Chapter 4 °C : In which Doqz has grand adventures and is gorgeous
So yeah. Somehow, by methods I am really not in any hurry to know, much less discuss, Isstvan has got Dex’s documents back. Score one for the free world and Liberation of Us from Warsaw Pact Campaign.
Go Isstvan.
I must hold on to Bryant’s documents, or the terrorists will have won.
If I seem less than excited there’s a reason for this. Apparently he also tried to get my luggage released from Estonian customs and there’s a problem. In fact Isstvan is now going to have to go and meet with somebody. With my finely tuned sense of optimism I can just tell that whatever happens it’s going to end up with universe making me its bitch again.
I am also somewhat unimpressed with the expression on his face when I told him about Dex’s recent run in with the Russian Military Apparatus. There’s a bad moon rising.
Anyway. I decided pretty much to stop sweating the little things or minding the bollocks.
Instead I’m going to tell you about Budapest, where Rena took me yesterday. Check it out – I finally got to go clubbing! Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that I look as silly as I always thought I would flailing around but hey… It’s also kinda fucked up in every way that the one time I finally get to a club it’s in Budapest. In some ways that’s par for course, though. It’s like leaving a metro ride away from the Vortex and meeting them annually in Toronto.
My life is not like that of other people. And I got a Hungarian mug shot to prove it.
Anyway. It was kinda cool. But I like techno so, you might have thought differently.
It got nothing on the city itself. I mean first of all – there’s the freaking Danube running through the middle city. If you can’t appreciate that - get the hell out of my journal.
A more or less well known fact is that it started off as two cities Buda and Pest. All the cool stuff is in Buda. There’s a reason for it of course. Pest got demolished pretty much by every passing army. Hence the fact that the most prominent feature of Buda is Castle Hill. The street leading up to it btw is called Atilla Utca. I mean… you don’t even need to add anything here. Although I’m kinda curious now. Is there a Chengiz Khan Avenue in Ulan Bator? ‘Cos that’d be kinda cool.
It’s really weird being here because I have two conceptions of this country having it out in the back of my mind. First is the one I learned. Hungarian plain, pretty much the settling place for every unwashed, stinking, nomadic would-be Lord of All that blew out of the steppes. Huns, Avars, Magyars – you name it.
The other is the Hungary I grew up with in newspapers and the news. The heir of Hapsburg empire. Probably the most westernized country of the Eastern Bloc. Well maybe Poland… Hm. But you get my drift.
And then I get to stand in front of Royal palace. Life is ok, sometimes, y’know? You just gotta step back and get perspective. The palace is actually a lot like the city itself. It was built in Middle ages, destroyed by Turks, rebuilt, destroyed by Soviets and Germans, and now being rebuilt again.
Now, the Hungarian national gallery, it’s inside the Buda castle, is all right. Personally I think that it’s got nothing on Smithsonian art-wise, but the carvings and wood sculpture exhibit was pretty damn cool. Obviously, considering the fact that the last major museum I visited was Louvre, it’s effect on me was somewhat muted.
Anyway, like I said, the city itself is this screwed up concoction of Socialist take on Bahaus and Baroque. I hate the former, and like the latter in moderation. Thrown together as they are in Budapest… well, it’s kind of a disorienting experience.
I rather liked it overall.
Anyway. The thing in Pest that I liked the most was a place where there used to… well, it’s like this first of all, there’s a real town square. You know? Just how you always imagine it in the medieval cities. Cobblestones, the space in the middle of the town crowded by the bricked buildings with ornate carvings. Now, I am embellishing just a tad, a good number of the buildings are ugly, very utilitarian boxes. But there are enough of these 19th century style houses (inordinate number of which a painted yellow for some reason) to make you stop and blink at the world.
And the coolest thing about this is that the center of the city can be traced to the 3rd century. Romans had a watchtower here. It’s a church now.
So I stood there and watched for a while. And I thought of the Phoenician towers in the Basque cities and French cathedrals, imprisoning the old pagan gods and the place where the roads start.
And yeah. Suddenly this trip didn’t seem like such a disaster anymore.
