i watched Scarface and Finding Nemo tonight. it was only the 2nd time i'd seen Scarface. i really like it. and i now know that it was the model for GTA: Vice City. holy cow. the game is identical to the movie (setting/sets-wise). crazy.
yeah. good "material" (as the french say)
tough luck on the ol' (new) burkaccord. just glad you guys werent hurt.
okay, so i can put many of the domains that my site meter records down as someone i know, but there are a few i just cant figure out. such as nasa.gov. and i've seen it several times. who from nasa is checking out my site?? tell me!!
29 November 2003
done and done
i had an entry here, but it seems i was a bit hasty in composing it. so i took it down.
happy saturday.
happy saturday.
28 November 2003
oh yeah. we all (9 of us) went and had dinner at this hungarian restaurant last night. it was delicious. big portions. i'll be back. definitely.
oh, and they sold beer by the liter. how can you resist getting a glass that holds a liter of beer (or anything for that fact)?? well, to make a slightly long story short(er), we all had a few rounds, yada yada yada, now i know that 3.8 L IS, in fact, just a hair too much for me personally.
and dave, my next door neighbor, well, let's just say i thought something had died in his room when i walked past it this morning. aye carumba. (oh yeah, and i had to fight a prostitute off him last night. that was . . . new)
but i'm good ;) (as usual)
oh, and they sold beer by the liter. how can you resist getting a glass that holds a liter of beer (or anything for that fact)?? well, to make a slightly long story short(er), we all had a few rounds, yada yada yada, now i know that 3.8 L IS, in fact, just a hair too much for me personally.
and dave, my next door neighbor, well, let's just say i thought something had died in his room when i walked past it this morning. aye carumba. (oh yeah, and i had to fight a prostitute off him last night. that was . . . new)
but i'm good ;) (as usual)
27 November 2003
26 November 2003
thanksgiving? no thank you.
there was an advertisement for thanksgiving food today at this cafeteria i hate. so i thought, "what the heck. i haven't been since early december. let's do it." never again. they just signed their "not alive anymore" certificate with me. i was prepared for the lowest, worst excuse for thanksgiving food ever. not only did they not have ANY thanksgiving food, but what i DID end up getting just pissed me off. it looked like a big slab of lasagna, but instead of the thick pasta looking layers, it was a thin layer of pasta and the rest of the pasta looking part was mashed potatoes. and it really didn't even taste THAT bad, but it was so thick and heavy, i just couldn't eat it. (the last thing i had there before i put my ban on it back in sept. was some sort of meat/riceballs and potatoes in a tomato soup. i mean, what the F!?) i think they have someone in the back with the job of ruining decent meals. i hate that place.
i watched "Ringu" tonight. it's almost identical to "The Ring." but i think "The Ring" is probably scarier. but the girl at the end of "Ringu" had a WAY creepier walk, so i'll give it that much. oh man. that walk was bad stuff.
i gotta get to movie watching. i only have 5GB of space LEFT on my computer due to all the movies. stupid.
i think tomorrow night we'll all try and eat at a good hungarian place to "celebrate" the old thanksgiving. i've got decently high hopes. we'll see. i think i hate hungarian food though. so that could be a problem.
i watched "Ringu" tonight. it's almost identical to "The Ring." but i think "The Ring" is probably scarier. but the girl at the end of "Ringu" had a WAY creepier walk, so i'll give it that much. oh man. that walk was bad stuff.
i gotta get to movie watching. i only have 5GB of space LEFT on my computer due to all the movies. stupid.
i think tomorrow night we'll all try and eat at a good hungarian place to "celebrate" the old thanksgiving. i've got decently high hopes. we'll see. i think i hate hungarian food though. so that could be a problem.
25 November 2003
seeeeew....road trip?
so all i've heard is that you all DON'T want to drive out west, todd is afraid of sam, and hg is afraid of everyone. so what DO you guys want to do? i'm open to suggestions, so please, let's have em.
i sewed up a big hole in my pants pocket the other day. i was impressed. and it's still holding. and i sewed the button back on my shorts. yeah me. check it...
oh yeah, and i had the crappiest nachos ever atthis mexican food place tonight. i thought i'd play it safe and get them instead of enchiladas. curse me. however, i did eat a crap load of jalapenos. you'd have been so proud scott. so proud.
i sewed up a big hole in my pants pocket the other day. i was impressed. and it's still holding. and i sewed the button back on my shorts. yeah me. check it...
oh yeah, and i had the crappiest nachos ever atthis mexican food place tonight. i thought i'd play it safe and get them instead of enchiladas. curse me. however, i did eat a crap load of jalapenos. you'd have been so proud scott. so proud.
picture me
so i just got a sweet package from my parents containing cookies and candy. thank you oh so very much.
oh and i got a new jacket for $8 at a second hand store, which makes it harder to spend $70 on a new sweatshirt. so we'll see. i can't decide yet. this jacket, though, is really cool. it's got pockets in crazy places and a patch that says "ZB" on it. it's slighty small, but whatever. that's in now anyay.
and this skating rink is pretty neat. it was so something out of the 20s (or something). all the people were skating around and stuff while they played classical pieces over the loud speaker. i didn't participate, but i may eventually.
okay, here are the shoes i'm leaning towards...
and these are just cool Polo boot made by puma...
and here's the sweatshirt that has caught my fancy... (actually though, i think this one's the wrong colors. the one i like is grey with an orange stripe.)
yep.
oh and i got a new jacket for $8 at a second hand store, which makes it harder to spend $70 on a new sweatshirt. so we'll see. i can't decide yet. this jacket, though, is really cool. it's got pockets in crazy places and a patch that says "ZB" on it. it's slighty small, but whatever. that's in now anyay.
and this skating rink is pretty neat. it was so something out of the 20s (or something). all the people were skating around and stuff while they played classical pieces over the loud speaker. i didn't participate, but i may eventually.
okay, here are the shoes i'm leaning towards...
and these are just cool Polo boot made by puma...
and here's the sweatshirt that has caught my fancy... (actually though, i think this one's the wrong colors. the one i like is grey with an orange stripe.)
yep.
