Come Away with Me

Had a very eventful day. Exhausting too. For some reason I still keep the bad habit of going to bed around 1 am, which is not a good idea, especially when I have to wake up at 8. So today I was at the project management course from 10.00 to 15.45, then went to Bookstation for some Christmas shopping. (Love the place.) Actually, one of the two volumes I bought is for me, George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. Looks intact, and cost about 1000 HUF, which proves that Bookstation is the best bookstore in town. Pity they don't have a cafe or something.
Then I went to Westend City Center (a giant mall in Budapest) to have some lunch, but it was a mistake. I've never seen so many people in one place (or perhaps I have, at the exact same place). What the hell are all the people doing there? Isn't there supposed to be a recession or something? Or it spared that particular district? All those smug teens hesitating which boots to buy, while I'm standing there hesitating between the two cheapest sandwiches. I suppose it's the Christmas hysteria again, but you never know with Westend. Anyway, I'm planning to ignore it for the rest of the year, excepting bladder issues, as it is the closest free target point near Bookstation.
The best part of the day was definitely the evening, aboard A38, as there was the third day of the Haza Home Heimat literary festival held, and as I mentioned in the previous post, I was lucky enough to have won two tickets. (Isn't it ironic that the very same magazine which didn't take me as an unpaid intern made it possible for me to meet István Szabó a few months ago, and now I've won these tickes from them too?) By the way, the professor who rejected my doctoral application was there two, as he is an alleged poet. Anyway, let's talk about the happy things. We attended three sections. In the first two a Hungarian and a foreign poet/writer were juxtaposed. That is, they read out one or two pieces, then a mediator, who today was Keresztury Tibor, led the discussion. Needless to say, the idea was to get closer to what home means. In the first section we had Virág Erdős and Dan Sociu (Romania), then in the second one Lina Mounzer (Lebanon/Canada, currently living in Budapest) and László Garaczi. I liked Virág Erdős's sociocritical-ironical poems so much that I begged my boyfriend to buy me one of her books for Christmas (because we also had discount tickets). I don't want to go into much detail, and anyway, the number one reason we were there was Krisztina Tóth. She too read out a few short stories, then the discussion was mediated by Nóra Winkler and Enikő Darabos. We enjoyed the evening a lot, despite the fact that it addressed many depressing and outrageous issues of the current Hungarian situation. It was good to see that there are others who think there are problems, and of course it was a cultural night out too. As for souvenir, we took home a nice poster, with Krisztina Tóth in the middle and the others arranged about her in smaller pictures. I also learned that she's working on a novel at the moment, about a Hungarian immigrant in New York, called Tóni Piroska.

P.S.  Still no news about the job interview. The only thing that keeps me from biting my nails is the bright emerald nail polish I'm wearing.