lumière des étoiles

Once more, with feeling
2004-07-23 9:33 p.m.

Budapest is beautiful, a sprawling mix of colors and shapes. We got in late this afternoon, Buda side, after a few days in Nyíregyháza visiting some relatives. The language rolls off Steve's tounge like whipped butter. I wish I could say the same, but for the first time ever, except perhaps in Ghana, the language sounds impossible to me, full of sounds and mouth shapes I couldn't even possibly imagine. I have a few words: no. hi. I don't speak Hungarian. how are you? yes. sure! thank you.

No one I've spent time with in the last few days, except of course for Steve, speaks English. Steve's Aunt Kati speaks French. In fact, she's a French teacher at a Universitz in Nyíregyháza. Meeting her for the first time, she ran at me, covered my face in kisses, started talking a mile a minute, the way they do on BBC's French-radio-programming hour. I guess a little birdie told her that I "speak" french. I was scared, but I tried. "HOW IS YOUR HOUSE!", I'm sure I asked, when i didn't mean to.

By the second day, words and phrases started returning to me. It has been a long time since Morocco, so French is buried somewhere in the 21 year old version of my brain. Things would pop in to my head randomly during that first night as I tried to remember.: pomme de terre. le glasse. voiture. les dents. chaise. mes etudiants. je me couche maintenent. ca suffit, merci! les yeux est tres joli! Il fait tres chaud au jour d'hui!.

Before we left, Kati said to me in French: "your french is so much better now! today you said " I am going to the bathroom " instead of "i am having the bathroom!" see?"

At least that's what I think she said.

It is nice to be out of one's comfort zone, even if only for a little while.

Hungary, still, seems caught between places, always in transition. Capitalism fights with leftover enculturated Eastern-bloc utilitarianism. Large, trendy, and chic euro-sports cars speed past the old Trabants, the cars with the lawn-mower engines that were the only ones available before capitalism. Miraculously, a few still survive and are driving around Hungary, taking people to work and to the market. Beautiful fairytale homes and cottages share lawns with efficient, cell-block communist apartment housing. At least in some places, they've painted those pretty colors for the tourists.

The train rolled along the Slovakian border today, through beautiful Tokaj with its fields of sunflowers. I wanted to stop the train and roll through them, even though the rain crashed down hard in some places. It was sunny when we got into Buda. I hope it stays through the weekend, when we will go to Eger, a medieval town, and Statue Park, where crumbling stone monumnets and other leftovers of the Communist regime are gathered together.

viva la...something.

love,