Best of 2015- Coffee Cups

As opposed to cats, coffee took quite a long time to grow on me. When everyone was downing cup after cup during exam sessions, I would put on a refrained smile and keep on reaching for my can of Coke. Mind you, I still love Coke, and it’s one of those things, like Coldplay, that I plan to be forever unapologetic about. Yes, it’s an explosion of sugar and artificial flavour enhancers (just like Coldplay, come to think of it), but even the distant fizz of a can being opened puts me in a state- I know, it’s called addiction, but everyone needs the poison of their choice.

So back to coffee, I did have a nice big cuppa one night before my American history exam, and then at 4 am, when I could recite all the amendments of the constitution pretty much by heart but was still staring at my bedroom ceiling with my limbs shaking I said no more of this lethal brown liquid, and to this principle I stayed true for almost a decade.

Then, about three years ago, one fine morning in January I said, well, it’s kind of cold and I’m sort of sleepy, maybe I could have a latte. So I did. A big latte filled with honey and agave syrup- more precisely, what today I call a crime against both humanity and common sense, surpassed only by the green monstrosity of matcha latte. Next day I said, well why not have that latte again. A hundred or so days later I gave up on the honey, and then the agave syrup departed from my life as well.

Soon enough, I discovered that I was craving morning caffeine to degrees which could not be properly serviced by a latte. So I switched to flat whites. And then, on another epic day, in Italy, as luck would have it, I discovered that I could simply have a pitch dark espresso. 

And ever since, I have measured my life with coffee cups. Or with distances from one coffee shop to another- of which there are plentiful in Budapest, because we are painfully cool, I know. And still, I have missed a few, so I might as well add visiting them to those new year's resolutions I never manage to keep and see if for once I succeed.

'New wave' Turkish coffee in Kelet- minus the dregs, which is a bit disturbing

The real deal, dregs and all, in 2Cafe Karaköy

Espresso with a prickly friend, Addicted2Caffeine

That time I read about owls in My Little Melbourne

Summer delights in the Massolit garden

An Italian novel demands a small but viciously strong espresso

How my morning walk invariably ends up looking come spring

Lavender days in Budapest Baristas

The My Little Melbourne pit stop with a bit of reading thrown in

The inevitable accident of spilling the coffee while shuffling it around for a better shot

As I was saying, Italian novels and espressos

A Massolit espresso in all its lonely beauty

Spring with latte in Sarki Fűszeres

And for a change, spring with latte in Espresso Embassy

When in Vienna, have some coffee (I might have tried reading in German as well, I guess)

When the table matches your accidental bookmark in Café Demel

Geometry in Espresso Embassy

And here's my espresso with one of those lovely surprise finds in my home library

I am a pretzel fiend and proud of it

The almost nearly perfect espresso- and my favourite coffee shop logo at Budapest Baristas

So I went a bit over the top in Café Torino, but I just had to indulge in a bicerin, and cute little cookies

To more serious stuff, that killer Italian espresso in Café Florio

Channeling France in Gerlóczy

Autumn rains arrive at My Little Melbourne

And then autumn moved on

But here's to finishing in a very summer mood, with a Velence lake espresso

Best of 2015- Cats

I was a cat fiend way before the domestic feline became the absolute ruler of the internet. I don’t know how it came to pass, but I just never liked dogs, albeit the first pet I recall was actually our mongrel Vuk (a dog named after a fox called wolf, what can I say), who was ridiculously afraid of thunder and lightning. The scent of his wet fur as he lay shuddering under my chair is still one of the definitive smells of my childhood- but that was Vuk, and he was followed by no other dog in my graces.

Next in line is a cat, Gombóc Artúr (Ignáciusz Bonifác, because he was, as all better cats, an aristocrat and needed an army of names), who got his moniker after a bird who likes all sorts of chocolate, whereas Artúr the cat loved all sorts of meat. But mostly, he was a great philosopher, one of those souls always at rest, always perfectly attuned to the universe.  He was then followed by small cats, large cats, lazy cats, sloppy cats, angry cats, despondent cats, loner cats, vagabond cats, deranged cats- a long line of majestic creatures leading to the minute tyrant of today.

