What d'ya do on New Years Eve?

So...what happened by you, Nimh?

Yikes, shewolf, everyone OK now?

We had a really nice time actually. We did the holiday faculty party rounds this season (last year sozlet was sick too much and I missed almost all of them) and they were generally major yawns. This was another one, sort of, but much smaller and hosted by a really cool couple who also just moved here (new professor and his wife). They're about exactly our age, have a kid a bit younger than sozlet and the kids had a great time together, and the wife is also a stay-at-home-mom and really cool, so we all kinda collectively went, "Ooooh! Not standard faculty people! Kids like each other! Wives like each other! Must get to know each other better!" They wrote today inviting us to come over tomorrow. (Can't do it then, but invited them over here next weekend...)

One damper is that the kid -- who spent most of the time hugging sozlet, kissing sozlet, and never letting go of her hand -- had a runny nose and a pronounced cough, so I'm loading sozlet full of vitamins and crossing my fingers. We'll see.

But still a really nice evening, some good conversations with other partygoers too.

And led to a similar resolution-type thingie as dlowan's -- we gotta host more of these parties ourselves. I don't especially wanna, but if we get a critical mass of 2-3 couples/ families we like, should be tolerable. (OmigodI'mafacultywife...)

Hmmm...or someone who wants a close network of good friends!!!

Oh my god Shewolf, what a horrible way to enter the new year! Best wishes to bean and alla you ... sure things will be better once 2006 really gets going!


Hehhehheh ... yesh, and you're actually sounding more like one ever more ... heehee

Oh boy...that Nimh sure has a mean side....

Shewolf, I know you already know what our crappy New year is all about.

KARMA of New Years past!!!!!!!

The glory days are over woman.

Nah, things will look up.

So, Mr. Nimh (I'll sic emoticons on you if you don't watch out), what was so unusual about your NYE?

Hey everyone!

I was on the cape last night and my parents' neighbor (52) is a drummer for a band (he has a day-job) who played a local townie bar. We went at about 11:30 and left at about 12:15. Woohoo. My sister and her hubby (from the west coast) were there and his brother and friend also came. After the bar we went home andplayed liverpool until like 3 am. Very weird and mellow night.......

littlek,

What's liverpool ? Drinking to excess ?

ehh.. little bean is doing better. but not by much.
it was strange, on new years eve, the ER was almost empty. You would think it would have been other wise..

<apologetic protestations> But 's true!! Often nowadays when I read Soz's posts I feel like a hoodrat in comparison...

(thats about culture not income, necessarily)

(I'm not making this any better am I...?)

Somehow, I don't see you as a "hoodrat". (If I get that term correctly.)

But, it's always the cute, fey looking ones that bite, eh?




Yikes! Some nasty bug! What is it?


(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Bean))))))))))))))))))))))))))

OK, my new years eve wasnt that weird, just a little ... picturesque.

Mid-afternoon, we gathered at the Klauzal Beer-pub (Sőrőző) next door. Give and take some time there were about eight of us: my American friend, her ex-bf, her Hungarian friend (a rather neurotic girl), two guys named Steve (an older artist and a long-time expat), another Hungarian girl, and a guy I'll call Mark, who teaches literature at a university here but whom I've happily yet to hear utter a single sentence on arts and letters, and instead excels in surreal stories about Budapest lowlife.

Drank and then went out to the horse races - apparently a Hungarian tradition for NYE. Was somewhere out beyond the "stadionok". It was fun, crowded like hell, only pretzels and sausages to eat, Hungarians blowing horns of sorts (another tradition apparently), and lots of queuing and pushing and cheering on for the successive races. They were funny, cause the jockeys sat on chariots behind their horse, so it didnt go all that fast.

The Steves dissappeared discussing The Nature of Hungarian History and Politics (funny how its always the (US) expats who know least who tend to lecture loudly on the topic), which happily left us to argue which horses to bet on, with none of us knowing **** about them. We were joined by a Brit called Duncan who could have been straight from some 70s TV series with his glasses, moustache and infectious glee about the place: altho he too knew nothing of horse races he just looked completely in place. Another Hungarian woman also joined us, a charming, friendly and funny woman who mentioned husband and children but otherwise seemed to spend the evening as Mark's girlfriend.

Coupla hours later, I'd bet on five horses, all of which lost, three of which in fact were even disqualified; it was dark; and as we slipped back across the ice to the tube, fireworks were lit from the stadium. Pretty. The group split up and reconstellated somehow and with a smaller number we went to "the party", to which we had been invited by my friend's neurotic Hungarian friend. From what we'd picked up beforehand it was supposed to be a fairly big party in the caves underneath the Castle Hill (there are indeed caves under Castle Hill). We brought wine, liquor, snacks and breezers, and on the way there Mark recounted the latest brawl his "troublemagnet" friend had gotten him in, in a bar at the grubby Eastern Station. It'd ended with his friend being arrested after fighting with the barman (he grabbed a chair, the barman a table), and later released when it turned out the barman had a police record. Mark had gotten away by punching the other barman in the face.

