A Long Break

When I titled this blog spinning fortune's wheel I did it with starry finger tips, visions of the wheel high above the clouds, a triumphant place to view new splendors. But wheels do not stay forever up and fortune shifts. Last year was filled with plenty of darkness. The wheel was plunged in some very murky waters. It was shedding old beliefs, struggling, and confronting the worst parts of me. When I say confronting that seems somehow heroic as if I met my dragon and slayed it. Of course life is not so black and white. However, the wheel started to shift and my vision which had been so clouded and gritty began to change and so the dragon and I started walking in separate directions.

I, along with my little cat, moved to Boston and began library school.  It's a little funny considering my previous post but that was so long ago and in truth on a beautiful sunny day maybe a part of my heart will always long to be in a park. Now, though my heart and mind is in the library and archive world and to take some of my great training in Budapest and apply it into this world. And so it begins again.

Who needs libraries when there are Parks?

Well Hello.....

Mmmm.... how the months slip by! I have started writing my thesis and as such my time to blog, even to take as many pictures as I would like, have greatly diminished. Long days at school, at the library, or in my room have turned me into a zombie. Luckily, the weather is always there to remind me that there are bigger forces in the world. Tuesday, it snowed almost the whole day. This made everything lovely and white and soggy but the very next day all the snow melted and we were back to sunny days!

Hero's Square from a distance

Friday is my "day off" which generally means I sleep in a little later and go to a library. However, in honor of the spring weather,  I decided to break tradition and revel in the good weather and celebrate the fact that my stomach has stopped punishing me  for something I ate earlier in the week. What else to do but  do some  of my reading at City Park? I haven't been there since almost the first month of school but it is really beautiful and is a huge complex with Hero's square, several museums, the Zoo and the Szechenyi Baths. I really just limited my time to sitting on the grass but between the  reading and  the writing the Park provided lots of entertainment including people and their dogs, slack liners, and best of all the sweet songs of spring birds. Its good to remember that studying doesn't always have to take place inside a building to be well used time. 

City Park

Mistletoe anyone? 

 The tools of a good student. 

Sunshine!!! The lower area is filled with water in the summer. It's funny to see it drained.

I don't know these people but it made for a good photo.

fancy buildings with tree:)

On the way back to the metro to go to a library! I love a blurry photo.

And Here is a snowy Budapest. These are not from Tuesday but from earlier in February when we got hit with a lot of snow.

The Ladies are frozen

Happy snow men

Dress them in bows! Give them hats!

Snowy Park by the School.

                                             Have a great weekend where ever you are!!

HA HA Happy New Years??

********Sorry this is a little late :) ********

It is really hard to take a bad picture of this building.

Sparkly hat....check!

New Years Bunnies...also many devils haunted the night as well.

From the Danube

Into the next morning

Snowberry!! It's like seeing an old friend.

Well its half way through the first month of the New Year and the year feels a little more amazing with each week. It doesn't hurt that I left 2011 in Italy surrounded by art, friends, and delicious Italian treats.I highly recommend it to anyone who reads this. I will post some pictures from that trip later but I wanted to share some pictures from my first few days back in Budapest and turning into the New Year.
Budapest knows how to use fireworks, meaning that from my dorm window I saw fairly impressive fireworks being shot off randomly starting at 6 in the pm. When I and a few friends made are way into the City around 10:30 the crowds blossomed into drunken merriment: horns blew, people were dressed in sparkly wigs and music was playing at stages all over the city. The Danube was a chilly but beautiful place to turn into the New Year. People were lined on the bridges and at midnight there was a loud, unofficial countdown from the hoards of people in the streets and then  even  more fireworks. My favorite part was afterwards walking along the Danube; it was freezing but the brisk air made everything feel more sharp and clear.

Christmas in Budapest

Christmas has settled over Budapest. Lights are strewn over the streets, small craft huts have bloomed over the city, and hot, sweet wine steams up from every corner. School has let out and a month long beak ensues. I have returned back to breathing which has been helped by a long weekend of looking around the Christmas booths, checking out communist statues, and watching clips of Godard movies all which have helped center me.  I have spent my first week of “freedom” finishing up papers and doing bits of research on my thesis but tomorrow I will runaway to Florence for a week for holiday celebrations with Alexis, Robbie, and Alexis’ mom. I am sad not to be with my family but being with good friends in Florence is pretty amazing runner up.

Visit to Pomaz

Last weekend I went on a class trip to visit a local archaeological site that  my professor, Dr. József Laszlovszky, is currently excavating. It is in the village of Pomaz which is inside the Pils Hills just a short train ride from the center of Budapest. The adventure started off right when more than half of our group, lost in chatter, went right past our stop. We got off at the next town and as we waited for the next train back, we wisely laughed and came up with scenarios  of settling in the village and starting a commune. Then we upped the ante and created new mythologies. So, if you go to Hungary make sure to include the holy dogs of  the stop after Pomaz, they are quite sacred and amazing.  

Dr. Laszlovszky walked us through the archaeological history of the site including the debates around which monastic order the site had been, the various configurations that have been conceived of its layout and how various archaeologists have both helped and destroyed elements of the site. The current thought is that this area was a Cistertian industrial complex that  potentially specialized in glass production. The church you will see in the pictures below was the center  and workshops were built around it. A few weeks ago, as they dug pits to set up protective covering for their work,  they uncovered a cemetery site. An unexpected find. However, as winter approaches and the ground freezes excavations will have to stop but in the summer they will  continue to  excavate and make a detail plan for these bones.

It's surprising how much of ourselves we leave behind and what these material objects reveal about the communities that leave them . On the train ride home I wondered what it means to leave a material trace.  What stories will be created with our coke bottles and cellphones. What beauty will people find in our rubbish?

The remnants of the Cistertian Church

Sometimes you dig into a cemetery

 Medievalists know how to have fun!

Creepy

Piles of excavated stones

Beautiful landscape and former fishpond!

Learning is always better with hot spiced wine!

Dr. Laszlovszky showing us some remains of the glass industry. Learning happening behind his right shoulder.

Stuff!!

All Soul's Day

The beginning of November was especially marked this year by graveyards. My trip to Milan was the start of a trip to see the spaces of the dead in my Budapest home. Of course, this curiosity was sparked by the importance placed on this holiday of All Soul's day. In Hungary and other parts of Europe all Soul's day is a national holiday and people come out in small droves to clean and to pay respect to the dead. On my way home from the airport, I was surprised to find  flower shacks that appeared along the way and people coming onto the bus with pots of flowers. Kerepesi cemetery is one of the most famous in Budapest, filled with poets, protesters, actress politicians and other notables. In the evening people come out and light candles and the cemetery is filled with tiny lights, sometimes a single candle at the base of a grave and sometimes larger gathering of candles. Names of streets and stops along the metro were transformed as people stuffed flowers and flags and candles at their monuments. Kids walked with their parents, excited to light the candles and wander around in he dark. There was something calming to walk around as the light faded and the candles began too glow. It was so peaceful I decided to come back in the daylight. It was even nicer in the daylight, trees turning color and shedding their leaves everywhere. 

 

The grave of Blaha Lujza a famous actress the "nations nightingale" from the mid 19th to early 20th ce

Fall in the cemetery

Tomb of Ferenc Deak a statesman who negotiated a treaty with the Hapsburg Court. I knew him better as the main square and metro stop that i go to almost every morning.

A funny kind of photo shoot...Always a few Goths to be found in a cemetery!