24 November 2003
let me tell ya story bout a man named london. or . . . something . . . like that.
(WARNING!! the following entry may contain profanity and/or mention of alcohol!)
wow. what a trip. that was easily the best trip ever. (and simultaneously the most EXPENSIVE trip ever, however, considering what we did, i think we got off with a fairly light bill.)
SATURDAY
got up at 4.0am, did the hour trek to the airport, got successfully checked in and on the plane in plenty of time. and on top of that, i got the seat (1 of 2) next to the emergency exit which had no seat in front of it, therefore providing me with more than abundant leg room. excellent. got to london only to find out my money was only worth half as much there (i will curse £'s until the day i die) as it is at home. london is the antithesis of budapest. it's way clean and way expensive. everything literally costs (at LEAST) 3 times as much as it should. i realize this very shortly after arrival, as i'm paying £14 for a 40 min train ride (and at this point i'm loving hungary more than ever. i saw several advertisements for visiting hungary. i think they could have had a better ad campaign had they gone for a slogan such as "come to hungary! where we won't charge you your first born son for a Big Mac." or something like that.). anywho, john and i trek around london all day seeing the sights and taking pictures like they're going out of style. and holy crap! saturday and sunday (and wednesday in salzburg) were the most beautiful days i've ever seen, i think, in my entire life. i wasn't really sure what to expect from london, but whatever it was i had in mind, london exceeded it. it was a beautiful city. it was clean, well kept, and everyone spoke english EVERYwhere. it certainly was a site to see. it was such an odd change to not have to decipher everything someone said to you (and i had to be careful what i said around people since they could now understand it). so whenever i needed to find out some information, i just asked! ANYONE! so great. and i thoroughly enjoyed all the various UK accents. there really are a bunch. let's see, yeah, so we saw everything except for buckingham palace saturday. nothing really "in depth" persay, but you really have to limit yourself when traveling like this. you just can't hang out at one place for too long otherwise you'll miss the rest. we were fortunate enough to have 4 days to sort of take our time. so that was great. so after a VERY long day of sight-seeing, we began our path home. this turned out to be a bit of a problem due to a mix-up on my page of phone numbers and whatnot. fortunately, i figured out the correct # to call on the train ride "home". and then i got to meet my family. they're awesome. Cullen is my grandfather's brother. he and his family live about 40 min outside of london (in a place called cobham). Apparently, i've "met" them before, but i must have been very very young because i don't recall a thing. so this made it even more interesting to visit with them. and yeah, it was just really enjoyable. we sat around saturday night and talked for an hour or so, catching them up on family and whatnot. Mary (cullen's wife) is just the nicest person ever. and she's irish, so that makes her even that much more fun to be around. after this, we all went to bed... in our BEDS. i got to sleep in a full sized bed with covers that fit the bed and me and it was awesome.
SUNDAY
we slept in a bit and then went with camille to Hampton court. (oh, and we also met camille and her friend the night before. they're characters, i'll tell you that much.) i was just amazed at how beautiful the whole place was. there was so much green and birds and stuff. really great. after wandering around with her, we came back and prepared for cullen's surprise bday party. it went really well. apparently, he was very surprised. which is good. and all the guests were people of an older . . . persuasion. this one lady referred to john and i as pianists and i was like "uh, i hate to burst your bubble, but uh..." yeah. but we did end up playing a few songs for them (because mary and cullen had a TUNED piano! and every morning i got up and played it for a little while. it was great. have i mentioned that there are no in-tune/good sounding pianos on this campus?) and after the party we watched X2. it was so fun listening to all the UK "sayings" and "lingo" and stuff. it was a nice time of getting to know everyone.
(i really miss playing trombone. does anyone still play an instrument? (scott, todd?))
MONDAY
today we had the worst weather yet. it was just raining all day, BUT we managed to make it out to good ol' Greenwhich and stand on the prime meridian! it was sweet. and we got into all the museums for free (more accurately, the tickets were free. for some reason we still had to get tickets and were actually asked by one lady if we in fact DID have our complimentary tickets. go figure). i think japanese people are the only ones that can get away with taking the really touristy pictures (like with london cops and stuff. stuff you wouldnt dare do. or at least i wouldnt). anyway, that's pretty much all we did monday. then we went out with camille that evening to have a few brewskies. she wanted to show us a few places in town she normally went to. at one place john and i had a beer called "old english cider" or something like that. camille said it was really lame to like it, but dangit, it was pretty good. it was like apple beer or something. i mean, it really was kind of good! and then i had some beer labeled "TEA" at another place. yeah, NEVER get that beer. it was tea and beer mixed together. it was horrible. never again. well, maybe. . . no, never. they sell beer in pints and 1/2 pints there. basically a pint is 0.5 L. you know what really pisses me off about europe? well i dont know if the UK does this, but in my part of europe they do. they switch commas and decimal points in numbers. like the other day i saw something for 21.000, Ft (twenty-one thousand Forint) if THAT doesnt piss you off, i dont know what will. or you might get coke in a restaurant and the size is 0,33L (1/3 of a liter). freaking ridiculous. i mean, a decimal is symmetrical. it says, "i belong in the middle, separating integers and fractions." not the stupid comma! it belongs down there in the thousands. that's it's home! sometimes i think i'm surrounded by morons. ANYway, john brought this to my attention and i think he's probably right. he said the altitude youre at changes the intensity of alcohol's effects. i think i believe him because we must have had 2 liters of beer that night (and a shot of something camille gave us (she said it was really strong and i'm like, "you dont know strong until you've have unicum, becherovka, or absinthe.") (yeah, and it wasn't that strong) (oh, and in case you're wondering, just because i'm typing the words "alcohol" and "beer" doesn't mean i'm an alcoholic, so get a life.) . . . but yeah, we actually felt alright afterwards. interesting. and the 2 liters was over the course of 4 hrs or so. but i also think the fact that london is really close to sea level has something to do with it. right, and that was that.
