Purim in Pest (and Buda!)

Chag Purim has come and gone...and with it, my hearing, half the skin on my face, and my chances of passing geometry.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning: A few billion years ago, some infinitely dense primordial mass began to expand rapidly, and....you know what? This could take a while. Let's skip to this weekend.
For reasons I will never comprehend, Purim was not at the forefront of my mind those many (one) months ago when I was packing for my trip. Thus, I made the short-sighted decision to waste valuable packing space on pants. Don't worry, I've learned my lesson. In as much as this aside had a point, it was that on Friday afternoon, I found myself facing the prospect of a costumeless Purim. Never one to miss an opportunity to publicly embarrass myself, I eagerly dragged (oxymoron?) my mathematically-exhausted body to the nearest thrift store (what, you expected me to hit a normal store? Do you see any pigs flying?). After picking my way through basically every article in the store, allowing the saleswomen ample time to plot my untimely demise by coathanger, I finally emerged from the dressing room with reevaluated priorities and the cheapest ghost-ish costume ever (90 Ft. FTW!). This is known as 'Shopping While Jewish' and is punishable in most places by pickled onions.

After spending much of Saturday in transit to and from Memento Park (both of which, the transit and the Park, probably deserve their own separate posts), I got home just in time to put on my spook-face run out again to Merlin, where there would be a Megillah reading. It should be noted that at this point I have not started my geometry homework. Merlin itself also deserves a quick note: it bears the distinction of being a club/theatre possessing both an English-language theater series and a staff whose English is limited to "No." To get in, you have to ask "Will you refuse to let me in?" Naturally, I sat through most of the Megillah reading with no clue as to what was actually happening. However, I took comfort in the fact that I suspect very few others in the room had any better idea. You see, the folks at Merlin figured that some of the community would prefer Hebrew and some Hungarian, so they made the clever decision to read the Megillah in both languages. SIMULTANEOUSLY. With both texts projected onto the screen behind the readers, scrolling through the text faster than most people can read, and faster than I could figure out exactly where the vowels were (in either language). Periodically, the two readers would pause so as to belt out "Hámán!" (*stompstompstomp*) in a lovely 6th interval, the Hungarian reader going far higher than can possibly be legal for a man his age. So at least I knew when to be obnoxious. I'm still not entirely convinced they weren't playing a trick on me and reading a modified version of the Tower of Babel, which given the evening, would have made much more sense. Although that doesn't explain the hamentaschen. Not that hamentaschen need an explanation.

Having met up with a few friends, we went to the place where all the cool Jews (hey. HEY. Stop laughing.) were going. After being told that the entry was an exorbitant 1200 Ft. ($6 for those of you who haven't gotten the hang of Hungarian currency, myself included), we promptly did an about-face. This is called Going Out While Jewish and it is punishable in most places by matzah brei. Instead, we went to a BSM party at a friend's flat. In the interest of time, and the interest of not discussing how I was destroyed multiple times in Bananagrams by a math nerd who presumably does not come from a family of compulsive wordgame players, I won't go in to much detail about said party. Suffice to say that I hadn't taken off my cheap costume, so I amused myself by seeing how long people could go on staring awkwardly without asking me about it. For most, it was quite a while. Also, I took off my spook-face and a layer of skin (start keeping track), only to reapply it upon leaving because I was going to...

...Buda! for a party at the White Angel Club, along with Texas Sam (dressed as "himself," but with an awesome cowboy hat). It should be noted at this point that I have not started my geometry homework. As for White Angel, what can I say? Jews know how to party. I SAID STOP LAUGHING. How to describe it...I'm really at a loss for words...
Fortunately, being so has never before stopped me from running my mouth (or keyboard), so I'll start off with 'loudtacular.' The dance floor itself was loudnormous, but by midnight, it was completely elbow-to-loud. The loudmosphere was completed by a model of people sitting around a table ON THE CEILING (which freaked me out EVERY TIME) and the hyperactloud lighting.
And then, there were the costumes. We had, among others, some crazy-detailed characters from Alice in Wonderloud, a creepily accurate Na'vi pair from Loudvatar, and a guy dressed as a box of Camel Cigarettes. A big, pointy, dance-floor-death-inducing box of Camel Cigarettes. He was loud. Now if I could only think of a way to describe the music.

Texas Sam is Texan. Go Longhorns!

Ghost Becca's unfinished business: eyeliner removal.

Quick math question: After spending about an hour scrubbing my face after White Angel, how many layers of skin did I have left? Answer: I don't know, but it doesn't matter because the number's about to go down again. Yes, even after sleeping through Sunday (note that I wasn't doing geometry homework), Purim was not over for me. As Hungarians are even more obsessed with vampires than tweenage Americans, Hora Budapest (where I go dancing) hosted a Vampire-themed Purim party that Monday night. Barely was my face beginning to look normal when out came the eyeliner and lipgloss, ready to render me unrecognizable to all but my closest friends and anyone not legally blind. Since most Monday nights contain at least half an hour of me staring blankly while the Markid goes off in Hungarian, it was a great happiness to me to be able to stare blankly while the Markid went off in Hungarian dressed in a ridiculous cape, with a flower, a bee, a tiger, and a vegetarian vampire prancing around behind him. Moreover, staring blankly is, like life itself, vastly improved by hamentaschen. It should be noted that while staring blankly and eating hamentaschen, I was not doing geometry homework.

Since once again my verbosity has led to unclear, inarticulate things, I think I am going to go attack my eyeliner-residue with a jackhammer. I mean, I'm already deaf anyway.

Hope you had a great Purim!