Wired in Budapest

After a day of touristing, and before a night of sleeping on the train, I had to recharge my camera and my phone. Which means off my laptop, since I didn't bring a plug.

I retrieved my luggage from the Radisson and headed to the nearest Costa coffee. I plugged my laptop into the wall and laughed at myself. This really is kind of extreme.

Budapest Day Two

I packed up my bag and left it with the Radisson bellhop. I had a 7 p.m. sleeper train to Romania and wouldn't see a wall outlet or shower until tomorrow night.

I had a goal today—to see a Soviet-era sculpture park on the outskirts of Budapest. I'd seen one of these in the Baltics in 2001 and it had been pretty entertaining.

I took three metro trains and a bus to get there. Ugh. That was a pain in the ass. The #4 metro led to the #150 bus, which shut its doors in my face. I had to wait 15 minutes for the next one. Say what you want about New York City buses, at least they let you get on before they rush away.

The park itself was only mildly amusing, played a bit too straight and not worth the hassle. I don't recommend the effort of going, actually. Maybe if you had a car. The best thing about the park is its website, which makes the place look far more entertaining than it is.

Budapest Day One

I'd booked the Radisson on points, knowing I was arriving in the middle of the night and not wanting to risk booking somewhere with no reception staff at night.

I caught a shuttle from the Budapest airport, and straggled into a dimly lit lobby after midnight.

The clerk had one receipt and one key in his hand. "You must be Marie," he said.

I confirmed that I was, ordered room service (which was sad and pricey), and went up to my room. The hotel was funny, a bit worn but reasonable.

In the morning, I argued with the buffet manager. "17 euros is a lot of money for breakfast!" "But it has pastries ands eggs and bacon and cereal and you can eat all you want."

I ended up at McDonald's, sorry to say. Don't mock me. It wasn't 17 euros for eggs and coffee.

I headed out for a walk after breakfast, and saw all kinds of interesting buildings in Budapest. I turned out to be close to the center, so walking was easy. And eventually I realized I could walk to something strange.

The bus-boat.

Yes, I went on a bus that turned into a boat. The gimmick is pretty funny, but swimming back upstream took forever and was kind of excruciating. Turns out buses don't have a lot of horsepower in the Danube.

After the bus-boat, I headed to the train station to pick up my train ticket for the day after tomorrow, then caught the metro back not to my hotel, but to somewhere sort of close. I'd work it out tomorrow. For tonight, I just grabbed some noodles and went back to the hotel to collapse.

Yes, noodles. My "no sugar no wheat" eating has completely fallen apart under the pressure of eating on the road. I can't wait to get home to some broccoli.

Teaching in Brum

I was in Birmingham to give two coloring workshops at something called ICE, which I think stands for Independent Comics Expo.

The fringe benefit here, besides ending up in Europe during high season, is a lot of my friends live near this part of the world.

Here's the street the venue is on. A friend of mine, Rachel, had taken me to this street in 2004 to go to the Jigsaw clothing store to buy brown faux-moleskin trousers. They don't sell those anymore, I guess I should have bought a crate-full.

I'd prepped relentlessly for my beginning coloring and advanced coloring workshops, but I only had four students in the first and only one in the latter. There were several conflicts as all the workshops were at the same time, and two of the students from the earlier class were at the portfolio review for the second. The other was in a different workshop.

I was also on against Steve Rude at some point, so I can't really blame them. But the guys who attended were really nice and grateful and one came up to me in the bar later to thank me profusely.

Phil Winslade, Steve Yeowell, Steve Pugh

The common complaint people have is they don't understand why their art prints so dark, and I'm pretty good at articulating the relationship between the software and printing ink. The one who attended both thanked me several times and then showed me his portfolio. I'm glad I didn't know how good he was when I was teaching.

Over meals and evenings, I got to spend time with people I know, including these guys. I asked them to strike moody artists poses, because they are artists, after all. Steve certainly pulled off the intense look.

And on Sunday, I had a nice surprise. A couple I sort-of know from Jersey City was living nearby in Coventry! They met me and walked me around downtown, showing me a Victorian tea room in a museum and some really fascinating sights. Fantastic morning. 

I headed over to the coach station, caught a coach to Heathrow, and checked in.

Next stop, Budapest! 

Transit

On Thursday night in London, I rushed from my Priceline room over to Piccadilly Circus, then spent a confused ten minutes searching for a nearly unmarked door on a deadend street. I was looking for an event space called Creative Hub, where a filmmaker talk was scheduled.

It might seem a bit odd to spend my transit night in London at a talk, but one of the speakers was Charlie Wood, production designer of three Marvel movies. I've spoken to him on the phone for the Art of Thor: The Dark World and the Art of Guardians of the Galaxy, and he happens to be a brilliant creative mind, so I wanted to put a face to the voice. I enjoyed  the event, but it was his colleague Iain Smith, a producer, who articulated and justified the work I've switched to doing lately.

Iain Smith said he's tried other roles in filmmaking, but he'd found he enjoyed facilitating and supporting the creativity of others most of all. And that's what I'm doing in my day job now, so I was glad to justify what it is exactly I am doing as an editor at a comic book company when I have spent several years primarily focusing on my own endeavors.

I quickly introduced myself at the end, and poor Charlie did well to be only slightly surprised when he asked what I was doing there and I explained I was en route to look at Romanian castles. I headed back to my room to get some sleep so I could hurry up to Birmingham in the morning for the comic book convention.

On Friday morning, I boarded the bus to the tube, but there was construction in front of the tube so the bus overshot my stop. I walked back from the next stop, but now I was a little behind schedule, running late to my train. I got the underground at Kensington High Street and stood near the door with my luggage.