TUESDAY ("bluesday")
the weather was better today, but still overcast. so we went to Wimbledon! we kept getting bad directions to get there and we ended up walking about 2 miles (one in the wrong direction) to centre court (rather than just taking the bus). but it was worth it. i thought the tennis museum was pretty cool. for some reason the tennis and it's history actually interests me. so that was fun. we finally left wimbledon and went and saw buckingham, which turned out to be not so grand since it was being heavily guarded by tons of police due to g.w.'s visit on wednesday. but it was worth it. and we finally got to meet up with leanne. i really didnt think we were even going to get to see her. i would've felt bad if we hadn't have. but she was just really busy and we were living 40 min outside of town, so it wasn't always convenient. after returning home, and watching the last half of K-PAX, i washed (AND dried!) my clothes and watched vanilla sky. it made me miss jess a lot more. this whole trip did. it's funny because before this i never even knew this section of my family, but i really felt at home with them like right away. i hope they felt the same with me.
WEDNESDAY
got up at 4am (again), rode 1.5 hrs to the airport with cullen (thanks a lot cullen), got stopped at security due to me trying to carry my gerber tool onto the plane (fortunately the guy was really nice about it and let me take it back and get it checked), boarded the half empty plane, yada yada yada, we were in salzburg. salzburg has got to be one of the most beautiful places i've ever seen. the view from the fortress was literally breathtaking. and it was so green there. i can't even imagine it in the summer time. truly an amazing site. and lucky (again!) for us, the weather was absolutely perfect (as you can probably tell), and the sunset was no exception. we finally left the fortress to got our hostel (which ended up being set at the top of a very steep hill. we had a blast trying to find it by the light of my LED headlamp.). our hostel was actually someone's house, which was . . . cozy? we were going to get up early and head to Munich, Germany for the day, but well, upon waking up, rather than seeing the incredible overview of the city below, i could only see the tree in the front yard. this is because one of the thickest fogs ever had set itself down on top of austria. well, half the reason we were going to go o munich was for the view along the way, but since we couldnt see anything, we decided against the $50 trip. so we get our ticket home and head to the train. according to the info board our train is on track 3a/3b. "no problem. it's the main track." it's 30 min till our train takes off and it appears to already be there. we get on, there arent too many people onboard, maybe 5 or 6 per car. makes sense, it's still got half an hour before take off. i mean, if it wasn't our train, it wouldn't have been on the board yet. (and we've done a lot of train travel, so we kind of know the routine.) so we sit our stuff down and relax. well, john decides to get off the train for a bit and look at something. no more than a minute later, the train begins to roll. "that's funny," i thought. "i guess they're just rolling it forward? i mean, i didn't hear any whistles or bells or anything." about this time i look out the window and see john jumping up and down giving the ol' "cut throat" sign, which i immediately took as "i got some bad news josh. you're on the wrong freakin' train." "holy SHIT!" the panic begins to seep in. i turn around, grab everything (mine and john's stuff) and run to the door. (on hungarian trains, you can open the door whenever you feel like it.) however, on this particular train (and ALL german trains) the doors are hydraulically sealed. "holy SHIT!" i exclaimed. and so help me, had that door opened, i was fully prepared to jump (and it was easily going 15-20 mph at this point). "okay okay. plan b." i see a red lever above the door. "that's GOTTA do SOMEthing!" so i pulled it (breaking a safety pin, i think). i hear a little buzzer go off! "GREAT! a buzzer! now they HAVE to stop!" much to my chagrin, i see no one coming to inspect the alarm and even worse, the train is NOT stopping! "ohhhhhhh shit," i said in a stupefied stupor. i'm actually really panicking at this point. not enough to freak out and not know what to do (because i rule too much for that), but it's the most panicked i can remember in a long time. "okay . . . okay. plan c. find the conductor of this here train!" so i'm off, running up the train trying not to nail some old person in the back of the head with one of my 2 backpacks. three car's later, i happen upon a girl talking with the a train attendee. after some brief, hectic talk, i discover that the girl and i are in the same boat. up until this point i had thought this might could work out. "perhaps i can just stop at the next station along the path and john can catch up to me on the next rain. maybe?" well the first bad new was that since we were on one of the nice train, it probably wouldnt be stopping for another 50km. what was worse was that this particular train was going to Munich, Germany which is in the complete opposite direction of Budapest (approximately 2.5 hours in the wrong direction, in fact). "oh dang. that's . . . really . . . not good." then (finally), some god came our way, they decided to let us off at the next train station (which they wouldn't have done for only one person). and thanks be to the Almighty Lord, this girl spoke german. after finding out that the next train back to salzburg didn't leave until 5 min AFTER the train i was originally to catch left, we ran outside and grabbed a taxi. and frankly, i believe it was only by the grace of God that we made it back to that station on time. the traffic was terrible and it was taking forever, but we made, with no more than 1 min to spare. so i'm there holding the train while the girl runs to get there (i beat her up the stairs. yeah, i know. i rule.) and john is no where in sight. "not now." right then i see him across the station reading train times. "JOHN!" he doesn't look. "holy... YOU WILL HEAR ME!" i'm thinking to myself. sure enough, he heard the next cry. so he bolts over to the train and we're aboard. i know. wow. the train took off about 30 sec later. we sat down and had a drink with the girl (while we caught our breath). then we sat in our seat and chilled till we got to vienna. we had some close call train transfers in vienna and had to pay extra for our seat after we crossed the hungarian border. but those were fairly minor in comparison. we just wanted to get home, but we never did. i mean, we did.
worst train incident ever.
wow. what a trip. that was easily the best trip ever. (and simultaneously the most EXPENSIVE trip ever, however, considering what we did, i think we got off with a fairly light bill.)
