bank accounts

As I edge closer to marriage, the details are being discussed. Little details we didn't think about, but will inevitably need addressing. Like Nicole having to call me 'sir'. Haha, I joke. She will only speak once spoken to, addressing me as 'your liege', 'm'lord' or 'your majesty'.

Anyway, we were talking about money and I realised we need to share a bank account. And seeing as we will be living and working in England, we will have to share MY bank account. That was weird.

Your bank account is sacrosanct, like your diary or your porn collection. It's your business and yours alone, no one is to touch it nor is anyone allowed to take from it. Like your porn collection. Passwords, codes and statements are just for your eyes only, like your porn collection. And it works well that way - until you are getting married.

But as my wife, Nicole will be privvy to all my monies. My money is her money, so she is as free to spend it as I am. My hard earned money, mine, being spent on colourful scarves and public radio, Cuban cocktails and donations to uber-liberal MidWestern Democrats. Am I OK with that?

My money is usually spent solely on me. I earn it, it's mine. Beer, is the main outgoing. But also stylish foreign t shirts, hair wax, contact lenses and the occasional eBay purchase (always hasty, nearly always regretted) do pop up now and again. But that's OK, because that's what I like.

I have never wanted to share my money. Not even with my closest friends and family (when it's my turn to buy a round, I usually fake cramps and run out the bar). It's my money. Not anyone else's. But after I am married it will be, it will be as much hers as it is mine. And in the same vein, her money will be as much mine as it is hers.

And I thought about it, and I'm OK with it. I want her to have it. She will be my partner and we will share everything. And I want to share everything with her. My money is her money. I mean what would I do with it without her anyway? 

Well, I suppose my statement would show a few more late night £20 being taken out (when you are alone and sad and have had enough beers, walking 3 miles to an ATM for money for drugs is NEVER a bad idea) and I guess there might be a few more £2.99 payments to that innocuous, harmless web company (porn is so discrete these days). But nothing else. No weekends away, no holidays, no savings, no gifts - nothing worth while.

So after august 1st, bank account number 5******5 (you thought I would be dumb enough to give you my, nay our account number?) will be the bank account of both of us. And I for one am looking forward to that.

szerencs vs. mars

I just spent a while perusing the shots of the Phoenix mission and it got me thinking:

1. It's difficult to get to

2. It's barren

3. There isn't a cinema or a Pizza Hut

4. There are a lot of rocks

5. I would be quite bored if I was there

Yep. Szerencs is a lot like Mars. 

a new tribulation

I have big news. Maybe the biggest news of my life. I am going to be getting married to Ms Nicole Robinson, my girlfriend of 18 months (the shorter one in the photo). This blog entry is my version of one of those creepy announcements in the local paper. 

It's not something I have not run head first into like those sad old guys that 'find love' in the Philippines or the Ukraine. We have been friends for nearly six years and most of you know our romantic tale. We met, I fell in love, she didn't, we lived apart for years, she caught up and fell in love, we crossed the Atlantic a few times and now we find ourselves in Szerencs. Phew.

And we aren't getting married to prove our funky international love to the world. Thanks to an age of Terror and a few very powerful moronic Americans, I can't live in the USA as a single UK citizen any time soon. And Nicole can't live in London thanks to equally moronic powerful British officials. So we either split up, do the long-distance thing or marry. Marry it is, then. Really, spend a few minutes perusing the immigration websites for either the UK or the US - as someone on a forum so eloquently put it "We are supposedly cousins, but a British person trying to gain access to the USA is suddenly demoted to the international level of an illiterate Palestinian goat herder".

So we are becoming Mr and Mrs Jones this August. From there we have free access to either shores whenever we like - all it takes is a lifetime agreement, thousands of pounds and millions of forms, copied and verified. Piece of cake.

And neither Nicole or myself like attention. We shy away from any form of focus upon ourselves, we don't like shouting from the rooftops and we don't have egos. So the idea of a big, white wedding terrifies us. As a result, we decided not to have a big deal - just our immediate families in a registry office in my home town, Watford. Essentially signing a bit of paper in a crappy office in a crappy town. It's no Charles/Diana fairytale, put it that way. 