A family of five rushed on when the doors closed at Oxford Circus. A teen boy then proceeded to copiously vomit between Oxford Circus and Warren Street. He had a plastic bag, fortunately. But—oh no—the bag had a hole in bottom. "Get off, just get off," muttered the panicked father at Warren Street. The family disembarked, leaving streams of vomit rolling around.

My worry only stopped when I got my bag onto the overhead bin on the Euston train to Birmingham, and I see the bottom of my bag was not covered in vomit. Phew. I settled in to plan my coloring demo for the convention tomorrow.

Sitting next to me were two women who felt compelled to call everyone they know to inform them "I'm on the train."

Yes, you are, I thought. And we were off.

En Route to Brum

I got my very own Oyster card yesterday at Heathrow. 

It's a little tap-and-go thing, like we have on the PATH train at home. You get a great discount on each trip, of course, but it's not like I'm traveling around London all that often. Right now, I'm just passing through on the way to Birmingham for a convention. 

The only reason not to get an Oyster card is the five-pound deposit, but if you buy the card when you get here, you can turn it in when you leave and get your deposit back. And the compelling reason to get on this time versus relying on single-day Travelcards is that the cheap Hilton I prefer here (due to the pleasantly low Priceline bids I get on it), is on a bus that goes right to the train. And buses no longer accept cash, so if I want to ride the bus, I need a card of some sort. 

And the last thing I want to do tomorrow morning when I need to get the train to Birmingham is figure out how to get to the tube from my hotel without a card. So fine, now I have a card! And I could turn it in before leaving and get my deposit and balance back, but I'll probably just keep it for next time. 

Decompression

I've been working the last seven weeks. A lot.

But less than usual. Just...different. Because I'm back working in an office now. My last regular job ended about 14 months ago, when Kraiger and I shut down the New York office of our Kuwaiti company. And at that point, it was just me in the office anyway. Kraiger had left at the end of April, and I was the last staffer standing.

I've worked in plenty of offices, which is why I knew to cut myself slack in the start. I'd be tired, I knew. And boy, was I. The mere act of commuting, sitting in a room and going to meetings, then coming home wore me out.

But I always work a lot. I write books, which is a huge job, but also a solitary job. Mostly. I love writing the Marvel Art of books, because I get to Skype with all kinds of interesting artists and filmmakers, but mostly, I sit alone by the window in front of my computer. That's how books get written.

And now I'm back in an office, at DC Comics until January, when I'll switch back to Art of. The plan was originally for a position less intense, but the job evolved within the first few hours, and now I'm overseeing a project of massive scope.

Which means I work late a lot and I spend a lot of time wondering what happened to all my energy.

I've been eating a lot of broccoli and sweet potatoes and blueberries...things I think are good for me under this circumstance, and I've been getting plenty of sleep. But when I needed to decompress, I found I couldn't.

So I've taken up pottery, which is a ton of fun (though I am dreadful at it). And tonight, I sewed my first bag in a year. The straps are too wide and too long, so I'll have to go to Pacific Trimmings and get more webbing, but the bag itself came out nicely. Making stuff is so fun.

Urban Nature Hike

I've been wanting to go wandering in the Erie Cut (aka Bergen Arches area) for years now, but my friend Kraiger keeps sternly ordering me not to go into this semi-wild area alone. You just don't know what's back there. But he's been too busy to go with me. What could be more important?

Last night, my neighbor Denise and I were out wandering around after going to the Polish festival, and we passed a hole in the fence that runs beneath the ramp from Exit 14C—the ramp that feeds the NJ Turnpike to the Holland Tunnel. This part of the fence has been there as long as I remember, but the part near the former home of the Jersey City giant cat is new.

"Let's go in," Denise said. "Two middle-aged women in sandals. We're terrifying to any muggers."

In we went, tripping over the gravel along the railroad tracks.

"Is that a rat or a groundhog?" Denise asked, pointing ahead at a mammal crossing the railroad tracks.

"It's not a rat," I answered. "Maybe a raccoon."

We stopped, then. The black tunnel up ahead was a bit too intimidating.

 We'll have to try again—with flashlights, Kraiger, and appropriate hiking shoes.

"From 1906-10, the Erie Railroad Company drove 5,000 feet through Palisades rock, from Palisade Avenue on the east, to Tonnele Avenue on the west, in order to bring passenger service to the Jersey City waterfront. The "Erie Cut," as much as 85-feet deep, was punctuated by the Bergen Arches, a series of concrete bridges that supported cross streets overhead. Today the site has returned to nature, with moss and vines covering the bridges and cliff face. It is a serene, pastoral world apart from the busy avenues that cross it."

-Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy

Freelance vs Office

Cheery thought for the day.

Choose Your Own Adventure:

If you can tolerate the desperation of returning to the place you just left to run around in a hamster wheel while looking forward to sleeping late on the weekend, go to work.

If you choose the pressure of never knowing if you'll have cash for rent or food while you have a bit of dignity, go to freelance.

Both paths lead to obscurity, eventual illness, and death, so choose carefully.

Trip Planning Part II

I got a response! I think I actually managed to ask a question in Bulgarian. It looks like I have a reservation on the 10:30 minibus from Bucharest to Ruse on August 9.

 09.08.2014 10,30 ОТ БУКУРЕЩ ДО РУСЕ. РЕЗЕРВАЦИЯТА Е НАПРАВЕНА

I'm looking forward to my trip. I am working a day job at DC Comics from now until January, and while I spend a lot of time desperate for sleep, it's pretty fun. But I still want my vacation.