SATURDAY
got up at 4.0am, did the hour trek to the airport, got successfully checked in and on the plane in plenty of time. and on top of that, i got the seat (1 of 2) next to the emergency exit which had no seat in front of it, therefore providing me with more than abundant leg room. excellent. got to london only to find out my money was only worth half as much there (i will curse £'s until the day i die) as it is at home. london is the antithesis of budapest. it's way clean and way expensive. everything literally costs (at LEAST) 3 times as much as it should. i realize this very shortly after arrival, as i'm paying £14 for a 40 min train ride (and at this point i'm loving hungary more than ever. i saw several advertisements for visiting hungary. i think they could have had a better ad campaign had they gone for a slogan such as "come to hungary! where we won't charge you your first born son for a Big Mac." or something like that.). anywho, john and i trek around london all day seeing the sights and taking pictures like they're going out of style. and holy crap! saturday and sunday (and wednesday in salzburg) were the most beautiful days i've ever seen, i think, in my entire life. i wasn't really sure what to expect from london, but whatever it was i had in mind, london exceeded it. it was a beautiful city. it was clean, well kept, and everyone spoke english EVERYwhere. it certainly was a site to see. it was such an odd change to not have to decipher everything someone said to you (and i had to be careful what i said around people since they could now understand it). so whenever i needed to find out some information, i just asked! ANYONE! so great. and i thoroughly enjoyed all the various UK accents. there really are a bunch. let's see, yeah, so we saw everything except for buckingham palace saturday. nothing really "in depth" persay, but you really have to limit yourself when traveling like this. you just can't hang out at one place for too long otherwise you'll miss the rest. we were fortunate enough to have 4 days to sort of take our time. so that was great. so after a VERY long day of sight-seeing, we began our path home. this turned out to be a bit of a problem due to a mix-up on my page of phone numbers and whatnot. fortunately, i figured out the correct # to call on the train ride "home". and then i got to meet my family. they're awesome. Cullen is my grandfather's brother. he and his family live about 40 min outside of london (in a place called cobham). Apparently, i've "met" them before, but i must have been very very young because i don't recall a thing. so this made it even more interesting to visit with them. and yeah, it was just really enjoyable. we sat around saturday night and talked for an hour or so, catching them up on family and whatnot. Mary (cullen's wife) is just the nicest person ever. and she's irish, so that makes her even that much more fun to be around. after this, we all went to bed... in our BEDS. i got to sleep in a full sized bed with covers that fit the bed and me and it was awesome.
SUNDAY
we slept in a bit and then went with camille to Hampton court. (oh, and we also met camille and her friend the night before. they're characters, i'll tell you that much.) i was just amazed at how beautiful the whole place was. there was so much green and birds and stuff. really great. after wandering around with her, we came back and prepared for cullen's surprise bday party. it went really well. apparently, he was very surprised. which is good. and all the guests were people of an older . . . persuasion. this one lady referred to john and i as pianists and i was like "uh, i hate to burst your bubble, but uh..." yeah. but we did end up playing a few songs for them (because mary and cullen had a TUNED piano! and every morning i got up and played it for a little while. it was great. have i mentioned that there are no in-tune/good sounding pianos on this campus?) and after the party we watched X2. it was so fun listening to all the UK "sayings" and "lingo" and stuff. it was a nice time of getting to know everyone.
(i really miss playing trombone. does anyone still play an instrument? (scott, todd?))
MONDAY
today we had the worst weather yet. it was just raining all day, BUT we managed to make it out to good ol' Greenwhich and stand on the prime meridian! it was sweet. and we got into all the museums for free (more accurately, the tickets were free. for some reason we still had to get tickets and were actually asked by one lady if we in fact DID have our complimentary tickets. go figure). i think japanese people are the only ones that can get away with taking the really touristy pictures (like with london cops and stuff. stuff you wouldnt dare do. or at least i wouldnt). anyway, that's pretty much all we did monday. then we went out with camille that evening to have a few brewskies. she wanted to show us a few places in town she normally went to. at one place john and i had a beer called "old english cider" or something like that. camille said it was really lame to like it, but dangit, it was pretty good. it was like apple beer or something. i mean, it really was kind of good! and then i had some beer labeled "TEA" at another place. yeah, NEVER get that beer. it was tea and beer mixed together. it was horrible. never again. well, maybe. . . no, never. they sell beer in pints and 1/2 pints there. basically a pint is 0.5 L. you know what really pisses me off about europe? well i dont know if the UK does this, but in my part of europe they do. they switch commas and decimal points in numbers. like the other day i saw something for 21.000, Ft (twenty-one thousand Forint) if THAT doesnt piss you off, i dont know what will. or you might get coke in a restaurant and the size is 0,33L (1/3 of a liter). freaking ridiculous. i mean, a decimal is symmetrical. it says, "i belong in the middle, separating integers and fractions." not the stupid comma! it belongs down there in the thousands. that's it's home! sometimes i think i'm surrounded by morons. ANYway, john brought this to my attention and i think he's probably right. he said the altitude youre at changes the intensity of alcohol's effects. i think i believe him because we must have had 2 liters of beer that night (and a shot of something camille gave us (she said it was really strong and i'm like, "you dont know strong until you've have unicum, becherovka, or absinthe.") (yeah, and it wasn't that strong) (oh, and in case you're wondering, just because i'm typing the words "alcohol" and "beer" doesn't mean i'm an alcoholic, so get a life.) . . . but yeah, we actually felt alright afterwards. interesting. and the 2 liters was over the course of 4 hrs or so. but i also think the fact that london is really close to sea level has something to do with it. right, and that was that.
