Fiy3ro

Lost in words, sights and people

January 7th, 2012

New project

You may recall that I mentioned a couple of days ago that changes are taking place. One of these changes is starting a new internet project, and yesterday it was launched officially. The project is BookHurricane which stemmed from my love (some call it obsession) for books. Therefore, since I read a lot (by some standards) I have some material to share with you.

The idea behind it is to gather people who love to read, or love to talk about books and magazines of all varieties, have them share their ideas, likes and dislikes, for this website to be one big community.

I do hope that this project will grow, the categories be fuller, but for this I need your help. Any suggestions are welcomed, hit me up with a good book to read. I would really appreciate it!

January 2nd, 2012

Changes

This year there will be changes. I can feel it. Some changes will be necessary. And I will take the steps in the right direction to make them. I will stand up for myself. I will express my opinions. And if people don’t like, it’s their problem, not mine. I will make decisions and live with the consequences. I will be stronger. I will let go of things/people that stand between me and my goals. I know it sounds harsh, but I can’t afford to stray from my path. I have amazing parents, great friends and I know I can do this. And I will, just wait and see.

December 29th, 2011

What happened?

Hello, oh ye few, but faithful readers, and welcome new ones big grin

You’ve been probably wondering where I was, or at least what happened to me since I kind of shied away from writing. What? You haven’t noticed? After 4 months? Or hey, maybe you have but didn’t know how to reach me and say “dude, what happened? why haven’t you written anything for 4 months?”…hmmm, ok, well Mom did ask me. Dad doesn’t read the blog so he’s not that concerned. But since all of you were asking yourselves what happened, and as I am the type of guy who likes sharing (except Twizzlers, with them it’s first come first served, be forewarned) I’ll tell you.

December 27th, 2011

The Italian adventure – part 3

Mom and I (and other tourists) at the Trevi fountain

And we’ve finally arrived to our final installment of our journey – Rome. I’ve been there 5 years ago and I have to say I wasn’t flat-out impressed with the “eternal city”. Probably this had to do with the lightning fast tour, lead by the relative that I stayed at. Well, this time wasn’t the same, after all I was with Mom, but we stayed at the same relative and the same lightning-fast tour was announced. Mind you, he’s been in the city several times so the novelty kind of wore off for him, but hey, if I want to see a city, I’ll do it in my own rhythm, right? RIGHT?

August 28th, 2011

The Italian adventure – part 2

masks, masks, everywhere

In our last episode, our heroes (Mom and I) were spending some quality time, and gathering miles in the beautiful city of Milan. Even though we spent 3 days there, I thought there were plenty of things to see, but we covered the basics. Hopped online and looked for train tickets to Venice. Back home we found one for 33 euro/person, but being the lucky people we are (after all we spun around 3 times on the bull’s balls in the Vittorio Emanuelle Gallery’s floor – if you’re ever there, you can’t miss it – people are forming a queue to take a spin) we found a train at half price – true, the trip took an hour more but we weren’t complaining – that time was spent reading (Why do men have nipples)!

August 23rd, 2011

The Italian adventure – part 1

Wow…time sure flies (as it usually does when good things happen). And traveling is always a good thing, right? winking

Several months ago, Mom and I decided to head to Italy on our own, for 2 weeks. Dad was also OK with the idea, until he realized that he’s going to miss us terribly, which he does. And we miss him, of course happy So after some intense planing, the plane tickets were bought, for a very good price (we got one day when the airline sold the tickets at 20% off, add that to the Exclusive club member fee and it was almost a bargain), then came the daunting “where will we stay?”…Several options were taken into account, in the end deciding on those that caught our eyes (and didn’t leave a gigantic hole in our pocket)!

July 30th, 2011

Harry Potter – a history

My journey in this magical world started in 2002….back then, being at the Uni I focused more on watching a lot of movies, instead of studying – we had the exam period for that, don’t you throw your rocks oh yee who studied during the semester…and that’s when I saw the first Harry Potter movie – HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It was a cute picture, and I loved it, especially since I love everything that has to do with magic. My cousin had the books and he was extremely thrilled, and to be honest, I tried reading them but they were in Hungarian and when I reached the page where the names were translated I’ve had enough (don’t even get me started on dubbed movies). I got the game as well, being forwarned that if you didn’t read the book/see the movie, you won’t be able to finish the game….Oh please! It was done in 2 days!

