Monday, August 30, 2004

Long absence

To my loyal readers: I am sorry I haven't written in so long.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Although, honestly, it wasn't entirely my fault.

After I returned to Bosnia, I had one day in Hungary. Then I went to Romania (Transylvania, to be exact). The trip was nice, although not nearly as impressive as Bosnia. There was a fair amount of Lumpen tourism going on, with stupid, white-trash Hungarians taking advantage of lower prices in Romania.

Then after returning from Romania, my (now ex-)boyfriend came to visit. Then, after touring the country some with him, four of my friends came to visit from the States.

This is where the real fun started. Except that I think my liver now wants to leave my body permanently.

From the 21st to the 28th of August, we partied. We also saw a lot of things in the meantime, but primarily we drank a lot.

For example:
August 21: They arrive in the afternoon. With jet-lag and all, I take them out to go clubbing. We do many shots of palinka (Hungarian schnapps/brandy/whatever you want to call it) and stay out until very late. For some reason, my Hungarian friend who is with us takes her boyfriend's shirt off. She isn't drunk. We are.

August 22: We go to my vinyard. We immediately start drinking. We drink large quantities of wine, and some palinka. We sing. The U.S. national anthem (standing, while holding wine glasses), the Soviet national anthem (not standing, still holding wine glasses), our chauffeur sings the Hungarian national anthem (we stand, holding wine glasses), some drinking song about engineers, and various odds and ends. We are very drunk. We are also very loud. Sound carries across the valley. Luckily, there aren't many people out there.

August 23: We tour the countryside, go back to the vineyard. Immediately start drinking again, while deer stew is being made. We drink a lot. We also argue about Ender's Game. I can't remember if we sing or not. We also drip bacon over an open fire onto bread. We are drunk.

August 24: We go back to Budapest. Oddly enough, we don't drink a lot. Although some of us do end up with some Norwegian diplomat in a bar. Since I'm not around for that, I can't comment.

August 25: We go to Turkeve. We start drinking heavily. Go bicycling. Decide to go to the local sketchy bar at the end of the street. Drink palinka. Palinka is very cheap. We decide to buy palinka rounds for the whole bar. Bar owner is the daughter-in-law of my housekeeper. They move tables for us, crank up the jukebox, and soon we are dancing with old alcoholic Hungarians, Gypsies, and possible prostitutes. A Gypsy guy gives a pear for no apparent reason. We drink a lot of palinka. So does the rest of the bar. We get them to toast Israel's first gold medal in the Olympics ever. We drink more palinka. An overeffusive alcoholic kisses all of us he can find on the cheeks, including the guys. We get kicked out of the bar at some point because they have to close. We go back and drink some more. We sing some more in my kitchen, including in three-part harmony.

August 26: Ouch.

August 27: We go out for dinner. We drink some wine. We go to a club. It has a lot of junkies and hookers. We go to another club. Everyone is speaking Russian. We drink, but with slightly less abandon because a) our livers hurt, and b) we're a bit wary of the Russian mob.

August 28: My liver does ecstatic backflips to celebrate my friends' departure. I'm sad to see them go. We had lots of fun.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

its been two years - and still, it makes me smile. :)

8:52 AM  

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