I’ve noticed something recently about Hungary: when things work the way they’re supposed to, we’re disappointed and even offended. It’s part of the legendary Hungarian self-aggrandizing/self-loathing, where proverbs such as “Hungarians are happiest when they’re in tears” describe a sort of pride in things not working quite ideally, or at least, not the way they do in Denmark.

The first example is the entrance to our building. There are two doors, which each take the same key. For over a year, the second door has stuck just enough so that it doesn’t lock, and can be just pushed open. While obviously a security issue, the crime in the neighborhood is so l0w (aside from my bike being stolen from right outside this very door) that most residents probably believed that the one outer door was enough. Recently, however, the inner door closes and locks as it should. But instead of being relieved that we are one glass door safer from burglary than we were before, our reactions have mostly been negative, along the lines of “whose stupid idea was it to fix the door? Now I have to unlock BOTH of them. That’s double the work! What a travesty!”

Another example has been the effort on the part of the mass transportation authority to field more ticket inspectors at all metro station entrances and many trams and buses, including the night “drunk” bus, and thus preventing the estimated 60% of riders who do not buy tickets to actually do so. Again, instead of people recognizing that more people actually paying for the rides will help improve the quality of service and (hopefully) eventually lower the ticket price, it seems like an affront: “what do you mean I HAVE to buy a ticket now? This has always been optional; I can’t believe they’re making us actually PAY to ride the subway!”

Please, if you haven’t already checked out this short-but-amazingly comprehensive look at the way we extract resources, form them into products, market them, consume them and then throw them away, watch this incredible video, called simply “The Story of Stuff”. Here is the introduction teaser, with much more at the website. Help spread the word far and wide - this is basic stuff that we should all know!

You inspired me, you filled my dreams and ideals with purpose and you contributed much to the advancement of humankind as a moral animal. You will never be forgotten.

Obit here.

Chopok, Slovakia

Finally got my computer back on track - it took about 2.5 months and a complete hard-drive salvage, then reformat, then reinstall from windows right on up. Luckily (and not a small bit disturbingly) most of my favorite and most-used programs were easily recovered.

So, the first order of blogging business since then will be to post on the epic snowboarding trip I took in February to Chopok, Slovakia. It was a great time, with a group of Hungarian friends and a good American buddy who I’d first met during my exchange student year in Japan, who was visiting. Strangely enough, we realized that we’d never actually met in the United States - first we skated together in Nagoya, then met up in Montreal for New Year’s 2005, and now here in Hungary/Slovakia.

G-Money and the Def Selector. Beyond those mountains (the high Tatras) in the distance is Poland.

Anyway, Chopok is reputed to be the best resort in Slovakia, and in my limited experience, it definitely lived up to this hype. As already mentioned, just about everything involved in this trip was in some way epic, from getting lost driving in the back roads of the Low Tatra mountains to having to wrestle with snow chains twice a day (more on that in a moment), to riding through untracked, if not perfectly fresh, snow amidst and over beautiful trees and rocks.

The mountain itself had two sides - the more developed and better serviced, but consequently much busier north side, and the sun-bathed, wide open and generally low key, but slow-lifted south side - which were once connected via surface lift but are no longer so. Thus, you can get from the south side to the north, but not back. Fortunately, this was not a problem, as the south stayed in the sun much longer, and was thus much more pleasureable to ride late into the afternoon.

Our accomodations consisted of a cozy cottage about 20 minutes drive from, and at about the same altitude (i.e. into the snow) as the ski area. As the road to the resort first went lower in elevation before rising back up into the snow, we were forced to remove and then reattach the chains on our tires once in each direction. Having never used them before, it was certainly a learning experience that we got very good at after flinging around metal chains in subzero temperatures while other cars whizz by (not always under complete control).

The riding was great. We almost immediately forwent the marked trails, which had been scraped pretty clean by lesser snowsports enthusiasts and the winds, for the off-piste and glade terrain. Getting to the summit was no pleasure, though, as it consisted of first one poma lift (one of those platter things that you stick between your legs and let pull you, which are basically a crotch-breaker for snowboarders), then a really-slow quad chairlift, then TWO MORE dreaded poma lifts, one of which covered a path perpendicular to the fall line, making it nearly impossible to stay on the thing. Overall it took nearly 45 minutes just to get up the hill.

Summit shreds

Thankfully, getting down was worth it. First we usually traversed the wide open upper bowls and made a few long, fast carves before getting into the mine-field like scrub brush. It was fun and good practice to seek out lines between the relatively soft new pines about 1-2 feet tall (if you blew it you could just cruise over them, more or less) before getting into the full size tree runs below. Here was where trying to stay on top of the terrain was important, because getting too deep into the fall line inevitably led to a stream or collection of rocks that necessitated unstrapping one’s bindings in order to cross or dig out of. Needless to say we did our fair share of trying to walk through knee-deep powder (not fun) after finding ourselves in a watery cul-de-sac. But these times were worth the tree-dodging, line-spotting, silence of nature and whoops of joy that we mostly experienced.

More pictures and videos after the jump.

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