In Love

I love this city. indeed perhaps more than any other i have yet visited. i

admit there are probably many less desirable aspects i have not yet

discovered. it is a beautiful, historical, decaying, and surviving city. at

each corner there are a hundred things to photograph, to record. the peeling

paint, the eclectic architecture. the colors, the dirt. the sculpture. it is

not a beautified city and that is the most beautiful thing. there is a

distinctly unwestern, unamerican vibe, yet no more foreign, no less

recognizable, no less human.



i love most, those moments i can interact directly with the culture,

stepping out of the tourist skin, becoming perhaps a brief neighbor. such is

how i felt playing soccer with students in the park, or discussing films and

culture on the steps of the dorm sipping quietly from shared beer cans.

these things, to me, are more important than postcards of cathedrals, or

history lectures, or bus tours. and those moments when the walls between us

become thinner. and we see one another as equally human united by something

deeper than skin. i would live for such moments.



it is remarkable to me how quickly i adapt. and things cease to be new.

already, in one week, i feel natural hopping the metro to catch the metro to

class in the morning. listening to indistiguishable streams of words in the

endless babble of the streets. the spectacular buildings i forget to notice.

i ignore the hungarian text on the computer screen. and in a way, a large

way, i enjoy these things. for though i have adapted to my new environment,

it has not adapted to me. and i remain the stranger, the alien. perhaps in

some ways, the guest. as uncomitted as a ghost. boundless as an untied

balloon.



i found that box of chocolate cereal at the grocery store, and of course had

flashbacks to two years ago, when matt and i would share a bowl each

morning, in italy france and spain. so in matts stead i continue the

tradition in hungary.



-n8