July 15th, 2011

At the movies

Yes, I love movies…big deal. I spent many hours watching great, not so great, awful movies, some more than once, and all this lead to my not-so-extensive-like-Nana’s-movie-knowledge, but still nothing to sneeze at movie culture. Whenever I get together with Nana it leads to watching/talking about movies.

*Soft music playing in the background to accompany trip down memory lane* it is the summer of 2003, when our young stars (Nana and me that is) went to the movies at Desert Star Cinema in Lake Delton, WI, USA. Being the ever adapting young, smart and gorgeous selves, we bought a ticket to see one movie and saw, err, well, 3 big grin The experience was like washing your hair – rinse and repeat. And repeat we did winking We got entertained by Freddy vs Jason, Uptown girls, Matchstick Men (the movie was so awful for me, at some point I just listened to music on my cd player), Tomb Raider 2 and that’s about all I can remember.

July 3rd, 2011

Lots of music and green in London

As mentioned in the previous post, last weekend was spent in the vicinity of the Queen. That’s right, a glorious weekend in London. All was prepared – plane ticket (bought a month in advance to avoid the sky high prices), money – strange thing about London, you need LOTS of it, even for food…weird! and my trusted backpack – a fabulous birthday present, and so roomy I could probably pack my kitchen sink in there too, but then again, what would I do with my kitchen sink while traveling? Arriving at the airport I was shocked at the amount of people waiting for the plane…scanning the crowd I was not pleased at all – yeah, yeah, I can be judgemental, go figure – families with small, soon to cry kids, damsels with tons of make up, ultra macho dudes with their polyester track suits and heavy gold chains – oh boy, it was going to be a doozy flight. Mind you this was 5 am, and people were up – crazy bunch. Of course with all this mob, I couldn’t get a window seat, but I had a new neck pillow I wanted to break in so I didn’t think much about it. The plane starts to take off, and I realize the guy behind me is drunk (Lord give me strength) and it wasn’t enough he smelled really bad (my nose tried constantly to either escape my face or give up its services during the flight) but he was constantly moving, and the space being limited (like ultralimited), he was kicking my chair (and my nerves in high gear)….another fine example of “we don’t care about the rules” – a chick was texting on her iPhone AS the plane was taking off…seriously? is that really important? more important than maybe ending up in Iceland? so I said to myself – you push that button one more time, and so help me God….fortunately for her, she fell asleep pretty fast, and in a really uncomfortable position too devil – no neck pillow smug

June 29th, 2011

Trains, buses and more trains

Busy busy week(s). The exam period is finally over *insert celebration dance*. I really rooted for my students to get great marks because, let’s face it, I have great students. They are a cool bunch of kids (’tis the old person in me speaking…”now go away children, and leave my cats alone” winking with whom I can chat about anything. Students like them make my job worthwhile. So, getting back to the main idea, I was rooting for them to get high marks, and they did not disappoint! Congrats! big grin

Then I got…the call – no, I did not watch any movies and then the phone suspiciously rang telling me something is going to happen to me in the next 7 days. I had to go to Budapest, as soon as possible. I started searching for means of transportation to get me there cheap and fast and comfortable (it seems that 3 factors can’t be connected with one means of transportation – oh well, you win some and lose some I guess). I was supposed to leave on Monday, and on Sunday, dear Dad came through and bought the ticket. So next day, I embarked on a – not so eagerly awaited – bus ride. In the past I had some, let’s call them uncomfortable experiences with long distance buses. Being 6’3″ (that’s 188 cm), and having long legs, I don’t appreciate the feeling of being cramped in a highly limited space. So imagine my surprise (positive side) that the room between the seats on the bus surpassed the room on a plane *score one for the bus*. The trip was pleasant – got to sleep most of the night, the next took care of business – that was a weird experience in itself, then off I went to have some Chinese food and Starbucks – of course.