Then it's to 'Old Orleans Family BBQ Restaurant' for the lunch afterwards. Previously 'Quinceys', Old Orleans is an American-themed restaurant that I enjoyed throughout my childhood where one can get sticky ribs, shakes and huge burgers. The walls are adorned with Hollywood stars, license plates and baseball bats (and a canoe). It's as tacky a restaurant as anyone could find, but it is a perfect homage to our Anglo-American situation. And the father of the groom can eat ribs. He likes ribs ("I just like food you can get involved with")

I am leaving Szerencs in a matter of weeks, so this blog will cease to document the Hungarian world I find myself in. Instead it will document my life as one half of an international relationship, and our lives in London and Minneapolis. Lots more tribulations and lots more muffins, of both the American and English variety.

queuing

This is by far and away the touchiest subject for me when it comes to Hungary. It makes my blood boil, it makes me want to hurt people and it makes me want to stamp up and down in the middle of the supermarket. People in this country can't fucking queue up*. At all.

British people can pride themselves on few things: Our language for one, that bunch of German incestuous slugs we call the Royal family second and of course our capacity for drinking gallons of cheap lager while abroad. But nothing says Rule Britannia like a good line. No matter your age, your creed or your colour, if there is a queue anywhere in Britain you get to the back and wait your turn. There is no exception - why the Queen herself might one day fancy a 99 with a flake** and if she came upon a line in front of the ice cream van, by God she would get to the back of it. Queuing - it's what separates us from the animals. It's our art form.

It's not hard to master - first come, first serve. First to cometh upon the establishment, the first to be serveth by the establishment. If I have finished my shopping before someone, logic and politeness dictates that I should be able to pay for my shopping before that person. If we didn't have this startling simple system it would be anarchy - why without the order of queues we may as well throw our shopping basket down, rip off our clothes, sling some shit against the wall and start mating with whatever we can get our hands on. 

But for Hungarians it's just not that simple. It's more first come, 'better keep your wits about and stand as close to the shop assistant as possible' served. You have to have eyes in the back of your head. Standing in the queue....standing in the queue....turn around for one billi-second...BAM! An old lady has shoved past you and begun placing her various sandwich meats on the conveyor. And does she have remorse? Is she wracked with guilt? No, she just stands there counting out her coins with a 'I have had a hard life' grimace on her face.

I have been in situations where there have been 10 to 15 people in a line waiting to be served, bustling for position like it was the start of the Olympic marathon, when out of the blue a man just waltzed in front of me. Then, then he smiled at me! Smiled! The nerve! The bastard took my place in the line....and smiled! I didn't know what to do. Should I smile back? Is the V sign a gesture of anger here? Is it OK to hit a man in his sixties?

The post office is the worst. It's so bad that I am not going to regale you with the heinous tales. Just think of the most hideously unjust situation you have ever been the victim of, add the stench of a lot of unwashed old women and gypsies and you are close to what it's like to try and post a letter from Hungary. 

But it's something they have grown accustomed to. Like the smells, or the unerring sense of doom. It's not impolite here, it's just the done thing. 

I must finish as my blood pressure is rising to dangerous levels for a young non-smoker of 23. There are many things that shock me in this country; acts of sheer stupidity or lack of foresight that make you want to cry - but nothing, nothing beggars belief like experiencing Hungarians waiting to be served.

*For all you Americans, queuing is "standing in line"

** Again for the johnny foreigners - a 99 with a flake is a soft ice cream, usually costing 99p, with a Cadbury's flake stuck in it, sold by an immigrant in a van. It's a British summertime tradition, like socks and sandals or donkey rides.

writer's block

I know my blogs have become quite sporadic, and for all those who are fans of my musings (and there are many of you) I am sorry. It's just right now I am having some writer's block.

'But how Lee?' I hear you all shout, 'you are so good at writing, so funny and witty, how can it be difficult for you, this century's Oscar Wilde, to come up with regular posts of unequalled genius?'

First, thank you fans, you are too kind. But it's because right now I am working two jobs and it's tough to keep up the dynamic creative flow that you have got so used to. My first as you all know, is to be a babysitter for classes of Hungarian teenagers. This isn't the best job in the world, but I don't work hard and I don't think I really do my job properly (I have a new lesson plan, it's called 'playing outside'). My second job is more demanding - I am a copywriter for an online mortgage brokerage. I know, glamourous right?

I have to churn out hundreds and hundreds of 500-word articles about how great self-cert mortgages, offset mortgages, adverse mortgages and buy-to-let mortgages are. It pays the bills but it doesn't fire up my soul exactly.

And it's a good job. The guys who run the site are good guys, and I can essentially work in my underwear, which is living the dream. But it does mean at the end of the day the last thing I want to do is write more. I want to sit, eat and fall asleep. In that order. As a precocious artist I need to be constantly sucking the teat of creativity, not writing things like "with some good advice and some prudent saving you could find yourself the perfect mortgage".

But I will persevere. I have a few dazzling bon mots left before I pack up for a whistle-stop tour of Europe so stay tuned. Next time: Hungarians doing stupid things and looking miserable while they do it.