La Journee Parfaite

It doesn't take very much at all to make me happy and here is the perfect example of what made me, a content me.

Drag myself out of bed.
Drag myself to class.
Cold crisp winter air.
I'm awake.
My students and I plan a jazz festival. The lesson plan tells us that our festival is a success.
A ride on a rattling tram with a warm, freshly baked turos taska.
Witty, smart alecky repartee back and forth all day long.
Late cancellation :)
The elusive postcard with the 'hot' Magyars makes an appearance once more.
Kapalbharti, a 17 minute run and crunches.
Soup and crunchy pita triangles.
Eat in Rome....I could stay here forever and never move onto to Pray in India and Love in Indonesia. After all, food is my first and true love.
Bedtime.

Spinning.

My life as I have know it has kept changing every year for a couple of years now. And that's the way aha aha I like it aha aha.

18 million people was too much. 300,000 seemed too little. 2 million is close to perfect

Coffee I enjoyed, but I was still to discover the true brilliance that coffee can attain. Then I discovered the perfect Mocha. That perfect Mocha lies in a land far far away and is temporarily unattainable :(

I walked on grimy 'rastas', filled with people and loved it. I walked some more, this time on clean, hilly streets with no people...loved the streets, but missed the people. I still walk and this time around, I have the best of both worlds so long as I choose the right 'utca'.

Walk on the left side of the street and all's good. Walk on the left side of the street and snigger a little at the Europeans who kept bumping into people. Swing between left and right (left more often than not) and this time around it's me bumping into people and occasionally grazing past a cyclist. I bet I'm getting sniggered at too!!

Work, work and work some more. Work, play at work and use all and any snatches of time to work and play. Work, play at work and playyyyy :)

Listening to the waves of the Arabian sea on the rare nights that I sat up to study. Long, long walks along the Wellington harbour and the one paddle boat ride in the harbour. Criss-crossing the Danube (both under and over) every single day.

Vada pav. Scones and muffins. Constant indulgence at pékségs and cukrászdas!!

Juhu by the beach. Kelburn in the hills. Angyalföld in the middle of nowhere.

So what's stayed constant? Well, that's an easy question! The fun people and the opportunity any and every city offers to be discovered.

In the words of McDonald's 'I'm loving it'

I've been assaulted

A recent long distance train ride home proved to be the most unwelcome assault on my ears.

It started out well, with young, old and everyone in-between stocking up on 'snacks' pronouned 'snecks' or 'snakes' depending on whether you were leaving home or heading home on this particular train. This despite the fact that the Rajdhani is well known for feeding its passengers till they can truly eat no more. Still, this is the way we do it in this part of the world. And why should we ever do it any different? Rajdhani or not.

The train lurches to a start, bang on time and I make myself comfortable....good read in hand and ticket accessible should the TC come-a-checking. Indian trains have always been smelly. Indian trains have always been loud. But when did our good ole blue vinyl berthed bogies turn into entertainment centrals?

Was it absolutely necessary for the podgy 20-something to watch a movie on his overloaded-with-unnecessary-software-laptop on full volume? Or for the teenager on the top berth to play every polyphonic ringtone on her mobile atleast thrice before she chose the one that was to ring out to us every time we passed a state border and had to be alerted of the same by super-enthusiastic service providers? Or for the 'uncle' to belch and burp after an intake of anything, quite so loudly (although this I grudgingly admit is no new phenomena)? And, the newly refurbished air-conditioned bogies now have plugpoints!!! Our little electronic friends and life partners are no longer even given the chance to slip into a silent coma till they reach the next plugpoint in the next town or city.

My memories of drinking chilled Frooti and reading Tinkle are being replaced by memories of awfully high pitched and out of tune ringtones and Bollywood scores!! Me no likes!!