City Mice

As the temperature rises, so does my appreciation of Budapest. Springtime marks the advent of festival season - starting with the spring festival, a Fringe Festival this weekend, and an ongoing film festival. At a press conference I attended last week I learned that there are nearly 3,000 annual festivals in Hungary. (Mike's response to this gem of a statistic was - It's a wonder how they get anything done here . . .) I've taken advantage of the Titanic Film Festival, which brings a rich selection of international films to the Magyar silver screen. On Saturday I went with friends to a horrifically scarring, dark Korean thriller, but luckily the Chinese documentary I saw last night about the Yangtze river was more redemptive.

I'm trying to be outside as much as I can. I dismissed my yuppie Gold's Gym a couple days this week and ran instead on Margaret island - a small island between Pest and Buda with a circumference that creates a perfect 5km running track. Also, I just love enjoying our cultural neighborhood in Pest's VI district. We live right near "the Broadway of Budapest," so we border the theater district and opera house, and our actual block is the design headquarters of Budapest with many beautiful furniture stores and interior decorating shops, as well as museums and galleries. When I round the corner from our flat, walking towards the renaissance-style Hungarian State Opera House, I pass a tango school where I can watch the dancers through the illuminated window and hear the music that leaks into the street. Or walking in the other direction, I head towards the Liszt Ferenc music school, which always has loitering students juggling huge instruments and dressed up concert-goers flocking to the school's theater. So, even though things aren't always easy here, like when the men's choir that practices on the floor above my flat sings until the wee hours of the morning, I have to remember how exceptional my life is here, and that I may never get the opportunity to live in such a vibrant and artistic place again. Now if I could just get Michael out of the office more often, he would love it more too: )

In other news, our roommate Ioannis is moving back to Cyprus at the end of the month, which means we either need to find a new roommate or move. We may have some prospects in sight, which sound much more appealing than moving. We have a great Irish landlord here, and I'd hate to have a non-English speaker again.

Here are some fun Hungarian facts I have learned this week:
- Bangs are called "fru-fru" as my hairdresser told me. In Britan, they are called Fringe - so the Budapest Fringe Festival has a fru-fru stage.
- Easter is almost here, and the Hungarians celebrate Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. On this day, men spritz women with perfume, and they give the men a shot of palinka in return. In older times, men would throw buckets of water over women's heads, so I'm glad we've modernized.