I think I am a secret sci-fi geek...I'm so ashamed. I started watching Doctor Who a week ago, and it's pretty awesome. I don't like it as much as Torchwood, but it's still pretty entertaining. And then when I think back to my childhood, Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of the first shows I can remember ever really loving, and Star Wars became an obsession as soon as I was introduced to it. As for my taste in books, I grew up loving fantasy, which is practically the fraternal twin of sci-fi, and was later introduced to the wonders of people like Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft, and Kurt Vonnegut. As far as I can tell, what this all adds up to is that I'm even more of a nerd than I thought I was! :) I think I'm just going to claim it's part of my "charm" and then attempt to forget about it!
So where did I leave off? Ah yes, London!
Our plane left London in the evening, so we had a bit of time to enjoy the city before heading off to Budapest. I grabbed ice cream with mint Aero bar chunks in it, which was pretty awesome, and wandered up the street to Waterstone's, a bookstore I frequented during my Oxford days. I picked up The Time Traveler's Wife, because English majors all love it and I haven't read it yet. Apparently I really am obsessed with time and time travel! I never realized, until now, how much of what I watch, read, and write has those topics as central themes. I definitely am from another era.
Jon and I made a trip to the hotel's gym (oh my, am I out of shape!) and pool, and wandered around Covent Garden a bit. I even gathered the courage to try steak and kidney pie! I figured it was a bit of a disgrace to be an Anglophile who had never tasted such a classic English dish. And it turned out to be delicious! English food has such a bad reputation, but everything we had was really very good! Would have been better with a side order of John Barrowman, but *shrug*. Can't have everything, I suppose! :)
I should have known better than to visit England for such a short time...I miss it! It's been five years since I was last in the country, so I wasn't sure if I would adore it as much as I once did...but it turns out I do. I guess I really will need to find my way back there somehow, someday!
London and I parted, determined to reunite in the not-too-distant future, and soon I found myself in the tiny Budapest airport. We made our way through the world's simplest customs and hitched a cab ride to the center of town, where our newest apartment is located. The building is a bit old and run down, but it kind of gives it charm! The floors and banisters are very ornate, and all the apartments are built around a cute little courtyard. Our apartment is small, but has great high ceilings to compensate for it. We have a sitting room with a table and couch (ooh, leather!), a tiny kitchen, a lofted bed, and a bathroom that's practically the biggest part of the apartment. We even have our own washer/dryer!
So what's been going on in Budapest, you ask?
Not a whole lot, just yet. Working on a small Elance project, narrowly lost out on another. Rewatching Torchwood and starting Doctor Who, as I mentioned, so that I can study their character development. Their characters are exactly what I'd like to create. They're heroes, but they're flawed. They can be serious, but they're also humorous. They have complicated back stories. They evolve over time. They sometimes make tough decisions, but the audience still roots for them. When they're happy, you're happy too. When they die, you cry. You want so badly for them to be real, to be able to call them your friends. You can't stand the thought of their stories, your acquaintance with them, being limited to specific story lines and a set number of episodes, so you create fanfiction. I think that, to be honest, is what I want more than anything else. I'll know that I've "made it" when fanfiction for my stories starts popping up. It'd be so cool to know you've created characters that are that well-loved, and that you've inspired other people to be creative. :)
This is mostly what consumes my days, at the moment!
Nights aren't that much more exciting, I'm afraid! This isn't a country with a whole lot of money, so I don't think a lot of people can afford to go out. There are lots of small bar/cafe places, but they're always very empty. The busiest place we've been so far was a salsa night! We tried to find a place to go dancing (dancing of the non-salsa variety, that is), but it was surprisingly difficult. The only place we found with a dancefloor didn't have particularly good music. There was karaoke on the lower floor, though! There were actually a couple of decent singers in the bunch.
Things are bound to get better soon...the lovely Ms. Jocelyn will be coming to visit me on the 15th!!!
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