farewell for a few days

Dear friends, I'm going away to Turin (Torino), Italy, for the Terra Madre event.

I will be back on 31 October... Until that, I present you this:

state police vs people

Political, again.

I don't know what to say. I was not there on the streets last night, but I feel I should have been. The 50th anniversary of the 1956 revolution - what an inspiration and what a coincidence (ok, you all must be knowing by know that I do not believe in coincidence :))

People have been protesting on the streets since mid September, when the man who gained his position by deceit in 2002 admitted that he and his fellow bastards have been lying in the morning, at noon and in the evening ever since...

The problem is 1.) he is not the only one who is doing wrong to the country and to the nation - his removal would not solve anything. 2.) More than half of the people of my country are either too lazy to care, or still believe that these bunch of assholes are suitable for governing a country.

This last evening, people were gathering to celebrate the 50th anniversary. These people did not go to the official celebrations, because they refused to share grounds with those whose or whose ancestors were (literally or actually) on the other side of the barricades 50 years ago.

People were gathering peacefully and then came the police with water guns, cavalry and rubber guns (I don't know how its called: it's a gun that shoots plastic things).

I had the chance to watch the tv and I watched the official* and the national* tv as well.

(by official I mean the media that pictures those events and in the manner that is suitable, acceptable and advised by the G'ment) and by national I mean the media that shows what is going on in reality. I'm with the latter - should any of you have any doubts about my political whereabouts.... heh?)

So the official media spoke about the police having to make this and that road clean. (As if those people, among whom could have easily been me, were some nasty insects or mud, or something equally dirty.) The national media displayed that the people are going wherever the police allows them to go.)

Foreign tourists and onlookers were also harmed. The police has gone out of control and have gotten way to much under control, by the present G'ment.

Don't believe to the general, official media. Its all in their hands.

If you want to see the real events, go here, although every video speaks Hungarian. This is a page where you can choose among videos that depict the events of the day and night.

Part of me would like to go out and scream against the regime, to make people wake up and scream, too. To shatter the bondage of lies, to make people aware of what's going on. Part of me would like to sit by the kids at home and watch other people do this for themselves, for us, for the nation.

Amsterdam - as seen by me

while watching my photos made on 28 October you might want to listen to the music I re-embrace these days:

Imagine you wake up one sunny day, your eyes open only to find that you are not at home. You look around to find out where have you been placed.

You see bikes. Lots of. Parking lots designed for bikes only. For lots of bikes... Started to getting it?

Yes, the city of bicycles.

And you discover that oddly enough, in the center of the city, the ratio of water goes well over the percentage of pavement... oh, the city of canals...

Whoa! Here, you might run into a drunken and or stoned funky man with Jamaican and or African origin who is so crazy about inviting you to somewhere you are not really intended to enter... Also, you might feel strange that you don't really get coffee in the coffee-shops. Or what you get there is not really coffee. See figure below to find out what is that I have NOT bought here... Oh, the city of soft drugs... liberals...

But for most of all, it is the city where non-paralell lines do not meet in the near. Oh, for the love of verticals and horizontals - and the complete lack of it! So, I guess you know where your are. Yes, it's Amsterdam.
There. Enjoy!

And here is my favourite one:

Dear all, my PC is in its ruins. I have been working on this single post for two days. Slow work interrupted by moments and hours of frustration. Ain't no suitable anymore. So the verdict is a friendly meeting between my computer and an IT expert.

But anyhow, I will be away between 26 and 30 October. I'm visiting this event!

I might post until I leave to Turin (Torino) Italy next Wednesday - and I might not. God bless you all!

Bennekom

I think you have all seen Amsterdam - this way or another. Saz told me that it was one of her favourite cities for example. I will post some photos of the Dutch capital, I promise, but before I do that, let me present you with some photos I made in the city where we lived during those days. This city is called Bennekom and is located in the 50-100 km vicinity of Utrecht and Amsterdam at the South East of The Netherlands.

So.

These are my legs. I am lying on the bed. Please note the toy goat (aka the Capricorn) at the end of the bed and the poster, which is not quite visible, is a Chinese map of 2005, which was the year of the Rooster (which, besides the Capricorn, is also my sign). I saw these two signs and took them as signs. Signs showing that this place will be good for me.

This is one of the good foods our hosts provided us with. We usually had breakfast and dinner with the host family and spent the rest of the day doing other programmes. More photos of that will be coming soon, but this post is dedicated to Bennekom only. A neat suburbian Dutch city that is.

Now look at this.

Can you spot the old man?

There was a time when trams crossed the streets of Bennekom. At some stops, bronze statues of people were placed. Did they do it to symbolize the waiting or just to put some art into the everyday life of the everyday people of an average small town? Or all these? Anyhow, the idea was good. The statues are good, too. The tram service, the rails have long been gone, the statues all remained. The statues remember and they also remind people for the waiting, for something that has gone away. I like these statues.

And finally, this is something typically suburbian Dutch in my dictionary: clean streets, not very large houses. Note, how some of the trees are adjusted to certain shapes to fit for the small space between houses. All kinds of vegetation is well managed, properly kept - a bit too well for my standards.

you don't have to be a kid to enjoy this...

did you did that, too, and enjoyed it, too, when you were a kid?

pop bubble wrap

the thing is that as with many other virtual substitutions, it only imitates but never really substitutes the real fun.

