A toddler? Or drunk?

Completely comfortable without pants.
Photo by Kata

What is a toddler other than a younger, cuter version of a guy at a party who's had too much to drink but doesn't know it?

Start with the coordination issues. He stumbles over his own feet. Walks into door frames. Slides off chairs. Am I talking about the toddler or the drunk who doesn't know he's drunk? They both fall face first, then get up, play it cool, and keep going towards whatever they were pursuing (usually food) like nothing happened.

You certainly can't tell them they've had too much of anything. Tell a toddler he's had enough cookies and you have a temper tantrum. And our drunk who doesn't know he's drunk? You tell him he's had enough, and you get a scoff that's way too slurred to take seriously and a "I'm cool, man," as tries to nonchalantly lean on something (and miss).

They're both sloppy eaters. Food flies everywhere, in all directions, like shrapnel in a blast zone. It's not just all over their faces. It's all over their clothes and in their hair (or beard). And they don't even know it, they're laughing and spraying bits of partially eaten crackers. Then you arrive and they come running to hug you, smearing apple sauce or Shwarma sauce (or a mixture of both) all over your clothes.

Both get easily carried away. A toddler will forget about the concept of self-preservation as he chases a ball under furniture, over the tops of tables, and around open ovens.

Our drunk will get carried away on the dance floor. Arms will flail in all directions, knocking over passers-by. He might even cut open his chin in a goth bar during a futile attempt at the Worm.

What else? There are the spilt drinks, and the tears from both over the spilt drinks. There is a wild enthusiasm when his song comes on. There’s the deep focus while they’re eating tacos. 

There's the babbly talk. A drunk that doesn't know he's drunk will slur on and on at you about the thing that's on his mind until he stops suddenly, because he forgot what he was talking about. A toddler, our cute drunk without the drink, will babble on in his own language about something, anything, but the conversation will go off the rails when a train comes into view.

A toddler loves his bicycle. Even when it's just a little too big for him and he tips over every time he tries to move a foot or two.

 

Our drunk who doesn't know he's drunk also doesn't know he's in no condition to ride his bicycle. But he'll walk it just out of sight of his concerned friends, then hop on and pedal away, laughing maniacally, before falling over.

The one difference between the toddler and the guy who doesn't he's drunk is the morning of the next day. The guy who doesn't know he was drunk awakes with the painful realization in his head and gut that he was indeed drunk and party is over.

The toddler wakes up the next morning as right as rain, has his diaper changes, and resumes the party, like it never stopped.

A Hangover-Free Trip to Paris

Paris from the Tour Montparnesse - A city that's always holding something back.

We went to Paris last year for a friend's wedding. We spent the afternoon before the wedding walking along the Seine and wandering around Montmartre. For the morning after the wedding, we had big plans: the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, and on and on the list went.

Then we stayed late at the party, drinking and dancing until they closed the place for the night. We didn't stop there, but stood outside double-fisting our roadie drinks with the bride, groom, and a few party-hard guests until enough was enough and we all went to bed.

We were too hungover to do anything other than call the lobby for a late checkout. It was a classic, brutal reminder that one of the things you lose in your 30s is the ability to metabolize enough alcohol to able to function the next day. We were functioning just enough to catch our flight that evening and not get kicked off.

Last weekend, we returned to Paris with a chip on our shoulder and a powerful determination to do the things we were too stupidly hungover to do. We might have overcompensated – Kata's pedometer phone app said we walked 22km on the first day.

We walked around Park La Villette, along a canal to the Battle of Stalingrad Square and witnessed a 11am trance dance party We continued down to Notre Dame – avoiding the line-ups and walking around it, then walking around the island itself. Then we just kept walking. Over Pont Neuf, through the Louvre's courtyards, into the sun-scorched Tullieres, all the way to the Obelisk in Place do la Concorde. We had crepes and cold drinks at a square with a Gothic church, then went scarf shopping for Kata, then dinner at a Brassiere in quiet neighbourhood.

The weather was sunny and warm, so we opted to stay outside instead of going into dark, air-conditioned museums, and marched and marched and marched through Paris. 

We did venture into one museum the next day. Kata insisted we see the inside of the Grand Palais, so we saw Artists & Robots, which wasn't on our list of things to see but turned out to be an interesting wide-ranging modern art exhibition of sculpture, paintings, and installations that combined people artists with robots, technology, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. As we watched robot arms drawing still life sketches and hexagonal floating things, I leaned over to Kata and mentioned this was an amazingly thought-out exhibition. She, who lived in Paris on a university exchange, smiled knowingly, patted me on the cheek, and said, "They're good at that here."

