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.

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.

okay...

so did we just freakin' beat maimi!?

2 questions:

1. is that for real?
2. seriously though, is that for real?

i'm think i'm going to make my blog not public. it seems that my attempts to "communicate" with home are only hindering my relationship(s) there.

so . . . yeah.

"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.

oh yeah! and i got this cool vest at the secondhand store here (one of the many) for 1500Ft ($6.60). huh. they had lots of stuff but most was too small.



do you wear sweaters todd?

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

holy crap i'm so freakin bored. i have to get out of this bloody place.

but WAIT! Son Yudai has left his guitar behind!

ta ta

okay GREAT news! yudai got a guitar! now i can learn!

sweeeeeet.

and i went and talked to more kids yesterday. the questions ranged from: "do you like linkin park?" to, "do you want kids and if so what kind?" kids say the darndest things.

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)