropolis in august. dreams of greece are a little less far fetched these days now that our "travel jar" isn't empty anymore.

summer time savings. i love vacations, its a pity its still so far away. id like to take one now.

until then though, im happily satisfied with sunny days and twenty degree afternoons. late day coffee breaks and extended beer dates. i think it might be season enough to picnic this weekend. i hear city park  has beautiful gardens, its probably due we visit there. now to track down a picnic basket and an old table cloth, because theres no picnic without a basket and a blanket to sit on, everyone knows that.

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tibetan class.

on saturday morning i started taking tibetan classes at the local buddhist centre here in budapest. its so cool, we managed only to go through the alphabet, learning how to draw the letters and how to make their sounds. i know, i living in hungary, i should be taking hungarian lessons right? hm, i guess i got a little distracted. i think most of all it is so nice to do something with david, to learn something with him. we went to a cafe on sunday afternoon to drink a latte and do our homework together. i couldnt think of a better way to spend a few hours than with a nice up of coffee and doing our tibetan homework together outdoors. it was such a beautiful day, i hope it become a routine.

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vendredi soir // konyvtar

szabo ervin konyvtar.

this is the library i like to go to on friday nights and as many other weeknights as i can, to browse their shelves of english books, look at atlases, trying to pronounce the names of hungarian towns and sit and read to the light of old fashioned, green glass lamps at heavy wooden desks. winding marble staircases, a spiral of floors filled with books, reading chairs, desks and old old volumes of "our times."  this library has been open for 106 years and its absolutely beautiful inside. it is a short walk from my house and makes for a nice evening walk, especially now that the sun stays out later than 5 and its sweater weather.
















my latest find is oryx and crake by margaret atwood. fancy finding some of her novels in a small hungarian library. i was pleasantly surprised and brought it home with me without hesitation. i joined up with the slow readers book club, but im afraid i cant track down the book they are currently reading and unless i somehow find someone to ship me a copy from america, im going to have to sit this round out and hope that ill be able to find the next one at a second hand book shop or at the library here. "please pick a classic, please."

how does this photograph not seriously compliment the last? marble and wrought iron, inside and outside. i love the circular grates in the streets here, the ones around tree trunks. they are beautiful pieces of grill work, my foot just happened to step into the shot by accident. thats what happens when  i take photographs while im walking..

the nice weather proved to make a weekend of some pretty exciting events, so ill save my other news for another post. for now, its all about books and librarys. ive started working on my summer reading list, heres what ive got so far:

in europe - geert mak (i am almost done this, hunk of a book ive been working on for almost half a year)
oryx and crake - margaret atwood
islands in the stream - heminway
the water method mad - john irving
any book of poems by john keats

any recommendations? whats on your nightstand right now? i dont think ill ever get tired of reading.

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