How I Spent My Summer Vacation Part 1: Ohio

I am officially back in Geneva to begin my second year after spending a wonderful month back in the United States. I had the chance to do quite a lot while home, including 5 major cities, a wealth of friends, 4 concerts, a zoo, an (American) football game, plenty of Mexican food and various other miscellany.

I returned home on Friday, August 24th and quickly got back into things, hanging out with the remains of the old Pickerington crew that evening and the next day. Greg, Maggie and I went to the Columbus Zoo for a few hours in the afternoon, which despite the intermittent thunderstorming, was fun.




The zoo’s answer to the Jet d’Eau? A fountain on the lake.


Nice-looking dragon from Asia Quest


The Red Panda takes a break from laying around and actually moves


And I’m wild about you, Jack Hanna


Hooray for penguins

So after that, we headed for dinner at a great Japanese place in the Short North where we were joined by Matt, Brooke, Todd, Jon and his girlfriend, Sarah. Following that, we headed to a bar called the Surly Girl which has an amazing selection of microbrews from around the world.


Sarah, Jon and Maggie


Brooke, Matt and myself

The next couple days were pretty low-key and I drove down to Cincinnati on Tuesday to see some friends and catch a concert at Bogarts by the Format, an indie-rock two-piece from Arizona. The show was really entertaining and quite fun.







On Wednesday I went wake-boarding with Maggie and Greg on his family’s sweet new boat. While I’m still a complete novice, I finally executed a couple successful side switches which made me pretty happy. Plus, it was a beautiful day and the lake was almost vacant.

Not bad for 5 and a half days...

Budapest, Hungary Part 2: Art and Culture

Sorry for the delay on this closing entry on Budapest. I’m currently enjoying a month-long sabbatical back in the states so both my access to the internet and my desire to do anything are intermittent.

Anyway, here are a few more photos and a bit more commentary from last month’s trip to Hungary.

Food

This probably doesn’t warrant its own subsection (or really say much about Hungarian culture), but I wanted to share a couple curiousities discovered.


Yes, we ate at Burger King. It was cheap and we were tired of walking around. But the main point here is that in Budapest, the chain seems to be marketed as a sort of "All-American” restaurant. The packaging and imagery inside all revolved around quintessential American iconography (i.e. Football, Route 66, Coke, Baseball, etc.).


Inexplicably, we came across this: a café themed around a beer from Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Very odd.


We didn’t eat here, but there was something about the naiveté of the cut-out I found compelling.

That, and the pig head that appears to be really happy about the fact that it’s dead.


Nathan and I ponder the meaning of life over a local brew.


Hungary’s answer to Jagermeister is something called Unicum, which I drank at Darryl’s insistance.

Statues, Statues

I know I take (and post) a lot of photos of statues, but Budapest has some great ones.


Hero’s Square, which features statues of many of the famous rulers of the country and plenty of allegorical figures.


A statue representing Peace.


One of 7 statues representing the tribes that settled Hungary (if I remember correctly).


Statue of Anonymus, the first writer to record Hungary’s history.


Random statue of a Sphinx.


Little Princess statue along the Danube.




Sculptural fountain outside the castle

And More Statues…

On Sunday we headed outside the city to Statue Park, a place where they took all the Communist statues after the fall rather than destroy them. I really like Constructivist art and design—it’s just one of those unfortunate coincidences that it came into vogue with the Soviet Empire and will always be associated with Socialist Propaganda. So being able to see some of this art (while mocking it at the same time) made for quite an entertaining afternoon.


Some nice Constructivist typography








We look toward our glorious future. Or something.
(thanks to Nathan for volunteering to capture one of my “brilliant” ideas...)


Head for the hills! The commies are coming!
(thanks to Darryl for capturing another one)

And that’s the end of that chapter {throws scarf over shoulder}.