June 4th, 2011

Sandra and Liz Gilbert

Well, there….I’ve done it. I caved in…peer pressure be damned laughing Usually I’m not one to read/watch what other people tell me – I have Nana to thank for this “oh, you must watch this movie, it’s great”…so I watch it…”oh for crying out loud, I spent 2 hours of my life to watch THIS?”…heck, it took me 7 months after the Avatar craze calmed down to see it…and wasn’t that impressed. Then again, it takes a lot to impress me, my surprise birthday party being one of them.

I’ve been told that Shutter island is a great movie. I started watching it, but somehow it didn’t get my full attention – third time is the charm, they say…I have the book though on my Kindle, so a couple of weeks ago when I was traveling (the almost only time I can catch up on my reading) I decided to give it a go…well, the main character started his journey towards the island, but my plane was landing so I couldn’t accompany him too far. Then, browsing through the list of books I have, I stumbled upon Eat, Pray, Love. I knew about the movie, I even saw the book at the airport, so being the always mind changing charming person, I dumped Shutter Island and paired up with Liz. The story is quite simple – after a painful divorce and an addictive relationship, she decides it’s time to find herself, and she does so by traveling to the 3 Is – Italy, India and Indonesia.

May 25th, 2011

Changing, yet not changing

Last week was crazy. First, it was the last week of teaching, as the session was approaching. Needless to say that the students were getting antsy about the upcoming exams (a feeling I was very well accustomed back in the day). Being the ultra cool teacher, I brought them candy, for 2 reasons – 1) for being an awesome bunch of students and 2)my birthday was coming up so I thought candy was a nice touch.

May 12th, 2011

My top 5 favorite travel blogs

I know that most people don’t know this about me, but I love to read devil In today’s society this comes as an oddity (at least in my country – you should see the stares I get on the bus if I read something) but frankly, I don’t give a damn.

The things I like to read – books (be it classic format or Kindle), certain types of magazines (National Geographic Traveler) and since January of this year, travel blogs. Of course being a huge fan (major understatement) of traveling and the internet, it was only a matter of time before I would stumble upon these precious jewels of cyberspace.

In the beginning it was really great to keep up with the constant updates of entries, reading about the fascinating adventures people are having. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great, and I appreciate everything these marvelous people are doing, however, lately being caught up in my work and, let’s call it life, I got waaaaaaaay behind on my reading. It’s not an excuse, true, but there’s only so much I can do.

April 30th, 2011

Hungarian adventure – the end

Well, like all good things, my adventure has reached its end. Do I feel sad? A little. But I don’t know if I could have stayed any longer, it seems I’ve reached a certain limit. I’m glad to go home, to see Mom and Dad, to eat amazing food cooked by Mom, and me sometimes, to go to work (albeit for 3 more weeks), and then focus on the upcoming events – concert, studying and maybe a little more traveling on the side.

I am really excited to have gone through this experience. Yesterday when I said goodbye to the good people who took me in, I felt a little sad, but as promised, I will see them again. Maybe sooner than expected. Who knows!

April 20th, 2011

I need the drama

Yes. I need the drama. There. I said it. Why on Earth would I need drama? Well you see, I have the ability (let’s name it a superpower for a moment) to get bored easily. I mean it takes a couple of minutes, tops. So I need drama to keep me moving. OK, not all kinds of drama are compatible with me. But let me give you an example, shall we?

Books. You’ve seen this coming. Yesterday I finished Percy Jackson. Reading the books I mean, not finish finish him. I’m done with the series (5 books in total). It was everything I needed and more – humor, action, Greek gods and demons – mythology supreme! And now them I’m done with them I’m stuck with my finger on the scroll button of my Kindle to chose which book to read next. I tried one that promised to be a comedy, but ended up on the soon-to-be-deleted list instead. Then moved onto the Millenium series, oh-so-greatly-advertised by the media (it’s written by Stieg Larsson and the titles are “The girl with the dragon tattoo”, “The girl who played with fire”, “The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest” ). It starts great, and pretty sure the books are more than great (heard nothing but good things about them, they even made a motion picture after it – OK, not always a standard to go by, but still) but I got bored easily – the superpower kicked in (I realized it has something to do with intense sunshine and lack of place to swim…hmmm). So I moved on to a series written by Patricia Cornwell, a forensic (you know, dead people) science. I do hope there’s a body in the first chapter, I know this will keep me going. Dead body, police, panic, DRAMA!