Which is of course where it all started to go wrong again. (Kidding, kidding! Jeez.)
Yeah, I am done with the soulful interlude now. Let’s get to the good stuff. The good stuff is this – I am walking around the city with an escort. The escort being Rena and my two new bestest friends.
Both Marat and Vasiliy are exactly the sort of guys you never want to meet in a dark alley. Marat is technically Ukrainian, but he spent his formative years in Russia so... He’s a swarthy, short and really thin kinda guy. Face is al sharp angles and grins. Vasiliy is not an absolute opposite but close. He’s not tall, just heavyset, but for some reason I keep adding inches. I mean… you know how some people have presence? He’s just… stolid. I don’t know how to explain it. Blond, brown eyed, doesn’t say much. Marat is obviously and vocally the leader of the two. Good guys. Well to me. They know each other going on eight years. Served together in one of Moldovan civil wars. (And I have a sneaking suspicion that, if my math is correct they have seen Grozny as well, but, y’know) And now they are guarding Rena the Hungarian mob princess.
And yours truly.
It’s all very strange.
And kinda frightening because I keep catching Vasiliy giving me these weird searching looks. I have this uneasy feeling that he wants to have a talk with me. You know the one. “She’s like a sister to me and if you as much…” And then he’ll probably bench press a car to make his point.
The above is actually the optimistic scenario. The nightmare proposition is that the talk is going to go more in terms of “She’s the love of my young deeply homicidal life and this is my best friend Glock.”
So yeah. Fun all around.
By the way I would like to put it on record that I am behaving like a complete gentleman and in no way leading my life according to What Would Buffy Do In Search Of Those Soft Porn Ratings.
Obliviousness is my shield. It is my bond. It is my greatest weapon.
Today looks increasingly likely to be full of vigorous sitting around and waiting for Isstvan to call. Which is really fine with me. Boredom is a good thing. The Book of Doqz, verse 1, page 1 spake thus: “Adventure is someone else in deep shit, far, far away.”
Listen to the Book of Doqz.
For Doqz is wise.
And also devastatingly handsome. Much prettier than you, for example. Fabulously good-looking really.
Go Isstvan.
I must hold on to Bryant’s documents, or the terrorists will have won.
If I seem less than excited there’s a reason for this. Apparently he also tried to get my luggage released from Estonian customs and there’s a problem. In fact Isstvan is now going to have to go and meet with somebody. With my finely tuned sense of optimism I can just tell that whatever happens it’s going to end up with universe making me its bitch again.
I am also somewhat unimpressed with the expression on his face when I told him about Dex’s recent run in with the Russian Military Apparatus. There’s a bad moon rising.
Anyway. I decided pretty much to stop sweating the little things or minding the bollocks.
Instead I’m going to tell you about Budapest, where Rena took me yesterday. Check it out – I finally got to go clubbing! Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that I look as silly as I always thought I would flailing around but hey… It’s also kinda fucked up in every way that the one time I finally get to a club it’s in Budapest. In some ways that’s par for course, though. It’s like leaving a metro ride away from the Vortex and meeting them annually in Toronto.
My life is not like that of other people. And I got a Hungarian mug shot to prove it.
Anyway. It was kinda cool. But I like techno so, you might have thought differently.
It got nothing on the city itself. I mean first of all – there’s the freaking Danube running through the middle city. If you can’t appreciate that - get the hell out of my journal.
A more or less well known fact is that it started off as two cities Buda and Pest. All the cool stuff is in Buda. There’s a reason for it of course. Pest got demolished pretty much by every passing army. Hence the fact that the most prominent feature of Buda is Castle Hill. The street leading up to it btw is called Atilla Utca. I mean… you don’t even need to add anything here. Although I’m kinda curious now. Is there a Chengiz Khan Avenue in Ulan Bator? ‘Cos that’d be kinda cool.
It’s really weird being here because I have two conceptions of this country having it out in the back of my mind. First is the one I learned. Hungarian plain, pretty much the settling place for every unwashed, stinking, nomadic would-be Lord of All that blew out of the steppes. Huns, Avars, Magyars – you name it.