TUESDAY ("bluesday")
the weather was better today, but still overcast. so we went to Wimbledon! we kept getting bad directions to get there and we ended up walking about 2 miles (one in the wrong direction) to centre court (rather than just taking the bus). but it was worth it. i thought the tennis museum was pretty cool. for some reason the tennis and it's history actually interests me. so that was fun. we finally left wimbledon and went and saw buckingham, which turned out to be not so grand since it was being heavily guarded by tons of police due to g.w.'s visit on wednesday. but it was worth it. and we finally got to meet up with leanne. i really didnt think we were even going to get to see her. i would've felt bad if we hadn't have. but she was just really busy and we were living 40 min outside of town, so it wasn't always convenient. after returning home, and watching the last half of K-PAX, i washed (AND dried!) my clothes and watched vanilla sky. it made me miss jess a lot more. this whole trip did. it's funny because before this i never even knew this section of my family, but i really felt at home with them like right away. i hope they felt the same with me.
WEDNESDAY
got up at 4am (again), rode 1.5 hrs to the airport with cullen (thanks a lot cullen), got stopped at security due to me trying to carry my gerber tool onto the plane (fortunately the guy was really nice about it and let me take it back and get it checked), boarded the half empty plane, yada yada yada, we were in salzburg. salzburg has got to be one of the most beautiful places i've ever seen. the view from the fortress was literally breathtaking. and it was so green there. i can't even imagine it in the summer time. truly an amazing site. and lucky (again!) for us, the weather was absolutely perfect (as you can probably tell), and the sunset was no exception. we finally left the fortress to got our hostel (which ended up being set at the top of a very steep hill. we had a blast trying to find it by the light of my LED headlamp.). our hostel was actually someone's house, which was . . . cozy? we were going to get up early and head to Munich, Germany for the day, but well, upon waking up, rather than seeing the incredible overview of the city below, i could only see the tree in the front yard. this is because one of the thickest fogs ever had set itself down on top of austria. well, half the reason we were going to go o munich was for the view along the way, but since we couldnt see anything, we decided against the $50 trip. so we get our ticket home and head to the train. according to the info board our train is on track 3a/3b. "no problem. it's the main track." it's 30 min till our train takes off and it appears to already be there. we get on, there arent too many people onboard, maybe 5 or 6 per car. makes sense, it's still got half an hour before take off. i mean, if it wasn't our train, it wouldn't have been on the board yet. (and we've done a lot of train travel, so we kind of know the routine.) so we sit our stuff down and relax. well, john decides to get off the train for a bit and look at something. no more than a minute later, the train begins to roll. "that's funny," i thought. "i guess they're just rolling it forward? i mean, i didn't hear any whistles or bells or anything." about this time i look out the window and see john jumping up and down giving the ol' "cut throat" sign, which i immediately took as "i got some bad news josh. you're on the wrong freakin' train." "holy SHIT!" the panic begins to seep in. i turn around, grab everything (mine and john's stuff) and run to the door. (on hungarian trains, you can open the door whenever you feel like it.) however, on this particular train (and ALL german trains) the doors are hydraulically sealed. "holy SHIT!" i exclaimed. and so help me, had that door opened, i was fully prepared to jump (and it was easily going 15-20 mph at this point). "okay okay. plan b." i see a red lever above the door. "that's GOTTA do SOMEthing!" so i pulled it (breaking a safety pin, i think). i hear a little buzzer go off! "GREAT! a buzzer! now they HAVE to stop!" much to my chagrin, i see no one coming to inspect the alarm and even worse, the train is NOT stopping! "ohhhhhhh shit," i said in a stupefied stupor. i'm actually really panicking at this point. not enough to freak out and not know what to do (because i rule too much for that), but it's the most panicked i can remember in a long time. "okay . . . okay. plan c. find the conductor of this here train!" so i'm off, running up the train trying not to nail some old person in the back of the head with one of my 2 backpacks. three car's later, i happen upon a girl talking with the a train attendee. after some brief, hectic talk, i discover that the girl and i are in the same boat. up until this point i had thought this might could work out. "perhaps i can just stop at the next station along the path and john can catch up to me on the next rain. maybe?" well the first bad new was that since we were on one of the nice train, it probably wouldnt be stopping for another 50km. what was worse was that this particular train was going to Munich, Germany which is in the complete opposite direction of Budapest (approximately 2.5 hours in the wrong direction, in fact). "oh dang. that's . . . really . . . not good." then (finally), some god came our way, they decided to let us off at the next train station (which they wouldn't have done for only one person). and thanks be to the Almighty Lord, this girl spoke german. after finding out that the next train back to salzburg didn't leave until 5 min AFTER the train i was originally to catch left, we ran outside and grabbed a taxi. and frankly, i believe it was only by the grace of God that we made it back to that station on time. the traffic was terrible and it was taking forever, but we made, with no more than 1 min to spare. so i'm there holding the train while the girl runs to get there (i beat her up the stairs. yeah, i know. i rule.) and john is no where in sight. "not now." right then i see him across the station reading train times. "JOHN!" he doesn't look. "holy... YOU WILL HEAR ME!" i'm thinking to myself. sure enough, he heard the next cry. so he bolts over to the train and we're aboard. i know. wow. the train took off about 30 sec later. we sat down and had a drink with the girl (while we caught our breath). then we sat in our seat and chilled till we got to vienna. we had some close call train transfers in vienna and had to pay extra for our seat after we crossed the hungarian border. but those were fairly minor in comparison. we just wanted to get home, but we never did. i mean, we did.
worst train incident ever.
20 November 2003
14 November 2003
let's see... i'm going to London tomorrow (for the first time) and i'm really excited about it. too bad i hear it stupid expensive. ah well, i get free lodging. then wednesday morning, we fly to salzburg, spend the night there, take a day trip to munich and then make our way home. okay i've used up my time doing other things so i dont have time to write now. but i should be around friday or so. everyone have a great weekend/week. i'll see you on the beach.
