Sightseeing. The year began with an Arctic snap, which meant the Balaton was almost completely frozen over, and thus just in the perfect state for my tastes- its summery outing as a sea instead of a sea will stay forever alien to someone who grew up with an actual sea- it’s dark yes, and filled…
Best of 2017 Budapest
The third year must surely signal a tradition, so here are some new additions to the ever growing list of particularly nice Budapest things. (For the previous editions see here: Best of 2015 and Best of 2016.) -I am prone to moaning that it never snows in the city, although in all honesty I dislike both snow and…
Best of 2017 Concerts
As I sit here pondering whether the gaping hole in my finances has been inflicted by buying inordinate amounts of stuff containing more sugar that the sane mind can conceive, or perhaps gifts that I am not sure the targeted individual will like, or maybe just maybe, concert tickets, I must finally conclude that, as…
Of Noise and Pizza- Soviet Soviet @ Dürer Kert
Despite being exposed to Italian music basically from infancy, I have always remained fundamentally immune to it, like a glass window on which even the sweetest peninsular ice cream trickles down leaving at best an unwelcome smudge. There is something in the soaring sentimentality of a classical Italian tune that bothers me, making me moderately…
Accidental Strudels- The Compulsory Pre-Christmas Visit to Vienna
I realize all too well that I have by now exhausted anything new or interesting I could say about Viennese Christmas fairs (that’s last year’s post, and even the links work with Germanic precision), except that I still like them a lot, and yes, I bought that damn mug from Karlsplatz again. This although the…
Dada Would’t Buy Me a Bauhaus- In Search of Hidden Modernism in Újlipótváros
I’ve already mentioned my ancient collection of English puns, and how it provided unexpected guidance for my adolescent discoveries: another one I recall very vividly is the one giving this piece its title: ‘Dada wouldn’t buy me a Bauhaus’. Due to its Romanian connections, I was by then familiar with the concept of dada, but…
Strange Pleasures: The Horrors @ Dürer Kert
It again crossed my mind to attempt an almost objective review, like it did with Interpol a few years back but then I dutifully gave up. There’s just no point in that- The Horrors have been one of my favourite bands, like, ever (insert teenage giggles and batting of eyelashes here) so I cannot be…
People Sitting on Terraces in Paris
The other day, as I was walking through the blunt early evening fog of late autumn in Budapest I had a grand revelation. Before diving straight into it, let me just specify that these days we are having four types of weather around here: milky morning fog, opaque noon fog, blunt early evening fog and…
A Tourist at Home- Autumn in Arad
I recently read a piece about how our experience of time changes as we age– namely, we feel that time passes faster than when we were younger. Which, since I just started getting irked by the prospect of Christmas shopping when I know for a fact that yesterday was a balmy day in May,…
Space Travel on a Ukrainian Stone-Carrier: Public Service Broadcasting @ A38
Public Service Broadcasting beeped onto my radar (had to use this expression right here, as it’s so befitting them) when they opened for the Editors in the eclectic arrangement of Barba Negra. Thus it took me by total surprise that they do actually speak- their support slot had only been punctuated by machine greetings,…
Pocket Diary Budapest 