The other is the Hungary I grew up with in newspapers and the news. The heir of Hapsburg empire. Probably the most westernized country of the Eastern Bloc. Well maybe Poland… Hm. But you get my drift.
And then I get to stand in front of Royal palace. Life is ok, sometimes, y’know? You just gotta step back and get perspective. The palace is actually a lot like the city itself. It was built in Middle ages, destroyed by Turks, rebuilt, destroyed by Soviets and Germans, and now being rebuilt again.
Now, the Hungarian national gallery, it’s inside the Buda castle, is all right. Personally I think that it’s got nothing on Smithsonian art-wise, but the carvings and wood sculpture exhibit was pretty damn cool. Obviously, considering the fact that the last major museum I visited was Louvre, it’s effect on me was somewhat muted.
Anyway, like I said, the city itself is this screwed up concoction of Socialist take on Bahaus and Baroque. I hate the former, and like the latter in moderation. Thrown together as they are in Budapest… well, it’s kind of a disorienting experience.
I rather liked it overall.
Anyway. The thing in Pest that I liked the most was a place where there used to… well, it’s like this first of all, there’s a real town square. You know? Just how you always imagine it in the medieval cities. Cobblestones, the space in the middle of the town crowded by the bricked buildings with ornate carvings. Now, I am embellishing just a tad, a good number of the buildings are ugly, very utilitarian boxes. But there are enough of these 19th century style houses (inordinate number of which a painted yellow for some reason) to make you stop and blink at the world.
And the coolest thing about this is that the center of the city can be traced to the 3rd century. Romans had a watchtower here. It’s a church now.
So I stood there and watched for a while. And I thought of the Phoenician towers in the Basque cities and French cathedrals, imprisoning the old pagan gods and the place where the roads start.
And yeah. Suddenly this trip didn’t seem like such a disaster anymore.
Which is of course where it all started to go wrong again. (Kidding, kidding! Jeez.)
Yeah, I am done with the soulful interlude now. Let’s get to the good stuff. The good stuff is this – I am walking around the city with an escort. The escort being Rena and my two new bestest friends.
Both Marat and Vasiliy are exactly the sort of guys you never want to meet in a dark alley. Marat is technically Ukrainian, but he spent his formative years in Russia so... He’s a swarthy, short and really thin kinda guy. Face is al sharp angles and grins. Vasiliy is not an absolute opposite but close. He’s not tall, just heavyset, but for some reason I keep adding inches. I mean… you know how some people have presence? He’s just… stolid. I don’t know how to explain it. Blond, brown eyed, doesn’t say much. Marat is obviously and vocally the leader of the two. Good guys. Well to me. They know each other going on eight years. Served together in one of Moldovan civil wars. (And I have a sneaking suspicion that, if my math is correct they have seen Grozny as well, but, y’know) And now they are guarding Rena the Hungarian mob princess.
And yours truly.
It’s all very strange.
And kinda frightening because I keep catching Vasiliy giving me these weird searching looks. I have this uneasy feeling that he wants to have a talk with me. You know the one. “She’s like a sister to me and if you as much…” And then he’ll probably bench press a car to make his point.
The above is actually the optimistic scenario. The nightmare proposition is that the talk is going to go more in terms of “She’s the love of my young deeply homicidal life and this is my best friend Glock.”
So yeah. Fun all around.
By the way I would like to put it on record that I am behaving like a complete gentleman and in no way leading my life according to What Would Buffy Do In Search Of Those Soft Porn Ratings.
Obliviousness is my shield. It is my bond. It is my greatest weapon.
Today looks increasingly likely to be full of vigorous sitting around and waiting for Isstvan to call. Which is really fine with me. Boredom is a good thing. The Book of Doqz, verse 1, page 1 spake thus: “Adventure is someone else in deep shit, far, far away.”
Listen to the Book of Doqz.
For Doqz is wise.
And also devastatingly handsome. Much prettier than you, for example. Fabulously good-looking really.