12 November 2003
tUrd?
oh yeah...
and i now accept the spelling of "turd" as such. but ONLY because i watched the celebrity jeopardy skit with burt reynolds as tUrd ferguson. and he spelled it that way. but jesse realy tried hard to convince me. so she gets some credit for effort, but that is all.
:*
and i now accept the spelling of "turd" as such. but ONLY because i watched the celebrity jeopardy skit with burt reynolds as tUrd ferguson. and he spelled it that way. but jesse realy tried hard to convince me. so she gets some credit for effort, but that is all.
:*
road trip me
so if you don't already know, i'm totally up for a road trip. i don't care if it takes 2 days to get wherever, my plan is not to go to one place and stay all break. i want to travel around with everyone before i don't see you forever (or something like forever). do you guys realize how easy it is to travel in the US?? well, for starters, it doesnt cost $50/50miles like it does here. it's really ridiculous. even if you had a car, gasoline costs 4 times as much as it does at home. seriously, it's like $1 a liter (actually just a bit more) and of course there are approx 4 liters/gallon. so i'm all about anything. either out west or NYC. i can live with either. out west is beautiful and i've only been as far as wyoming. and i've never been to NYC. so let's do it. let me know who can go. (and dont be a turd, todd. just go). huh. turdular todd. anyway...
i heard a hungarian ska band tonight. that was cool. like the magyar dig-its.
i heard a hungarian ska band tonight. that was cool. like the magyar dig-its.
10 November 2003
what a great night at the symphony. i heard beethoven's III, vaughan williams' "fantasia on a theme by thomas tallis", and edward elgar's "enigma variations". All of which i highly recommend. beethoven's was just really enjoyable classic music. williams' piece (i'm almost positive) is what the music from stargate is based off of. and elgar's "enigma" is what that song from matrix (clubbed to death) is based on. it was so awesome. when they started playing it, my ears perked up and i was like "SWEET". and it WAS sweet. and the tickets were only $3.50. and the opera house here is beautiful.
i just got back from seeing matrix 3. with the exception of the ending, which still isn't sitting too well with me, i liked it. it was a bit different from the others. there was more massive fighting than personal fighting. i think it was pretty cool. plus, i thought the last fight was sweet. i dont know. i think i just wanted a bit more closure than the ending offered. perhaps, that was the point, no one knew what was going to happen. oh well.
09 November 2003
man, i just really feel like writing. like...a lot. not sure why.
i don't even know if anyone else will be reading this ever or not. as of now i don't think my blog is being made public. i'm not sure how long i'll leave it that way.
ah well, this weekend i travelled around western hungary. it was pretty fun. this one "town" we went to, called Fertöd, was the dumpiest dump that ever dumped (as far as i'm concerned). i mean, a total dump. run down buildings, crappy landscape, and tons of mud. but right in the middle (if there was a middle) there was this mansion (we're talking Overlook Hotel type stuff) with a huge lawn full of enormous gumdrop-shaped shrubs. The whole place was so Shiningesque it wasn't even funny. so we stayed the night there. in the mansion thingie. it was okay. there were creepy pictures all over the place, but they had tv, but it was in hungarian, but that didn't matter, but...that's it. in the books and everything there are all these really pretty pictures of the place, but fortunately for us, it was under total construction when we got there. not only was this place being completely renovated, but i think all of hungary is. come in here in 10 years and you'll see a really nice fixed up country.
the weather was craptastic this weekend, but i got to take a really nice train ride on the nicer of the 2 days. and as i passed by all of these small agricultural towns and whatnot, i couldn't help but wonder about all of the people living in them. the lives they live. the things they do in their spare time. what kind of music they enjoy. their thoughts on the world. on God. ...on americans (huh). it's crazy to think about. and even crazier to know that God knows it all. man.
did i mention that the elementary school kids learn British english? when the listen to tapes, it's of British people. i just really think that would be a lot harder. all of this exposure to languages is so cool. like i was looking through this workbook on learning American english and it was so interesting. there are so many phrases we use that could be misinterpreted in so many ways that we never even think twice about. (i wish there was a shorter way to write the word "twice". oh well.) and in one of the lessons it was covering how we ask for stuff. and it's the little things like "don't be surprised if they pronounce the word "can" as cn. obviously, that's so simplistic, but could really throw off someone. maybe? i dont know. I thought it was interesting. stupid.
and another thing, where did we lose our accent along the way? the australians managed to keep there's. how did our's get lost? was it just because america was such a melting pot from it's beginning that it kind of just evolved out?
it bothers me a lot when people say they don't like a movie because it's not what they expected. SO WHAT? exactly when in your life did you determine that movie's were made to meet YOUR expectations and if they didn't they weren't acceptable as a good movie. like matrix 2. everyone was just up in arms about how much they didnt like it. "It just sucked compared to the first one." "I don't know. the first one was just way better." This just in: it's not a remake of the first one! it is, in fact, a different movie. how can you possibly expect to go into the second one and come out as shocked as you did in the first? the first one was obviously groundbreaking. so you go into the 2nd one knowing that it's a continuation of The Matrix and expect it to be just as crazy as the first and something totally original? i don't get it. anyway, matrix 2 isn't my favorite movie by any means, but i did like it. bottom line: people that judge movies based on other movies should shampoo my crotch.
john and i go to London this weekend. and if we can pull it off, we'll also be hitting up Salzburg, Austria and Munich, Gemany. we're basically going to just take off the week from "school". should be awesome. man, London is huge. 12 million people. 650 sq mi. dang. can we say "bus tour"?
apparently, there's some sort of music "concert" every night this week from tues-fri in the large club room beneath me. so that's cool. not.