We arrive at Castle Hill and enter the building, and then, the basement. It's some museum, there's topographical charts and photos on the wall, and on the ground floor, inexplicably, several very colorful statues of Joseph, Mary and assembled saints. There's about ten people in the basement, sitting around a large table, and they're eating. They're all over 40. It's homegirl's family, apparently (well, they had been invited by her cousin). We all stand in a circle to introduce ourselves, the music consists of Blondie's Denise, Denise and that song "Mambo No.5" being played over and over, and at exactly midnight we all circle around again, listen to the gongs of the clock, and then together sing the Hungarian national anthem.

Somehow, we still stayed there half the night, they were actually very kind, hospitable folk, who reminded me terribly of the friends of my mother (back when), the same type. I attempted to chat in stuttering Hungarian to a pharmacist and her husband, who turned out to have restaurated the church in the small North-Hungarian village I visited with friends two months ago.

Granted: the view, outside, was wonderful. The place was just around the corner from the Fisherman's Bastion, and we snuck out to see the fireworks from there. Nothing like Dutch NYE fireworks, but what a backdrop! The masive, high fortress walls of Castle Hill, sparkled with white ice in this cold night, snow at their feet, fireworks behind: it was positively fairytale-like, as if taken straight from one of those Narnia posters. There was even a NYE kiss. I was a bit taken aback by that, but hey, NYE kissing is always fair game right?

At 4 we slid down to Moskva Square still snowball-fighting with some uncle and aunt, Mark's girl (and 10-year lover, apparently) went off without giving him a kiss this time, and thats how we ended up in the Pest tram cursing about what a totally fuc king bizarre NYE it was.

Eh ... I'm homeless, kinda. My parents were leftie alternatives (68 and all that), so I'm not really at home with my "Haguenese" (working-class) family ... but at the same time thats what I feel connected to. I am so totally out of my depth in the company of gentlefolk, you know, people from good families and all, or the academia type. When I see how diplomatically Soz manoevres social minefields with her Columbus neighbours over the fence of their yard, grows and decorates what sounds like a lovely house and garden, or organises brilliantly creative and elaborate childrens' parties, I cant help but be intimidated ... it just seems so far removed from my world! Some of my friends have kids now too, but it's just ... different. Here, or something. Cant explain.

(OK, I really need to stop digging myself into this hole now)

I got lucky.

Then, went to sleep.

Oy Nimh!

Is it ok to ask questions?


You don't have a community of similar kids...like from parent's friends' kids?


You have been to university, right?

Why do you not feel at home with the graduate type crowd? I think sans university you would be at home with lots of folk from that sort of vague crowd here...judging from your writing...


What is this "good family" stuff? Here, education etc kind of equalises, I think.....but there may be lots of things I am unconscious of in that respect, cos I guess I am...economically speaking...from a "good" family (but I lapsed). Is there a strong sense of class where you are from?


That IS a difficult thing, to feel homeless...


But, also, you have recently emigrated.....that's gotta be discombobulating?


Anyhoo, ignore questions if you don't wanna answer 'em.

GENTLEFOLK???!

No, I think I know what you mean, I feel a bit imposterish about all of this, you're right, it sounds so suburban or something. (I'm not, really, though I kind of am.) E.G. too, we were just talking about this. He still feels like a slightly glorified grad student, and was observing another guy who is exactly the same age and also a professor and realizing that this other guy acts like a professor, acts like he belongs where he is, and E.G. was realizing he (E.G.) just doesn't. Hasn't really flipped that switch in his head that he's a professor, has a good job, all of that.

It's a bit of a struggle -- for both of us, our self-image is pretty much the dirt-poor students in the tiny top-floor flat, and we know we're not, as much as we feel weighted down by mortgage payments and such and even though he drives a bucket of rust that we bought for a dollar five years ago. We have this kind of instinctive reaction against bourgeois trappings -- we don't WANT to be all, like, respectable 'n' ****. (E.G. kind of LIKES the appalled glances he gets when he steps out of the shabbymobile.)

So it's something that's new to us since we moved here especially and that we're still negotiating, not wanting to be the f***-you pariahs but also wanting to keep hold of some essential us-ness that we feel is just the slightest bit precarious in this new situation.

Interested in your answers to dlowan's questions too...

LionTamer - good question! We started to play liverpool several times and only finished it once. It's a game we played growing up, but none of us could remember the rules. Finally, after the first 2 hands (you play 7 hands), we got online and found directions. The game is also known to us as 'That As--ole Game' because you try to screw other people over.

Shewolf - the fever has come down, yeah? I sure hope so!

Nimh, I feel pretty homeless too. I divorced myself from the middle-class, suburban childhood I had and now I don't really fit there. But, I don't really fit anywhere else either. I don't even fit in with my age group. Eh.

I feel like I wouldn't be a typical teacher and will not fit in there either. But, I can see where that might be a good thing.

So, is not fitting bad?


Or not?

Trying to introspect and see if I "fit"........



I do with my friends, though they have many different lifestyles....


Is it whether or not we fit with ourselves?


or have enough folk we do fit with....


I haven't changed my self gestalt much since student days......I don't mean I feel like a student, I mean I just feel like me, wherever and whastever I am....

I was thinking of asking a question here about when people take down their Christmas decorations and realized that part of what we have been doing is just kind of figuring out the local customs -- I want to KNOW, but that's a little different from wanting to adhere. Not knowing (we're figuring things out gradually) is part of the current negotiation we're doing. (With our surroundings, not each other...)