And on we walked that day, though we took it easier – my phone said we only clocked in 12km. We walked to the Arc de Triumph, then onward to the Eiffel Tower where, because we were seriously sore-footed, we found a shady spot to rest in the shade and look at the tower and watch the drink sellers ply their trade. But once rested, we continued our march through Paris, to some cafe and then to take in the view of the city from Tour Montparnesse, then a hearty brasserie repast.

Despite all the sights, we didn't get to do everything that Kata wished for us to see. Had the weather been less favourable, we would have gone to a few art galleries – Louvre, Palais de Tokyo, Musee d'Orsay – on our mental checklists. Had we gone to the galleries, we would have lingered and savoured it all and not have pounded as much Paris pavement as we did.  

But as with so many things in life, you can't do everything, though between restful moments of bliss over cold drinks or fine food, we certainly tried. There always seems to be something to see in Paris, but I also got the sense that it's a city that holds things back, so you're left with wanting to see a little more. I'm okay with that.

SUPER INTENSE TRANCE PARTY AT 11AM
AT BATTLE OF STALINGRAD SQUARE!!!!

Some church.

Photographing the mind of an artist that is a computer.

The Arc within the Arc de Triumph

Karneval For Foreigners

Combine these images in your mind: Mardi Gras. Halloween. Spring Break-style hedonism. Germans.

If your mind hasn't been blown, you should have a good idea of what the days before Lent look like in Dusseldorf, Cologne, and all over Germany's Rhineland. 

That is what Karneval looks like. 

There are parades, marching bands, folk songs, costumes, and dancing. There are costumes, candy, and fun for the kids. And there is a lot of partying for the older kids.

Our first brush with Karneval was while we were living in Dusseldorf's Altstadt, which meant we were ground zero for the drinking, carousing, dancing, bingeing, pissing, puking that accompanies Karneval.

A younger me might have loved that. But I am an old man now, and I had vertigo, which is not a lot of fun when everyday for five or six days (I lost track) there is either a party for 18 hours or street cleaning machinery for the remaining 6 below my window.

It's important to point out this is not a typical German phenomenon. It's strictly a Rhineland tradition. While the Rhinelanders party, the rest of Germany look on with a mix of surprise and dismay. It is, if we're going to rely on stereotypes, the most un-German thing you can imagine taking place in Germany.

Many non-Rhinelander Germans colleagues pack up and leave the area for an extended long weekend – the same way people in Florida board up with their windows and leave the coast when a hurricane is approaching.

Fun-loving, whatever-goes Berlin endures it, thanks to the government workers who relocated there from the old West German capital of Boon, in North Rhine-Westphalia.

And for Rhineland Germans, you either love Karneval or you hate it. Remember, they've been living with this all their lives, and many develop a powerful hate for the debauchery or the costumes or the Karneval songs (which all seem to sound the same to me).

As a foreigner, I have an advantage and a disadvantage. 

The disadvantage is I am an outsider to the festivities. I don't know the songs or the dances or the traditions. I didn't even bother with a costume last year, although Kata did. 

But being the outsider also means I don't have the years of hate for Karneval that others have for it. I just don't feel that strongly about it. I loathed the boozy carnage last year – I was also understanding, because I was a wild man once – but I enjoyed the spectacle of the costumes and the politically satirical parade floats.

As a foreigner, it would be easy to take the weekend off and ignore the whole thing. We almost did.

Instead we embraced our outsider-ness, put on costumes (well, just a wig for me), grabbed a few beers, and joined the crowd in Cologne. I might not love it, but I definitely don't hate it, and I don't know where I fit in, but we enjoyed it anyway.

The beer buying experience during Karneval in Cologne.

Daughter of Frankenstein.

A store in Cologne's downtown prepares for Hurricane Karneval.

Beer Countries

It’s common for many Canadians to point out that Europe does things better than us. 

I don’t agree with these views because Europe gets plenty of things wrong, like militant ultra-right-wing politics, loving soccer a bit too much, creating treaties that are supposed to prevent world wars but end up causing them, and burritos – it’s impossible to get a decent burrito over here.

