Budapest and I-It's Just Like Starting Over

Howdy Readers,

I have to say that Budapest and I didn't start off on the right foot. This blog is my attempt to start over.  It's really a terrific city and I want to make sure I enjoy it to its fullest while I'm here, and that I also help my friends and family understand something of the cool things I see and appreciate here.

The reasons we didn't hit it off immediately are mundane so I won't dwell on them too long. I was enthralled with everything from the first minute I arrived, but life just wasn't cooperating with me at that point in time.  Or maybe I wasn't cooperating with it.  :) Or maybe there was fault on both sides. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Arrived with a bad cold, no medicine. Jet lag turned into six and a half weeks of insomnia. As in no more than 3, usually more like 1.5, hours of sleep per night. All you people telling me to walk 5 miles a day and avoid sleep aids have obviously never walked 8 miles in a day and come home to find yourself lying awake all night trailing off mosquitoes and flies that come into your open windows uninvited.  ;) And doing that night after night after night after night until one day you're so sleep deprived you trip over your own two feet---SOBER---in your apartment and knock your face against the wall, having to wear makeup for a week to cover up what looks like the battle scars from a nasty fist fight. . .  I'm just saying. . .don't make up your mind until you've walked a mile---or 8, in my shoes.

I also found myself missing my loved ones at home more than I had anticipated. I travel a lot and I love it, and I don't usually miss people too much, but facing 6 whole months of not being able to talk to Jimmy and tell him about all the cool things I've seen and done, and not getting to snuggle up with Amy (our cat) at night, and not getting to see my mom and dad or be present at my Granddaddy's 90th birthday party, well, those things were harder to get used to than I had anticipated. And allow me to get corny for just a minute and say that things are always better with someone you love.

I recall the first time I was in Arizona. I was attending a conference in Phoenix and was staying in Scotsdale at the Princess, and had driven to Flagstaff via Montezuma Castle National Monument and via Sedona on one of my free days. I was heading back to the hotel from Flagstaff after having an awesome taco and after having bought some really cool Navajo pottery. I was listening to Working Man's Dead, perfect music for that scenery.  Dire Wolf came on, and it was so evocative of the trees and mountains surrounding me I turned to Jimmy and said, "This music was meant to make you think of places like this," and he wasn't there. Allow me to say that's not the last time I've done that either.  I've actually turned to him on the streets of Pest to point out something. It's taken me awhile to remember he's on the other side of the ocean.

I came here with the intention of teaching ESL. I've had quite a few interviews. Every interview spawned a teaching demo but some demos did not end up happening. There was one school who did not have the funding to go through with the demo. I'll discuss the state of European economics later on, but the great jobs at the great salaries and with the great benefits that I was promised were no longer available by the time I arrived, so I'm applying for MORE jobs, freelancing, and will probably end up working at several schools at once and running all over town every day to earn a living, but we'll table that for another discussion.

This post is my effort to start fresh. Fall is just around the corner and things are starting up all over the place so why not my blog?  The Opera and Ballet open soon and I have tickets for opening night of the Ballet which is the first event to be held this year in Budapest's famous Opera House. They are opening the ballet season with Mendelsshon's Midsummer Night's Dream so I'm excited. I hope this blog will entertain and amuse everyone who comes into contact with it. And if you can log into Facebook and read postings, you can read my blog every once in awhile. So there! Stay tuned as I try to recreate my first 6 weeks and post what photos I have taken. Oh, and I forgot to mention, it poured rain for three weeks after I arrived, so I spent a lot of time trying to sight see in the rain, trying to remember things I wanted to go back and take pictures of, things I wanted to see in the sunshine. I think that damped my spirits a little more than I wanted to admit those first few weeks but let's hope the fall sunshine is here to stay.

Until next time. . .