April 18th, 2011

No more vampires and royal weddings

Lately there have been 2 themes that annoyed me to no end: vampires and the upcoming royal wedding. The only common denominator is that both themes have immense media coverage.

It appears that vampires (bless their undying hearts, when not stabbed with a wooden stake) get more than their share of TV time. It started with Interview with a vampire, then they made a short appearance in Supernatural. And then the flood gates opened: True Blood, The Vampire diaries, Twilight (a phenomenon with a life of its own), and the latest ‘Being human’, a tv show about a ghost, a werewolf and (you guessed it) a vampire, living under the same roof.

April 16th, 2011

Simon Beckett series

I love books! I know. Shocking. In a world overrun by technology, where books are replaced by TV and computers. I’ve dedicated some blog entries to books, this time it won’t be any different.

I came in contact with the work of Simon Beckett while I was in Germany. Whenever I travel abroad, I buy books ( a resolution I’m on my way of dropping – I promised the parents, and besides, books can be pretty expensive, I have over 200 books at home, more than half not even read yet, not to mention I’ve got a Kindle now, so), so reading the back of said book, “Written in bone” I was hooked. The book is written in a fast pace, that keeps you glued to its pages – figuratively speaking. The main character is dr.David Hunter, who is a forensic anthropologist – examines the bones of the victims and gives out information to the police – sort of a Sherlock Holmes dealing with bones if you like. The story of the book – the dear doctor is asked to fly to the isle of Runa, where a body has been found. Upon getting there he gets down to business, but the plot thickens as a massive storm hits the island (like you didn’t see that one coming), and people start getting killed. The amount of detail is amazing, the killer turns out to be a surprise, but the end was a complete shocker – David gets back to London, answers the door and gets stabbed in the stomach by the killer, then left to bleed right there on the floor. I was …I started searching frantically for the follow up book, truly relieved that there was one. This was January of 2010.

April 13th, 2011

Hungarian adventure – episode 5

The weather is changing. Until now we had beautiful sunshine, high temperatures but today that changed. The sky was overcast, and when I returned from the lecture it started raining. Now, I like rain, but mostly when I’m indoors, without an urgent plan of getting out of the house. Another downside, the low pressure gave me a nasty headache. So as soon as I got home, snuggled under the covers and had a “short” 2 hour nap.

April 11th, 2011

On desserts

Anyone who knows me, knows I’m not a huge fan of desserts – chocolate (especially), cake (except the ones my Mom makes). Pudding seems to be the exception, something that Nana is well aware of – 6 words – Pizza Pub all-you-can-eat winking

OK, I like ice-cream, but it’s not like a develop a crazy obsession for it, like I know some women do over chocolate – mention the “c” word and some of them get this dreamy look and you can practically see them drool (a fine visual, I know).

April 9th, 2011

Hungarian adventure – episode 4

What is wrong with me? OK, don’t start, it was a rhetorical question, and if it wasn’t, the list of answers to that particular question would be a mile long. I realized today that my obsession with traveling has decreased. Maybe it has to do with me being actually out of the country. Or maybe the tiredness I managed to gather lately has finally smacked me around the head and got all my circuits scrambled. I don’t know, but the fact is, I don’t feel that desire to move around that much. Of course, I ride the subway twice a day (at least) and every time I go up and down the escalator I can’t help but miss London a little bit. Maybe I feel like I’ve settled, that this is where I should be. I don’t know. I’m not a mind-reader, even my own mind is a mystery to me sometimes.

I travel like Tony Wheeler !
You are someone who others will come to rely on for their best travel advice and information. With any luck at all, you'll eventually get bought out by the BBC, so you can retire, and then keep traveling anyway.
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