i had a dream last night that i was home and i had forgottent to bring back Unicum. i was upset. ha. and then this morning, Franziska, my german neighbor, comes and knocks on my door at 6am. i'm like, "what the...?" and she's like, "josh, i can't open my door, please help." so i wander over to her door in a stupor and her door had slammed behind her and shut her towel in the door, creating a tight squeeze (hard to explain, but we have really stupid door handles that can only be opened by turning the key, which acts as a door knob. so stupid) anyway, so i opened it and wandered back to bed. it was pretty odd and humorous at the time.
time to work out. i've filled my need to write, i believe.
oh yeah, and i had a dark beer tonight. it tasted quite different from the light beer. not worse, just ...different.
i don't even know if anyone else will be reading this ever or not. as of now i don't think my blog is being made public. i'm not sure how long i'll leave it that way.
ah well, this weekend i travelled around western hungary. it was pretty fun. this one "town" we went to, called Fertöd, was the dumpiest dump that ever dumped (as far as i'm concerned). i mean, a total dump. run down buildings, crappy landscape, and tons of mud. but right in the middle (if there was a middle) there was this mansion (we're talking Overlook Hotel type stuff) with a huge lawn full of enormous gumdrop-shaped shrubs. The whole place was so Shiningesque it wasn't even funny. so we stayed the night there. in the mansion thingie. it was okay. there were creepy pictures all over the place, but they had tv, but it was in hungarian, but that didn't matter, but...that's it. in the books and everything there are all these really pretty pictures of the place, but fortunately for us, it was under total construction when we got there. not only was this place being completely renovated, but i think all of hungary is. come in here in 10 years and you'll see a really nice fixed up country.
the weather was craptastic this weekend, but i got to take a really nice train ride on the nicer of the 2 days. and as i passed by all of these small agricultural towns and whatnot, i couldn't help but wonder about all of the people living in them. the lives they live. the things they do in their spare time. what kind of music they enjoy. their thoughts on the world. on God. ...on americans (huh). it's crazy to think about. and even crazier to know that God knows it all. man.
did i mention that the elementary school kids learn British english? when the listen to tapes, it's of British people. i just really think that would be a lot harder. all of this exposure to languages is so cool. like i was looking through this workbook on learning American english and it was so interesting. there are so many phrases we use that could be misinterpreted in so many ways that we never even think twice about. (i wish there was a shorter way to write the word "twice". oh well.) and in one of the lessons it was covering how we ask for stuff. and it's the little things like "don't be surprised if they pronounce the word "can" as cn. obviously, that's so simplistic, but could really throw off someone. maybe? i dont know. I thought it was interesting. stupid.
and another thing, where did we lose our accent along the way? the australians managed to keep there's. how did our's get lost? was it just because america was such a melting pot from it's beginning that it kind of just evolved out?
it bothers me a lot when people say they don't like a movie because it's not what they expected. SO WHAT? exactly when in your life did you determine that movie's were made to meet YOUR expectations and if they didn't they weren't acceptable as a good movie. like matrix 2. everyone was just up in arms about how much they didnt like it. "It just sucked compared to the first one." "I don't know. the first one was just way better." This just in: it's not a remake of the first one! it is, in fact, a different movie. how can you possibly expect to go into the second one and come out as shocked as you did in the first? the first one was obviously groundbreaking. so you go into the 2nd one knowing that it's a continuation of The Matrix and expect it to be just as crazy as the first and something totally original? i don't get it. anyway, matrix 2 isn't my favorite movie by any means, but i did like it. bottom line: people that judge movies based on other movies should shampoo my crotch.
john and i go to London this weekend. and if we can pull it off, we'll also be hitting up Salzburg, Austria and Munich, Gemany. we're basically going to just take off the week from "school". should be awesome. man, London is huge. 12 million people. 650 sq mi. dang. can we say "bus tour"?
apparently, there's some sort of music "concert" every night this week from tues-fri in the large club room beneath me. so that's cool. not.
i had a dream last night that i was home and i had forgottent to bring back Unicum. i was upset. ha. and then this morning, Franziska, my german neighbor, comes and knocks on my door at 6am. i'm like, "what the...?" and she's like, "josh, i can't open my door, please help." so i wander over to her door in a stupor and her door had slammed behind her and shut her towel in the door, creating a tight squeeze (hard to explain, but we have really stupid door handles that can only be opened by turning the key, which acts as a door knob. so stupid) anyway, so i opened it and wandered back to bed. it was pretty odd and humorous at the time.
time to work out. i've filled my need to write, i believe.
oh yeah, and i had a dark beer tonight. it tasted quite different from the light beer. not worse, just ...different.
you know, all this mail talk makes me think...
first off, like how sarah and i broke up because i sent her fewer letters than the rest of her friends while she was at summer camp and i was at home. the kicker is that i never recieved anything from her. (but that's history and done with.)
then (of course), how jesse sends me stuff all the time. and i really enjoy recieving stuff. i really do. and i try and send stuff back to her (but it hasn't been as much. it's sort of difficult mailing anything but pieces of paper here. the postal employees lack the skill of speaking english.). (also, jesse's mom mailed me toilet paper, of which i am forever grateful.)
but you know what? no one else has sent me anything. i dont even think my parents have. and frankly, i'm perfectly fine with that. some people might take that as "they don't care enough to send me anything even though I'VE sent THEM something", and, well, maybe i should take it like that, but i dont. i'm not sure why, but i could almost care less. i'm not sure why that is.
and this isn't to say that i'm not oh so grateful for what has been sent to me because i really am. but it doesn't ruin my day to find out that i haven't recieved anything from anyone.
go figure.
first off, like how sarah and i broke up because i sent her fewer letters than the rest of her friends while she was at summer camp and i was at home. the kicker is that i never recieved anything from her. (but that's history and done with.)
then (of course), how jesse sends me stuff all the time. and i really enjoy recieving stuff. i really do. and i try and send stuff back to her (but it hasn't been as much. it's sort of difficult mailing anything but pieces of paper here. the postal employees lack the skill of speaking english.). (also, jesse's mom mailed me toilet paper, of which i am forever grateful.)
but you know what? no one else has sent me anything. i dont even think my parents have. and frankly, i'm perfectly fine with that. some people might take that as "they don't care enough to send me anything even though I'VE sent THEM something", and, well, maybe i should take it like that, but i dont. i'm not sure why, but i could almost care less. i'm not sure why that is.
and this isn't to say that i'm not oh so grateful for what has been sent to me because i really am. but it doesn't ruin my day to find out that i haven't recieved anything from anyone.
go figure.