This present ruler of the realm is slightly disgustedly eyeing me as I write this, because oh so obviously, I would be so much better off if I paid her considerably more attention than I do. All my attention, if possible, since according to my father she is a super evil scheming bastard condensed in a tiny ball of black and white fur.

She might be particularly cross that this post is not all about her, as it should be, but contains a random assortment of felines of whom she violently disapproves. Or would do so, if she were awake, but she just decided to give up on her grand plan to take over the world, and went back to sleep. Cats are fickle like that.

This cat in Arad is somewhat upset to be caught red pawed in a foreign garden

Our neighbour's cat doesn't give a damn about being caught red pawed in our shed

My friend Ildi's cat just realized shades of pastel suit him and became pensive

This Greek cat knows that all Greek cats must muse philosophically about the sense of life

This Greek cat is not certain what the sense of life is, but suspects it might be souvlaki

This Greek cat is severely unimpressed

This Greek cat is unhappy with the state of its country's economy and demands foreign help with feeding

This is the Minotaur of Knossos

This is the drawing of a cat, and my own cat thinks it makes no sense here whatsover

My cat's grandson pondering the tragedies of being a black cat

My cat's granddaughter being smug that she's not black

A cat in Istanbul proving that she's more relaxed than Greek cats

This Turkish cat likes milk, while knowing all too well that most adult cats are lactose intolerant

This Turkish cat is auditioning for the cover of Vogue magazine

This Istanbul cat wants to prove that ear hair is the next must have hipster accessory

This Turkish cat is being nonchalant while being outed as an LSD dealer

My cat was telling me I really shouldn't read instead of busying myself with her maintenance

My cat demands she be in Vogue as well

This cat in Szentendre will not be disturbed by your useless nonsense

This cat by the Turkish seaside likes everything that is blue

Accidentally in Milan

As per the classic Seinfeld scene, Tuesday has no feel, and neither does Milan, as a city. Or at least for me it doesn’t. It definitely does not feel like a style capital, for one. There’s something too in your face about the way people (over)dress, and I myself prefer a bit more grace when it comes to one’s outfit. It’s not an architecturally endowed city either, or at least not when you compare it to the rest of Italy’s relentless majesty. It might be dynamic, but not in the way that sets it apart from any other urban conglomeration of its size.

The subway is a bland affair as well, and I think the only major city that gets away with a pathetic metro network is Rome, but then again, they score pretty high on the above mentioned majesty scale, so all is forgiven.  The Milan metro feels like anywhere and nowhere all at once, which is not to be confused with London’s Neverwhere.

The strongest indictment against Milan, of course, is the presence of two of the most obnoxious football teams in the world residing in the same architecturally dubious stadium. Even Madrid has the grace of having one team that is pretty likable. Milan, on the other hand, brings in the heavy artillery. To make the case even worse, one of said teams stands at the source of one of the most soul crushing methods of playing football, the catenaccio, the utter boredom of which is splendidly reflected in the city itself.

Given the above tirade, it was highly unlikely that I would ever visit Milan out of my own volition for any other reason than passing through it to get to Turin- yet my company felt strangely compelled to send me in exile to such vile lands for the ridiculous reason that it has some offices in the industrial wilderness nearby.  The whole nuisance happened in February (incidentally, the month of the year which has no feel at all either), and as soon as I returned from Italy, I completely forgot I took any pictures in Milan.

However, I unexpectedly bumped into them the other day as I was doing the end of year sorting (everything about Milan is accidental with me), and I concluded that, as opposed to the city itself, they have a certain feel. I just did not bother much with framing, composition or even focus when I took them, and they somehow capture the disconnection in my relationship to Milan.

They’re also exclusively taken in the dark due to well, February, and my being in the corporate wilderness during the day. And there’s a full moon-strangely enough, I seem to have traveled extensively around full moon and even super moon times this year, I might have an inner werewolf, to go alongside the compulsory inner vampire of every Transylvanian.

On a positive note- there’s good beer to be had in Italy, that most archetypal of wine countries, but they don’t really know what to do with it. They’re particularly oafish when it comes to pouring it, with more than half of it ending up on the bar or unsuspecting patrons. But at least they try- a slogan that could very well apply to the entirety of Milan as well.