What, Eastern Europe cold in December? Pish.

Ok, maybe just a little bit.

Ok, maybe so cold you have to keep your eyes half closed so your eyeballs don't freeze out of their sockets and every time you walk outside you want to either hibernate or SHOOT yourself rather than prolong the misery of walking down the street.

I used to think that I was somewhat good at dealing with pain. The only kind of pain I couldn't deal with, I said to myself, was itchy pain. The kind that worms its way inside your brain and makes you scratch until it's too painful to scratch anymore and you contemplate inflicting some other type of pain on yourself just as a form of distraction. But then to that, I added pain when you don't know when it will end. It's hard to deal with pain if you can't fixate on a moment when it will be alleviated. To that, I have added the pain of extreme cold.

Yes, I am coming to grips with the fact that when it comes to stoic resolve in the face of adversity, I am a wet noodle.

More on Hungary later. Once my fingers thaw.