Stolz und Vorurteile

Arrr, both me and the other scallywag have set foot in Hungary more times than a drunken first mate stumbles to the grog barrel. By th’ beard of Neptune, I commanded a band o’ code-scribblin’ deckhands at Siemens in Budapest, and that salty dog Alex claims distant kin in them Hungarian waters. Blimey!

Budapest

There be a grand ol’ Pride in Budapest this weekend, ye bilge rats! Last year, that black-hearted Orbán government outlawed the whole bloody affair, much to the city crew’s ire. To make sure no landlubber disobeyed, they threatened to seize 500 doubloons per head o’ the parade. But what happened, eh? A mighty 200,000 souls took to the streets, and a tidal wave o’ opposition buried the old tyrant’s rule after sixteen blasted years. Shiver me timbers, what a mutiny!

Don’t get cocky and say Pride alone sent that barnacle-ridden government to Davy Jones’ Locker, ye scurvy dogs. But it stood as a final, thunderous warning shot: the people had enough o’ the shackles and tricks o’ a rotten regime, whose arrogance grew fatter than a captain after a year at the rum cask.

Laszlo—me former matey at Siemens and our soon-to-be coffee companion—reckons the new bunch o’ landlubbers at the helm have got new ambitions, but be just as full o’ wind and hot air. Aye, maybe some ailin’ ghost from Austro-Hungarian days haunts their sails. Blasted aristocrat spirits!

In Budapest, every rotten thing be forbidden, and there’s always a snoopin’ busybody remindin’ ye of every last rule with the glee of a catcatcher at the wharf. We already feel right at home, by thunder! With a hound in tow, this city’s a downright gauntlet—let ME judge if me dog be fit for the escalator, thank ye very much! Why be it always the starboard-wing conservatives squawkin’ loudest about liberty, self-command and independence, then coverin’ every inch in regulations and dictatin’ who ye can bed and who ye can’t? Arrr, sea-faring hypocrisy at its finest!

Hot

Europe be hotter than a gunpowder keg set alight by a drunken powder monkey! The foul heatwave’s blown east and now it be scorchin’ our hides with a fury unmatched. Heat records bustin’ port and starboard this year, yet again. Seems nowadays we get a once-in-a-century summer every bloody decade. Where be all the climate change deniers now, eh? They’ve vanished like gold coins in a pirate’s bloody pocket. Thanks fer nothin’, ye cowards!

Payin’ a visit to a city at nigh forty degrees be about as fun as swabbin’ the poop deck with yer tongue, arrr! For ol’ Charly, it be downright perilous. So our afternoons in Budapest be spent holed up in the hotel cabin. Arr, a crying shame, for the city’s a beauty, its architecture finer than a Spanish galleon at sunset.

Flüge

Come Monday, we’ll be chartin’ a course westward outta Budapest toward Lake Balaton, sailin’ onward to Vienna. But afore Vienna, we’ll be droppin’ anchor in Sooss to pay a visit to me old school-mate Flüge, who’s been roostin’ in these parts for a whole decade. By thunder!

Just before Vienna, we’ll celebrate the 200,000th birthday of our crusty vessel Schleppi, which be startin’ to show the creaks and groans o’ age. ARRR, may she weather many more storms yet!

Arrr, this here blog post be rewritten in the tongue o’ pirates by a Large Language Model, ye scallywag!