Pomoc! Doktor, prosím. To je naléhavy prípad!

Okay. You try saying that when you have a severe migraine and you’re in the Kafka’s castle of all hospitals and the “information” man has his back to you watching TV and --and --and … (Breaks into sobbing)

But first, a little back story. (It may turn out to be a lot of back story, and may take more than one entry. We’ll see.) I left to meet Jason in Prague the morning after completing my last essay of the year for school. I had been working on essays for weeks, and was losing my mind a little. The day before I left, I’d had a headache coming on all day and managed to keep it at bay, but by 11pm or so it was pretty bad and I took my last sniffer medicine in order to be able to think clearly enough to finish the paper. I finally finished at about 1:30 am, packed, checked my lists, and slept for a few hours. Then I caught a cab to the train to the bus to the airport, and then I waited. The sign said my plane would be about 1/2 hour late. Then over the next four hours the voice over the intercom said repeatedly that information would be available in the next 1/2 hour. Finally we took off, four hours late. I was exhausted and headachy and cranky. But I got to Prague and got the bus to the subway to the tram to the hotel, reunited with my man and had some pizza in the smokiest pizza joint/bar ever. (But it was charming and the pizza better than I had dared hope.)

I adored our room at the pension. So perfectly preserved 1960’s. See:





And all for $45 a night!

But, the sheets at the pension smelled like chemical flowers, so I put t-shirts and towels over the pillow, and ducked into the storage trunk in the room to get a less-recently laundered duvet. I slept okay, but woke with a headache that must have been the result of the combination of stress, post-paper stress release (after-stress headaches are sometimes the worst), exhaustion, dehydration and laundry detergent poisoning. But, hey, I was in PRAGUE! With Jason! And it was beautiful!

Marcela, who runs the pension, is a bit manic, but in a cheery wonderful way. She came and asked if we wanted her mother’s special pancakes for breakfast, today only. We said yes. It was an amazing breakfast of bohemian crepes with homemade marmalade made by the pension owner’s German mother. Marcela, always paying attention to every detail at hyperspeed, asked if we were cold, having noticed that the other duvet was out. I explained, nervously, tentatively, that I was sensitive to chemicals and that I worried that the laundry detergent smell might cause a headache, and about the less-frequently laundered thing. She quick like magic jumped across the room, spun the key in the dresser and showed me the store of less-immediately cleaned sheets and pillow cases and said to help myself, saying in not bad, but still broken, English and pointing to her head that she had friends who had same. But since Jason had already been in Berlin for several days and needed some clothes washing, I suggested we just through in the pillowcases and run the wash without detergent and hang it all out to dry. Marcela immediately took the cases and the wash, and hung the duvet out to air for the day. What a relief. She reacted with no skepticism whatsoever and was helpful as could be. I’ve had much worse from many people.

So, off we went. To Old Town to see the clock and the buildings. There was a children’s bike race happening and they’d closed off a loop of roads and it was great. I was crying because my head hurt so bad, but smiling and laughing at how excited everyone was and all the cheering and the earnest biker determination. We wandered and made a dinner reservation, crossed the Charles Bridge, stopping to watch some excellent performers and look at the views. Then we headed up the hill to the castle to look around and have some lunch. By the time we got to the top, I was pretty well out of it with pain. We decided, somewhat desperately, to spring for the really gourmet fabulous restaurant I had read about when we got to the top, for a few reasons. It was quiet, no one was smoking and good food is my favourite thing and might cheer me up. Also, expensive food is more likely to have pure, simple ingredients and not the corn starch, corn syrup additives common in more processed foods (you may recall I am highly sensitive to corn products.) The place was lovely. We had extremely deferential waiters, which made me really aware of the whole American tourist in expensive restaurant paying for the right kind of treatment. Especially since I was in enough pain that I must have seemed really strange to them, with my wan smiles and quiet questions and water guzzling. The pear bisque with cinnamon gnocchi was incredible, and comforted me for a while. But the fish, though delicious, was more than I could handle. I ate what I could, mostly the potatoes, and gave Josh the rest. Then I tried to relax and not feel so awful. Without going into detail, just know that I got to taste the pear bisque again. But I managed to “lose my lunch” quietly in the loo and without causing a stir. Thank goodness. So, here we are. Not feeling better and across the city from our room. Jason being the most patient man there is. And I think that’s quite enough for one entry. More soon.

SUGARLOAFIN'



Yesterday we went to Abergavenny with our friends Phil and Oci and climbed Sugarloaf (Mountain? Peak? not sure). We had a grand ole' day in the sun, saw lots of sheep, a small herd of wild horses with tiny baby, several thousand beetles and lots of bracken. It was great. The guide in the tourist shop said they used to call it moderate, but they upgraded it because not everyone walks as much as they do and people thought it was hard. But we survived.



We had two lunch breaks because each couple had basically brought enough for everyone to have a lunch. For first lunch we had tabouli pita sandwiches and fruit and got eaten by bugs. For second lunch we had cheese and pickle sandwiches and watched the baby wild horse. Then we wandered back into town for dinner and some pub games, and caught the last train home.



