The old way : Cycling to the minute

According to Viamichelin.com, when you go from Sopron to Tornanádaska by bike, it only takes 33h47.

First, it takes you 07h31 to Györ, then 9 hours to go on from Györ to Budapest, another 5h45 to reach Gyöngyös, from which Miskolc is a mere 7h, and then you are only 4 hours and a half away from Tornanádaska (4h31, says viamichelin --a trifle, really).

Interestingly enough, there are shortcuts : from Györ to Gyöngyös via Visegrad (only 14h29, saving 16 minutes) and from Gyöngyös to Tornanádaska via Ózd (only 10h46, that is one hour thirty-two less than cyclig via Miskolc).

Then again, with those shortcuts, you miss Budapest and Miskolc, the two favourite cities of lynx's...

What a shame.

leave and stay

I'm heading for a conference for the next 5 days.
New experience; you can fly for 3 hours and you are still inside the same country.
After the conference I'll visit a friend who lives close by: 400 km. Only.
I am not used to this scale yet.

The picture is showing me, carrying my poster

Much ado...

3 years * 16 weeks * 8 lessons = 384 lessons altogether

This means 384 * 45 = 17280 minutes of education + around the half of this spent at home, studying for the lessons -> 25 920 minutes

That means 432 hours (18 days) of German study.

So now I will be able to say: Ich möchte noch einen Kaffee, bitte!

Bis bald (bis Freitag :-) )

My PR manager : Karl Marx

Here is a great piece of music video, in line with the politic turn of lynx's former post. A Byelarussian band, Lyapis Trubetskoy, released this video on the net.

Better image and sound quality (e.g. a 6MB .mov file) can be found here. Oh, and an approximative translation there.

Enjoy!

Let's vote!

For the sake of "changing to a normal language" (as requested by i) I hereby propose to all you French-speakers to take the test "whom would I vote if I was French"? I'm pretty proud of myself for my result (see link) as I like horses and I like mountains very much (e.g. Monsieur Bayrou is from the Pyrenees and is a horse-breeder in his spare-time.)

I wonder what you'll score :-)

Yesterday afternoon

Yesterday I wanted to go out. I asked lynx where, but I didn't go to Gellerthegy finally.
But I made pictures ... where did I go? Everything is hidden behind the vegetation.

Alarmus enervantus

Almost every morning (I guess it depends on the phase of sleep) I am waken up by a strange sort of noise: an assiduous piiii-piiii-piiii approximately between 6 and 7 AM. First I thought that it's somebody's alarm clock, set very loud. Half-asleep I was forging plans to kill that person or at least to convince him or her to wake up by something else. And then, I realised it's a bird! The noise comes each morning from a different angle, and the dynamics also keeps changing sightly (a bit longer first piiiiiiii sometimes, for example.)

When I told about this to my colleagues (they've been living here since a longer time than me!) they thought I was crazy or that the flu not only altered my speech but also my hearing...So, any ideas what this goddamn creature might be? What does it eat? Where does it live? Any ideas are most welcome. It's my only hope to eliminate it (or to convice him to move away.)

Pleeeaase

I'd like to kindly ask everybody with whom I haven't talked on chat or phone for a looong time now and before I used to, please give a very early morning call.
Thank you.


If I have no calls, I tell on Monday, who I meant.

Grrrr.


AND!!! No comments arrived on the translation...

Ice-9 is lost forever

... for structural researchers

Hey ho.

Workshop: Help to improve the text of the 4th song. Thanks.

If it works,. the next will be The bug ;)
I hope the ever-expats of Bp will enjoy it
I'd put aside, but I cant attach pdf even .. :( lynx h, you have to help and modify things.
So, please everybody modify the post as you wish

Budapest (Cseh Tamás, Másik János)

That, tell me, where will our living place be?
Stay here or wander away once, will we?
Here is the city, we are citizens of
Staying here, has a name also: Budapest.

Morning waking, as it's the custom here
To the shop for milk János and Tamás go down
splits on houses through they step out
paths between houses on them they walk, starting their way.

That tell me, where will our living place be?
Stay here or wander away once, will we?
Here is the city, we are citizens of
staying here. has a name also: Budapest.

Morning waking, as it's the custom here
To the shop for milk János and Tamás go down
Watching their reflections in mirrors of ponds
With tobacco-grains in suit-pockets, they start.

I'd have question: is palinka served already?
Do you recognise me professor, or forgot me already
Eva was yesterday in front of the abortion committee
To buy my winter-coat I am looking in vain for somebody.

We should be giving nice smiles to our janitor
Look, an envelope happened to stack on my front
I am somebody else, not the one you look for right now
Comrade Treegarden, be so kind, I beg you.

The black hole is an orb that doesn't exist
In three years I have no military service
Do you recognise me professor, or forgot me already
I'd have question: is palinka served already?

That tell me, where will our living place be?
Stay here or wander away once, will we?
Here is the city, we are citizens of
staying in this place, staying here, we stay.

10 kg happiness for Easter

Being an expat

According to wikipedia “An expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin ex (out of) and the Greek and Latin patria (πατριά - country)...”

Another sort-of-definition comes from English, where these people are often termed the “When I” s, or “When we”s, as they are accused of starting conversations by saying “When I was (for example) in Bordeaux” or “When we were (for example) in Paris”. This is already something that we are all (I mean all the authors of this blog) knee-deep in, aren’t we ?

To me it is reassuring to become an outsider officially: someone who tries her best to adapt and feel at home in the new place but cannot be accused of anything if she fails in some respects. (You would never ever be excused in your homeland.) To me this is an experience that teaches you that the “warmth of the nest” is an illusion ; getting rid of your problems is not a matter of distance; feeling great right where you are is nothing else but a mental challenge and home is where you want it be, etc. That’s why I will probably always remain an expat and probably will never mind. Will you ever?