TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Thursday, February 2, 2006

5:40 PM
Posted by jodi rose

February is a whirlwind of activity already.
Scraped through another deadline - I have a plan to obviate the necessity of these constant grant applications and fund raising missions but more about that some other time, when my team of risk assessment and creative content development experts get back to me with their verdict.

Walked along the river yesterday afternoon, brakes squealing as traffic on the bridge backed up to the third arch, bats flying overhead made their honky squeaky sounds and the two dogs barking strangely absent.
The edges of the river are frozen with piled up mini waves crashing against each other, and chunks of ice drift downstream on the current.
Although I'm told today that the river can no longer freeze over completely because it is not clean. 'Silt?' I ask. No, all the chemicals in the water mean it doesn't freeze anymore.'Great, and people swim in it'. 'Oh no, they're non-toxic chemicals', I am assured.

Today I also discover that I am poetic even in Hungarian. Quite an accomplishment for a language I don't speak, if I do say so myself.
Gyuri showed me the translation and layout of the newspaper article - I have two pages in Slovak and two in Hungarian, with a rather fetching picture of me in a beret on guard duty at the bridge. There is one part where I am writing about love and borders which has some double meaning, I can't remember what exactly but something to do with the word for love between the family and the word for love between a man and a woman - or a man and a man, woman and a woman, hell let's just say 'romantic love' for those of the same gender persuasion.
The linguistic subtlety that I'm most impressed by is the Hungarian word for immortal is one 'l' different to that for inaudible - so the translation of my phrase 'The bridge is not immortal/The bridge is immortal' reads the bridge is not immortal [not audible lit: listenable] and the bridge is immortal [audible]. very cool! I love that Gyuri picked up on it, one of the perks to having a residency guardian who is incredibly well-read and teaches Hungarian literature and history.
He told me that the article is: sometimes philosophical, and sometimes sentimental - not in a dire way, more that it's heartfelt. I think.
Apparently the woman who translated enjoyed it too; a good sign.

Synchronicity is working for me in small ways today, we ran into each other when I was having an emergency coffee and salad - forgetting to eat in work obsessive mode - and had just found the netcafe where I print things sometimes (until I make the trip to buy more ink) had a problem with their printer, walked out and there was gyuri who said, it's ok you can print it on mine. Tommi came home and we chatted over coffee - really do feel like a local here these days. Staying away from the pub, am just too busy for all that lounging around ;)

Audrey came to pick me up for our visit to the tailor, but it turned out she couldn't fit my guard uniform in before the end of February - even though she had told us it would be fine. So now I am faced with making the damn thing myself, which I was trying to avoid. Ah well, some innocent sewing no doubt will be beneficial for my soul and probably quite relaxing as well - except when it all goes wrong.

Tonight 'Just Like Heaven' is on at the cinema, I think I've earned a trashy film after the last week, and staying up very late working on keeping this crazy life afloat. Although a bit late now for my planned trip to the Vadas baths - for an actual swim, not just floating around. Maybe I can still squeeze it in and then go straight to the flicks, ok gotta run!