The day was perfect, and it made me think of how short a time we have left here. Already many of my classmates have returned to their home countries or gone off somewhere to do their research. It's summer. Classes are over. And its our individual responsibility to get research projects designed, planned and carried out. I'm finding it hard to focus and wish for more sunny laughing days with my friends.

Csirkepaprikas, kérem



Tonight, my friends, we are celebrating the falling in of our dining room ceiling by attempting to make traditional Hungarian food. In Budapest, the food was, well, generally, kind of odd and not that great. BUT! I'm pretty sure that's because we failed to order what they tell tourists to order. They know what we'll like. They've been feeding us since 1991 or so. They know we'll like Chicken paprikas and goulash. I didn't try goulash, only because I had foolishly ordered venison and (canned, I'm pretty sure) mushrooms on our first night and we'd eaten too big a lunch to want dinner on our second afternoon. So, late lunch on Thursday(which also made us too full to want dinner later and so turned out to be the last real meal), and I ordered Chicken paprikas. And it was divine and creamy and paprika-y and served with deliciously carbohydrate-y nodleki (dumplings) and I was satisfied and could go home happy the next day. Jason, unfortunately, had wanted some decadent goose traditional thing, but they were out of it and he got something not nearly as good instead. But we were agreed on the heavenliness of the chicken paprika. And we live in the year 2006 and so when i got home I looked it up on the internet and got a recipe. We will try it tonight, and if it is not up to par, we will look up more recipes and try again until we get it right. And when we do, I'll make some for you, my dear Internet. And you will be mine forever.

And I will offer it to Jason in Hungarian, and he will say please and thank you in Hungarian. This, because for all my effort on the boat down from Vienna, everyone spoke English and i was unable to fully display my extremely limited, but awesome Magyar language skillz. Though I did make friends with the ferry boat man, who seemed impressed that anyone would even make the effort. Then he let me ride in the cockpit, or whatever you call it, when we passed the cool hilltop castle and everyone else was clamoring at the tiny doorway to get a view. (The regular windows were plexiglass and pretty scratched up.)

P.S. The photo is of the food in Budapest, not my version.

Travellers



leaving Prague and heading for Vienna.

LOOKS LIKE A COAL MINE IN HERE

Today the ceiling fell in. And no, that is not a metaphor. It did fall in. Or rather, it succumbed to the pressure of the water that was released when our not-too-bright upstairs workmen decided to cut the pipe that was sagging and clogged. When I ran up and told him water was leaking from two places in separate rooms, he went back to banging things hard and I called the landlord. While talking to her assistant, the leaks grew and got worse. I tried to explain while running around grabbing pots and tubs (we don’t have many, we’re only here for the year, being frugal, not knowing we’d need more for leaks) and trying to move stacks of paper as leaks snaked near them. Then, just as I stepped back out of the way (it was leaking a lot now), a huge piece of ceiling bigger than me fell in one chunk and wet plaster and black gunk crashed onto everything in our dining room. Including the stacks of paper that represent my entire second semester of work, reading material, printouts, notes and books. No one was hurt. A tiny bus driver drawing by Susannah, and dried tiny daffodils from Sara and Pete also came through without so much as a dent. Like magic. Unfortunately, my little flower shrinky-dink pendant by Corey was swept away by the same workman and his pal and I couldn’t find it in the rubble. I’m sad about that. Add it to the tally of meaningful jewelry lost this year: 1 cool chain ring by Web Crowell--left on the top of Mt. Snowdon after taking it off to apply sunscreen. 1 purple tile pendant bought from a street seller in Georgetown, Seattle and made into a necklace with nuts and bolts fixtures by Jason on the day I went camping with Cynthia--disappeared into the Soho streets of London. 1 wedding ring--lost in the autumn leaves in the park while gathering worm bin bedding and miraculously found again two days later). And now, 1 shrinky-dink pendant made and brought to me by Corey--lost in the rubble of the fallen ceiling in Cardiff. Don’t give me jewelry while I’m in Wales. I’ll just lose it.

It’s mostly cleaned up now, and they say they’ll come re-do the ceiling and fix the gaping hole on Monday morning. They’ve been driving me nuts all week. The pipe cutter guy whistles constantly and repetitively. They let their scary dog walk all over my herb garden yesterday. And they play loud stupid pop radio stations all day long. Oh yeah, and they start at 8am on the dot and are loudest in the morning. (I know, real people with day jobs are plenty up and moving by 8am, but we’ve been pretty proud to get and basically stay on an up-by-9:30 schedule and it treats us right.) And at the rate they’re going, I’m sure it will be all renovated and ready for the next renter about the time we’re ready to leave. Reminds me of the last summer I lived alone, when the landlord put brown paper over all the windows of my apartment and spend most of the summer slowly painting the house twice over. Oh well, who cares. I’m going to Cornwall soon enough.

BLUE DANUBE?

I've not yet gotten the mojo to write about our travels, but i thought I'd give you this picture of Budapest and the flooding Danube, cuz I kinda like it.



We loved Budapest. It's so big that it can't feel overrun by tourists, for one thing. And so beautiful, with hilly vantage points all over the city. I miss hills and mountains. Cardiff's rather flat.