Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Ministering
I rose at dawn to meet the High Priest of Politics, Mr. Minister and while I was preparing for the Big Meeting I kept thinking about IT devils (some of you heard the SMS story), Keanu Reeves (the Matrix rules us all!) and the Hungarian comedy The Minister Cheats. This one is hopefully not a cheater and luckily I am not in a position to judge, but all Hungarian men surely deserve a good pounding on their heads and nuts (more on this later). Minister was kind and enthusiastic and I enviously explored the map of his travels in Hungary. When I was criss-crossing Hungary 3 years ago to do interviews, I fell in love with my country again. Such beautiful towns and sweet people! I wish I could drive (but PB and brothers refused to let me practice after my encounter of gently landing prospective actor-lover's car in a ditch at a drunken post-festival run), and explore Hungary more while I am here. Ministering ended with me in minister's audi as he had to run off to Parliament. Hmm, there is something wrong with me. I am so unimpressed with political power. Politics always left me cold, I love studying it but doing it is a different cabbage-soup altogether.
Envy me! I am a lucky thing. This week I also briefly met a former Minister of Finance, author of the Bokros-package, the Hungarian shock-therapy/economic stabilization program of 1995. These reforms were "evil curse on the majority of Magyars" or our savior from the abyss. Its impacts are still debated, but his hand shake was firm!
Of course, the only recent hand shakes that turned me into an excited schoolgirl came from VPs of large US foundations who were gathering in Budapest last week. For that, I am a lucky lucky thing.
Envy me! I am a lucky thing. This week I also briefly met a former Minister of Finance, author of the Bokros-package, the Hungarian shock-therapy/economic stabilization program of 1995. These reforms were "evil curse on the majority of Magyars" or our savior from the abyss. Its impacts are still debated, but his hand shake was firm!
Of course, the only recent hand shakes that turned me into an excited schoolgirl came from VPs of large US foundations who were gathering in Budapest last week. For that, I am a lucky lucky thing.
