A “Spring” Weekend in Szolnok

Song of the Week: I Write Sins Not Tragedies, by Panic! at the Disco

Oh, well imagine; as I'm pacing the pews in a church corridor,
and I can't help but to hear, no I can't help but to hear an exchanging of words.
"What a beautiful wedding!", "What a beautiful wedding!" says a bridesmaid to a waiter.
"And yes, but what a shame, what a shame, the poor groom's bride is a whore."

I'd chime in with a "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.
I'd chime in "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of...

Well in fact, well I'll look at it this way, I mean technically our marriage is saved
Well this calls for a toast, so pour the champagne
Oh! Well in fact, well I'll look at it this way, I mean technically our marriage is saved
Well this calls for a toast, so pour the champagne, pour the champagne

I'd chime in with a "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.
I'd chime in "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.

Again...

Although it seems a bit dry without the music, the bizarreness of an excess of syllables crammed into one line without regard for accent or pacing, or the video, which might just be the Best Video Ever: it teaches us that even if you are scorned by your lover, and your fiancee leaves you at the alter to run off with a mime, and then you catch them making out behind the church, you can always go on to lead a happy and successful life as the leader of a troupe of circus performers. But only if you have a cool hat and some kick-ass lipstick. Sexy eyes help, too. All right, you just have to see it.

So the song has nothing to do with anything, right? Well, wrong, but that’s not the point. The point is, I had an awesome weekend in Szolnok (yet another sentence that at one time would have seemed oxymoronic - or just straight up moronic). Gaines and Nicole arrived on Friday, and I showed off my dish of the week, stuffed peppers, which they proclaimed excellent. We met up with Juli and Chad and went to the new Jazz 2, where Anita and Jacek’s connections had snagged us a table right in front of the performers, Gál “Boogie” Csaba és a Someday Baby zenekar. Amazing. Some sort of mix of old Southern music and jazz and a whole bunch of other things: “It's like a 1930's barrelhouse on one side of the street and a skateboard bowl on the other. They are still in the same house.” That’s from their website; I’m not sure if it makes sense but it’s as good as anything I could write to describe them. Just plain great.

Saturday we spent about equal parts of time lazing around here and traveling to and from the train station to collect Jenn, Jillian, Brent and Tara (in that order. Because knowing that is vitally important to the rest of the story. What?) It was an amazing spring day, and despite the massive puddles everywhere, Szolnok was almost, almost prett- no, I just can’t type it. But the weather was gorgeous. In the evening, we had a pleasant walk over the stadium for the basketball game, minus Juli, who was home for the weekend, and Chad, who had decided to take the day and visit Abony and didn’t get a bus back in time. Great game; complete with the usual screaming fans, and I’m starting to learn some of the chants now. My favorite is aimed at one of the referees, “Egy, ketto, három, négy; kurva anyád Szabóné!” Rough job, that must be.

Afterward, we went over to Halászcsarda, where despite a long wait, the food was incredible as always. The end of the evening, for some at least, was Panorama, which unfortunately was filled with both smoke and loud techno. But also with beer. So still acceptable.

This morning, after a jaunt around the city trying to following my directions, Hajni arrived. In my mind, seeing her again ties with Friday night as the highlight of the weekend. After she left, taking some people with her, the rest of had an anticlimactic walk to the train station in the sunny, near-balmy mid-February spring. Lovely. Despite my resolve to clean up my house and do some lesson planning (ha - do I even need to tell you how that turned out?) I spent most of the afternoon staring out my open window, gazing at the sunshine like a moon-stuck lover. Hm, that reminds me of something... something from the Best Video Ever. I think I’ll go watch some more MTV in hopes it’ll come on.