I will admit that Europe gets a few things right, like the welfare state, public transit systems, and alcohol laws. I mention the latter because my home province of Ontario is loosening its current liquor laws. The old law allowed the sale of alcohol only in government-owned stores and Beer Stores, which are owned by a bunch of foreign brewers.

The new law will break the monopoly on the sale of beer and allow grocery stores to start selling it. No, wait, only some grocery stores after the required forms are completed. Oh, wait, the government is still fixing prices, so it’s still a monopoly. Oh, yeah, and it's going to take two years.

Okay, so Ontario is not really liberalising their beer sales, but in two years my fellow Ontarians will be free to buy beer in a store that the government chooses at a price that doesn't threaten the foreign/government stranglehold on the system.

While Ontario is making progress in baby steps, Europe is doing a better job. Even Germany does not have the bureaucratic red tape that Nanny State Ontario has when it comes to beer sales. And Hungary, oh, Hungary. That place is great for alcohol enjoyment.

Let’s take a closer look at three jurisdictions, because there is nothing more fun than comparing and rating countries with militant ultra-right-wingers to see if I will end up getting a molotov cocktail thrown through my window.

Germany

On a Sunday beer walk through a Berlin public park, I saw a man pushing a baby carriage with a beer. If I saw this back home, I would have also been able to watch a mob stone him for enjoying a beer in the presence of his child in a public space. On a Sunday afternoon anywhere, it should be cool for anyone to take their kid for a walk in the park and enjoy a frosty cold beer.

Cold beer is available is convenience stores (they call them kiosks). You can buy it in grocery stores, along with liquor and wine. There are no government monopolies. 

To say Germany is a beer country is an understatement, but to call it a drunken country is an overstatement. While beer is made widely available, drunken-ness is limited to the times and places you would expect drunken-ness. That's why the Dorf's Altstadt fills up with beer drinkers but other districts do not,

In Berlin's parks, along the Dorf's riverfront, and occasionally in the streets, people drink beer without going into Destructor Drunk Mode (but Germany might not be allowed to have a Destructor Mode anymore). 

The point I'm making is that in Germany it's social thing as much as it is a legal one. It makes bureaucratic-loving Germany freer than Canada.

RATING: 3 out of 4 Happy Drunk Marshalls

Hungary

When it comes to booze – and this is will be one of the few times you will see this written – the Hungarian government has got it right. They simply let it be. You can buy beer, wine, and liquor in the grocery stores and the kiosks.

Is it a pretty day out? Do you want to sit in the park and drink a beer? Go ahead! You can drink in the parks, on the streets, here, there, almost anywhere. You can buy beer as early as you like and – save for a few Budapest districts – as late as you like.

Again, this is a social thing. You're welcomed into someone's home with a shot of palinka. You have wine with dinner and sometimes a beer on a patio after work. You can stay out almost all night in the ruin pubs.

All of this makes Hungary a great party place, but it's still a great place to enjoy a few drinks – which is what the true enjoyment of wine or beer, or even palinka, is all about.

RATING: 4 out of 4 Happy Drunk Marshalls

Canada

I'm going to begin this section with a history reference* because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.

Canada sent almost 10 percent of its male population to war between 1914 and 1918, so the women were left running things. At the time the suffrage movement also advocated for prohibition, so while the war raged women got the vote and then passed prohibition. When the soldiers returned to a dry country, they were like, "Hey, this isn't what we were fighting for." So the Ontario government relented and said, "Alright, you can have your booze back, but it's going to be controlled by us."

That current system is almost 100 years old. The government stores, the foreign brewery-controlled monopoly, and the old timey social attitudes towards alcohol have changed very little. 

The one change since then is that you can touch the merchandise. Before that, you had to walk to the counter and ask for what you wanted, which was fetched from the back and briskly put into a paper bag before anyone could see. No wonder so many East Blockers settled in Ontario: it's central planning in all its un-debaucherous glory.

Ontario still has a long way to go, hopefully people tell the government that right now they are not going far enough.

RATING: 3 out of 4 Angry Drunk Marshalls

*Special thanks to Prof. George Warecki for sharing that gem during a lecture in his Canadian History class at Brescia College. Isn't kind of freaky that I remember that?

The Rhineland's Mardi Gras

Carnival has finished in the Rhineland.

It is a five- or six-day party – depending on how many days you take off from work – and we got to live in the middle of it.