08 November 2003
06 November 2003
"You piece of crap.
I wish I could forget you exist.
jet"
do you ever get the feeling that no matter what you do, youre always going to be about 5 steps behind some people's thoughts? yeah, well i feel like i'm about a week late everytime in catching how jesse is feeling. something goes wrong (i can only assume it's due to me), we argue, problem gets "resolved"(as far as i know), and then i think everything is peachy and running smoothly when all of the sudden BAM! "you piece of crap". wow. that's actually incredibly harsh. i can't even grasp the severity of those comments coming from this person i know better than anyone.
I wish I could forget you exist.
jet"
do you ever get the feeling that no matter what you do, youre always going to be about 5 steps behind some people's thoughts? yeah, well i feel like i'm about a week late everytime in catching how jesse is feeling. something goes wrong (i can only assume it's due to me), we argue, problem gets "resolved"(as far as i know), and then i think everything is peachy and running smoothly when all of the sudden BAM! "you piece of crap". wow. that's actually incredibly harsh. i can't even grasp the severity of those comments coming from this person i know better than anyone.
yeah, so guitar is really hard and i dont think yudai wants to show me how to play. i asked him a question about it yesterday and he wasn't "happy" to help. i dont know. so i tried to play some last night. got frustrated and went to the piano, came back and got my tickets to london! (which i didnt think i was going to get. hard to explain. sort of)
TODAY
i went to the elementary school this morning and talked to a few more classes and got asked questions and stuff. fun stuff. and in one of them, we listened to a shania twain song and tried to pick out lyrics in it (the kids did. it was like game . . . thing). oh man. i OWNED those kids at that game. i got all the lyrics. i rule.
then i went through another 1.75 hrs of hungarian language. man. what a crazy stupid language. they really ge a kick out of adding suffixes to words. all words.
i think i may visit some places in hungary tomorrow.
oh man, i'm a regular now at this pizza place! we go to it like once or twice a week. so today i was in there and when i went to order, the waitress cut in and said my order. it was so cool! i always order a glass of sima viz (tap water) and a popeye pizza(spinach, sour cream, egg. only i always replace the egg with chicken. egg. what are they THINKing?). yeah, that was cool that she knew.
we went rock climbing tonight, but once i got there i decided against it. it was a really small room ful of guys that looked fairly serious about it. so i said "nem" to that. and now i'm here.
goodnight
TODAY
i went to the elementary school this morning and talked to a few more classes and got asked questions and stuff. fun stuff. and in one of them, we listened to a shania twain song and tried to pick out lyrics in it (the kids did. it was like game . . . thing). oh man. i OWNED those kids at that game. i got all the lyrics. i rule.
then i went through another 1.75 hrs of hungarian language. man. what a crazy stupid language. they really ge a kick out of adding suffixes to words. all words.
i think i may visit some places in hungary tomorrow.
oh man, i'm a regular now at this pizza place! we go to it like once or twice a week. so today i was in there and when i went to order, the waitress cut in and said my order. it was so cool! i always order a glass of sima viz (tap water) and a popeye pizza(spinach, sour cream, egg. only i always replace the egg with chicken. egg. what are they THINKing?). yeah, that was cool that she knew.
we went rock climbing tonight, but once i got there i decided against it. it was a really small room ful of guys that looked fairly serious about it. so i said "nem" to that. and now i'm here.
goodnight
05 November 2003
04 November 2003
i would've written something in the past 4 days, but nothing at all has happened worth writing about (until last night). and i mean nothing. i was going to go somewhere in hungary on saturday, but it turns out that saturday was a holiday (and everything was closed). so i didnt want to travel 3 hrs by train just to have the whole town closed. so i think maybe this weekend it will happen.
i was going to go to germany this next weekend with tunde. she is going to visit her husband in Saarbrucken, germany (right on the border with france). and at first i was all about going, but then i found out that she's traveling all through the night, which isnt bad except that i wast to see stuff on the way. so i'm going to go over to the train office this morning and ask them about the possibility of training it to Salzburg and then to Munich. i'm totally pumped about the idea. i hope it works out.
oh yeah! i went and watche the Tallis Scholars last night. man, was that beautiful. i've never heard a choir so well controlled and in such perfect tune with each other (and probably PERIOD). john and i went. it was at this church (and of course i forgot my camera. tard) and, fortunately (thanks to me :) ), we got there an hour early and got awesome seats. it was their 30th anniversary of their first performance. and they did it in Budapest. so that was cool. yeah. just beautiful.
that's all for now. gotta run. (not literally, of course)
i was going to go to germany this next weekend with tunde. she is going to visit her husband in Saarbrucken, germany (right on the border with france). and at first i was all about going, but then i found out that she's traveling all through the night, which isnt bad except that i wast to see stuff on the way. so i'm going to go over to the train office this morning and ask them about the possibility of training it to Salzburg and then to Munich. i'm totally pumped about the idea. i hope it works out.
oh yeah! i went and watche the Tallis Scholars last night. man, was that beautiful. i've never heard a choir so well controlled and in such perfect tune with each other (and probably PERIOD). john and i went. it was at this church (and of course i forgot my camera. tard) and, fortunately (thanks to me :) ), we got there an hour early and got awesome seats. it was their 30th anniversary of their first performance. and they did it in Budapest. so that was cool. yeah. just beautiful.
that's all for now. gotta run. (not literally, of course)
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