Happy Spring!

Hello everyone!

I wasn't intending this to be a seasonal blog, but it seems that it has been working out that way, at least for the past going on a year or so. It's not so much the international travel and weird hours so much as the 'TOO CHEAP TO PAY FOR MY OWN INTERNET ACCESS." This is joined by the fact that Husband Finn (You betcha, we tied the knot!) (The picture is of the two of us at the Humber Bridge, Hessle Foreshore, near Hull, England) and I also decided that we are too cheap to pay for cable either. We get our internet access in one of the American Fast Food McConglomerates, because the access is faster, and the barrel ceilings don't interfere with my family hearing me via Skype.

However, this lack of convenient entertainment has led to large blocks of time spend alternately shivering and looking at the thermometer, and shaking our heads in disbelief. Well, not for too much longer, since it seems that spring has finally finally finally sprung! Finn and I walked to Marsz Ter today, and I actually TOOK OFF MY COAT. Those who understand the level of my hatred for cold will understand what kind of progress this has been.

Here in the Szegedi area, it seems that once it gets to mid-February, there is a festival every weekend. I'm loving it. Last weekend was Independence Day...from the Habsburgs, not the Soviets. The weekend before that was the Pig Killing and Palinka Festival. And just a couple weekends before that was the Busojaras Festival in Mohacs-- where people dress up ike giant wooly devils to chase away the winter. (If only it had worked the first time!!) This weekend, it's the Bridge Festival. Szechenyi Ter is lined with vendors selling Pick Salami, palinka (insanely potent fruit brandy, with flavors ranging from apricot and strawberry to elderberry and sour cherry (don't be fooled by the fact that it's fruit flavored, it can HURT YOU!)), ceramics, folk crafts, and one of my favorite things: Langos. Langos is deep fried bread dough, covered with sour cream and grated cheese. Yummy!

While there are many things to love about Hungary, I am looking forward to when Finn and I will return to the US (it's amazing to think that it will be in just a couple months now!) To be honest, I'm not all that homesick. I am, however, terribly people sick. I miss my family and friends a great deal, and since I am six to seven hours ahead of them, it's tough to get in touch.

However, it's tough to dwell on things like that when the weather is fresh and the flowers are blooming, and tomorrow Finn and I will go for a walk in the beautiful weather, and enjoy the festival along the Tisza River.

Hooray for Springtime. Hooray for Hungary.

Happy Twelfth Night!

Hi All!

It's ridiculously early (3:20 AM) here in Greenwich Mean Time. I am pecking away at this blog while my fiance Finn looks at pre-wedding honeymoon ideas. I will be leaving him just four days after the altar, and we don't think that we would be able to enjoy our trip with the packing and planning looming over us like the shadows of circling vultures in the desert of an old Western movie (although where that analogy come from considering the fact that I'm trapped in the longest British cold spell in THIRTY YEARS is beyond me...).

I have yet to finish going through all the pictures Finn and I have taken while we were in London, Salisbury, York, Hull, and et cetera, but they are on the to-do list. There are a couple-few posted on the other website, though.

Time for bed, sweeties! If all goes well, I will be in touch again before I go to Budapest.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

It's Thanksgiving tomorrow, and the girls and I will be going out in Kazimierz, hopefully to Propaganda (although without butter, I am uncertain how we will all fit in the building). Propaganda is a wonderfully kitch bar which is plastered from stem to stern with Communist (you guessed it) propaganda posters from pre-1989.

Actually let me see if I have a picture tucked in here...yup.

This supreme level of awesome could only be contained in Krakow, I'm convinced. After tonight is St. Andrew's night, where everyone gets their party on before the start of advent, the following day. I don't know what advent is, being a heathen and all, but I guess I will come to a decent understanding when I live through it here.

In a little over three weeks (believe me, we have been counting down the days) I will arrive in London to meet my amazing fiance and go to Stonehenge for winter solstice. Then to meet his family and get married before I head for Budapest to start off my spring semester in Hungary. For those of you who are interested, I will be renting an apartment in Szeged after my entry tour and my hubby will come out to live with me there. I can hardly wait!

The stuff that goes down while I'm away.

Boo.
I'm in Krakow, Poland, studying abroad until mid-December. I will go to Hungary in January, and will be spending the interim with my fiance in York, England.
I'm having a great time, and have fallen deeply in heart with honey beer and pierogies, European fashion, and glomke (which is rice and meat wrapped in cabbage.
Getting lost and not speaking Polish are my newest skill sets. Thank you for the thundering applause! I have been posting some pictures on my other site, www.greenchairtraveler.blogspot.com . Take a gander if you get bored. Much lovies!
Jess

Dear Dish Network

Thank you, Dish Network, for creating the DPTC Channel. What's this, you may ask? Why, it's the DOUBLE PITS TO CHESTY CHANNEL. Since I didn't know what DPTC meant, I had to do a bit of investigation, and learned a couple things.

It's nice to see that you are truly educating people, Dish Network and Unknown Body Spray Company. Thank you for teaching men how to bathe in cheap cologne. Did you know that it's summer? Did you know that heat (summer) makes fellas sweat? Did you know that women have much more sensitive sniffers than guys do? I have indescribably vivid memories of being on the job with these fellas who used that particular technique, to my olifactory terror.

But do you know what the worst part about the DPTC channel? I watched it for more than an hour, in the hopes that they were going to play more than the one three-minute commercial. Over and over again, I hoped. Possibly after half an hour...nope. An hour? Nope. That's about the part where I lost heart and turned the channel.

But knowing me, I'll watch it tomorrow.

Awesome by Proxy

My friend Jenn has a website on Blogger, in which she records one of our conversations for posterity.

But Soft! What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks?

It is the east, and Trivia Weekend is the sun.

Coming to 89.9 WWSP on April 17-19 is "Trivia 40: Here's ooking at you, Kid", a fifty-four hour trivia extravaganza. This raw display of mental muscles is not for the weak of heart (or the weak of liver, come to think about it). I will be staying in Stevens Point proper for the weekend, just so I can be a little more snuggly with the vibe that is trivia weekend. It's the world's largest trivia contest, so for all you road-side attraction fans...this does qualify as a weekend-long roadside attraction where people do phone-in responses as well as city-wide scavenger hunts. And since Easter will be a fond memory by the time Trivia rolls around, wouldn't you like to have a little extra in the way of scavenger hunting? I know I do!

For those of you who have been so cruelly parted from Trivia by time, distance, or inclination, I would like to mention that WWSP has online streaming radio here:

http://www.90fmtrivia.org/

You might just want to scroll through the team names, because they are generally a hoot. The team I'm in is called "This is why we can't have nice things." It's not "Gene Autry's Ninja Warriors" (actual team name: http://members.tripod.com/~ganw/) but it's appropriate and always makes my roommate and me laugh.

And as a hint for the newbs: The first question always has something to do with Robert Redford, and Belt's (Home of the Big Cone) always has "Trivia Mavens" on their sign.

Seriously. Always. So here's to the first Trivia that I plan to attend since Trivia 33: All in the Family. Let's hope that Trivia 40 is even better...or at least that it isn't a tragedy.