What’s Carnival? It’s like the German (mostly Rheinish) version of Mardi Gras. But it’s not what you think. Efficient? Organized? Dismiss any of the stereotypes that pop into your head about Germans. It is Mardi Gars in all its beautiful chaos and debauchery. 

There are differences. People wear costumes instead of beads. There's almost no flashing. No one is drinking Hurricanes, but there is plenty of beer. 

Kata and I live in the middle of the Old Town, or the Altstadt, I think I have mentioned that the Altstadt is a bunch of old-style buildings on pedestrian-only cobblestone streets filled with bars, restaurants, and souvenir stores, but mostly bars.

I walk to work on Thursday, the beginning of Carnival through the Altstadt and people are already lined up for the Carnival kick-off at 11am. Oh, they're in costumes. Clowns. Fighter pilots. Nuns. Priests. Men in nun suits. A lot of FBI agents. Cops. Devils. White-haired aristocrats. Farmers. Mexicans. Maybe one or two angels.

I get into work and people are in costume too. There is a lunch party and colleagues are decked out as pirates, Indians (not so culturally sensitive over here), cows, cats, nerds, she-devils, and so on.

I get a text from Kata. She says it sounds like there’s a riot outside our windows. There are drunks in costumes stumbling up and down the streets. She’s trying to work at home, but that’s not going to happen. I walk home, through a crush of costumed partyers on the streets of Altstadt.

We venture out and wander the streets that evening. It's quite an incredible spectacle. Again, the streets and bars and patios are rammed with costumes. It’s a fun, but short, night out.

Then I get sick, so I stay home on Friday. I get sicker. I get vertigo. I lay down and I get the spins with dizziness and nausea. We go out for a walk, but I can only last an hour or so, then I have to lay down.

I try to get better but below the windows those costumed revellers are shouting, drinking, pissing, puking, and singing until 4am. Then the street cleaners blast down the streets to clean the mess for the next day’s debauchery.

We manage to escape the Carnival Chaos a couple of times during the weekend, for a walk in the park or down the river. But we return to the chaos every time.

This goes on until Monday, when the parade goes through town. We last through 45 minutes of marching bands and floats and people shouting 'Helau!' It's fun. Many of the bands are also in costume. The floats are amazing, and there's even a few political floats in the line-up. 

Then we have to go back in because, you know, I have this vertigo thing and I am a wimp.

Tuesday comes, the Carnival is over. I’m seeing doctors, everyone’s back to work. In Canada, there are pancakes and then Lent starts the next day.

That was my Carnival. Next year, maybe I might wear a costume and I promise I will try to be healthier.

Preachers gotta preach... and drink.
Photo by Kata Varga

Onesie buddies.
Photo by Kata Varga

There is so much going on here, it's awesome.
Photo by Kata Varga

Parade Day. Snow White and three of the dwarves made it onto a float.

Some of the floats were political, and therefore cool.
The translation: "Terror has nothing to do with religion."

Being all classy while killing brain cells in Budapest

A colleague threw a pre-party, which got a little carried away, and so the pre-party became the party... but only partly. 

By the time we left for the real party (only a few doors down from the pre-party-cum-party), everyone was cheerfully feeling the effects of the party.

We gather around a latecomer, who brought a bag of gyros as a late-to-the-party present and arrived to the real party. By now, there was no way the rest of the partiers could catch up to us and they looked on as we dug into the gyros. This was a nice bar, but that did not stop the feeding frenzy.

Carlos, Budapest's Brazilian wine sommelier and the bewildered onlooker from the story above, often recommended various reds from Villany. He was never wrong.

We dripped garlic sauce all over the floor, while handing half eaten gyros to each other and barely saying a word between bites. One of our friends, Carlos, was one of those left looking on at the debauchery. As he put it, the whole bar was absolutely disgusted by our orgy of gyro munching.

I’m recounting this tale because it is important to note that this was not brought on by whiskey, tequila or even palinka, but rose wine.

Yes, rose wine.

Hungary is a wine-growing country, which was news to me when I arrived. Little did I know the hills and several provinces' micro-climates combine to create a terroir that produces some damn fine wine.

On a visit to Eger, my friend Pavel and I sipped Bull’s Blood, a delicious, hearty red. Interestingly, and lucky for me, Hungary is known well for their dry reds. But there's some whites too. Tokaji, a delcious sweet wine, was declared 'Wine of Kings, King of Wines' by Louis XIV of France. I might have gotten that quote backwards.