Two weekends

Here I interrupt my flow of pictures I made in Germany and The Netherlands to share you something else....

PHOTOS!!!

Vine harvest is a traditional activity at this time of the year in Hungary. We have those famous hills where fabulous wines are produced. On October 7-8 I helped a friend of mine by spending a whole day picking up ripe fruits. This is what I saw when I got up in the morning:

This hill is called Badacsony (Buh-duh-tsou-n*) say n* like the second n in the Spanish Nin*o.

We worked in pairs, cutting off the fruits off the vine on both sides of the line. There were quite a lot of lines and there were quite a lot of people, too. Me and my partner-in-work turned out the be the quickest pair in the day. Wow. I'm not surprised that we were better than some of those friends who came from Budapest - them, being poor budapesters, sitting all day in an office... But we were better than those native women who were hired for the occassion and who have been doing agricultural jobs all their lives. We were so proud of ourselves.

The next photo shows one of the presses after the work. The fruits are put into the press and all liquid is squeezed out.

and finally, this is me, running uphill at the end of the day. We had a small walk in the neighborhood.

So, this was the past weekend.

But this weekend (Oct 14-15) was not considered uneventful, either, as on Saturday we had a one-day hike to the Pilis and on Sunday we had a one-day work at home, when, with the help of friends we managed to put up as much as more than 3,000 tiles to the attic of the new house. This time Blogger does not allow me upload more photos.... I'm sorry.

Köln aka Cologne

I promised Dutch impressions, only to realize later that some of the photos I made in Köln, Germany are worth sharing. This first one goes out to Kieran, who has a special feeling towards those street performers. This one was dressed up to of what the neareast desrictiption might be a jester, with all those masks attached to his body. He was moving most of the time however, as people kept coming to make a photograph with him. Here below is one of the tourists who felt like this was an inevitable occassion to get captured with a jester.

Behind the grey jester and the Japanese girl, there is a second performer standing, dressed up as a .... gentleman? a hofmeister?...any other guesses? I don't know. I think he was more talented than our jester in the front, but he was much less respected by the onlookers. So he just stood there motionless while the grey-man kept moving and posing for photographs.

The Köln Dome however, did not leave me unimpressed, so I made obvious photos like this:

But the thing about the Dome that made me like it at the instance was this little piece of creation, a door-handle if you please:

It's so very precious, isn't it?

And finally, here's something disappointing I saw. Look how mankind has abandoned Nature. Collecting autumn leaves while strolling in a park or in a forest....we all used to to this in our childhood, didn't we? Now, our modern world leaves no time and space for us to go out of the city. If you need a feeling of autumn, get it here, spend your money here - cause it's all for sale.

Dutch impressions

coming soon!

I have to finish a report on what I saw there - so, while I am busy writing those pages, keep in mind to return for lots of photos!

this day

my hands give me away. I am nervous. Tears, those frequent warm and wet visitors channelling down the strange face I call mine in the mirror reveal that I am emotionally involved. Which means that I am not ready. The faces of people in the streets all hide miseries. I see them holding back tears, supressing anger and giving in behind masks. All those offprint faces I meet are but punches in the soul, nails knocked down...

If you catch a butterfly don't grab it hard. Be sure not to touch its wings - or if you have to, do it with extreme care. If you hold the wings hard or excercise pressure on them, than those lovely, glistening powder particles fall off. One by one the butterfly is deprived of its mean of flying. If most of that powder comes off the butterfly, being unable to fly anymore, dies soon.

I'm riding a cloud. It takes me far up where no harm reaches me. I am safe.The world as I see from above is a mosaic of busy movements. It is all so peaceful, watching life going by. For hours after hours I look at how the Sun changes its colour on all those things below. Noone touches or hurts me anymore.

I will be away for the weekend, my friends. Will be back soon. Photos by Szabolcs again :)

something I wrote two weeks ago

I am drifting away like a feather on the wings of air. I feel like a bubble floating around.

Not touching, not changing anything I let things happen. Whatever might come I endure. Nothing reaches me for I am there for the end of times

---

There are times when I'd like to send away the boat and the soul who's rowing it. Impatience grows within to let go hold of all that's around me - but being impatient bounces me back to the boat and I start pulling the oars again. If only I could learn how to discharge all that's palpable. I have been waiting for the call but now I feel it won't come until I obtain patience not to wait for it. Dispassion to accept that the calling will not come upon my want. Until that calling - I take delight in watching the full yellow of sunshine on the autumn leaves against the turqouise sky, inhaling the scent of mushrooms.... Enjoying me being me... Does it sound so idle and self-posessed?

Me and you

Dear all, I'm back.

I'm thinking of opening another page for the pictures I made during the journey. Some of them are funny, some of them are interesting. The whole thing was quite a fun. I'm glad I went abroad, partly because I could return home this way. If you never go away you can never return, can you?

My things have changed a bit: I think I will have less time for blogging than before. This, no matter how much I regret it, will probably do good for me. I think I should lay off escaping and get more involved in real life. Friendships I made however, are of HIGH value for me and they always will be. I will not forget those people I met, partly b/c I keep visiting their sites from time to time and partly b/c I stick to blogging. The only difference will be the amount of time spent in front of my PC. I should do this, for my own interest.

Let see what the future brings. I like blogging and I like you out there, too. This means I will not disappear.

And I would like to encourage you also, to keep coming and commenting.

For you: Where this photo was taken? I know, I know. Much too easy.