I’ve developed a taste for dry whites and – I’m going to admit this on the internet, which could mean getting my Man Card revoked from some whiskey/beer drinkers back home – there are some dry rose wines that are pretty good too.

One of the reasons the wines of Hungary have been so accessible for me is they are cheap by Canadian standards. You can find a good bottles of wine in a Budapest corner store for as little as five Canadian dollars.

Back home, I used to walk the LCBO’s wine aisles feeling as if I had no knowledge on the subject and as if I had no business there –  like I was shopping for tampons 

In Hungary, I recognize bottles I have enjoyed, I try new wines thanks to the decent prices, and while my pairing knowledge is still limited to “Red with meat, white with fish,” I now strut down the wine aisles with a little more courage – and I promise it's not the liquid courage seen in the tale at the beginning of this post.

The Perils of the Palinka

The Palinka Effect

Joe, a work friend, gets invited into the apartment of a neighbour in his building. He does not speak Hungarian, the neighbour does not speak English, but the language barrier does not get in the way of hospitality: the neighbour offers him a drink. Joe accepts and the neighbour surprises Joe with a wine glass full of palinka. 

For the uninitiated, palinka is a brandy made from fermented fruit, like apricots, apples or whatever. You can make palinka with anything, like honey. There are big distillers, but it’s also a sort of cottage industry among Hungarians, like whiskey in the South. There are small-batch craft palinkas, and there is also a lot of homemade stuff out there, which is stronger and more dangerous. 

Joe was in the Danger Zone; he had the homemade palinka. He swayed back and forth, tie loosened and eyes all cross-eyed. He left the party early that night. Everyone has their own palinka story of woe. I have awoken up in the morning feeling like I have scorpions wrestling in my skull on several mornings because of the delicious, dangerous drink. 

A Czech art director likes to sip on palinka with a glass of water – much to the disgust of his North American colleagues. But he has the right idea. Palinka is delicious, but dangerous. It must be handled with care. It’s too volatile to mix with beer in copious amounts. It must be respected, you too will have scorpions wrestling in your skull.

Drinking Amid the Ruin Bars

The ruin bar Fogas Haz in all its pre-happy hour glory

John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first prime minister and a spectacular functioning alcoholic, was reportedly so drunk during an election debate that he keeled over on stage, threw up, then stood up, pointed at his opponent and said that was how sick his opponent’s policies made him.

My friend Tommy and I had a term for getting that drunk: London Drunk. It’s not as pukey as the honourable Mr. MacDonald’s antics, but just as debaucherous. It happened often in London, because it’s our hometown and we were always in good company. Sometimes it happened in Toronto, where a chunk of hearty, strong-livered Londoners have set up shop.

Even though I don’t get that way as much as I used to, Budapest is a place that wholly supports London Drunkeness – as proven by the ruin bars here.

For the uninitiated, ruin bars are apartment blocks converted into massive bars. The courtyards are dance floors or drinking terraces. The rooms of the old apartments are converted into party areas with different themes. The cellars are dancing dungeons of debauchery.

Drinks in Budapest are typically cheap by Western standards. Drinking bylaws are similarly lax, by killjoy Toronto standards. You can close down a bar at 4am, and then stagger blindly into an afterhours dance hole. But the ruin bar remains the heart of the evening.

You factor these circumstances into a situation where you are partying with hundreds of people in a formerly dilapidated apartment block and you have the potential London Drunk.

There's  the usual uncoolness. I had my winter coat stolen at one bar. A friend got into a fight at another. The dance dungeon should have a warning at the entrance for epileptics. But these are fun, cool places. The decor is all weird, the vibe is pretty cool, and there are pretty girls too. It’s tough to put a finger on what exactly makes them so great, but I suspect that's what helps keep people coming back.

Is it an owl? Is it a lady? It's the ruin bar decor at Instant.

The debate about where to go out or, in most cases, where not to go out is eternal. How often has a gathering of friends turned into a debate club about what we’re in the mood for: music or ladies or avoiding that damn bar we go to all the time or a combination of the above.

For some reason that kind of abstract mental math has not entered into the debates about going out. The ruin bars, and all the different sorts of people they attract, for better or worse, make it better places.  

Nobody gets London Drunk anymore, but I cling to the belief that even John A. MacDonald would want to get Budapest Drunk in a Ruin Bar.