86 Where should we start the Brazilian story, Gábor? With the first trip out of 29, the night out with PauloCoelho, the sneaking into the Sambadrome in Rio, or the photo exhibition in Villa Barabás that disrupted the flow of traffic in Városmajor Street? – First things first. It was '92 when my childhood friend Ákos Szabó (Szibi) unexpectedly made a relatively large amount of money on the stock market. With his usual pessimism, he concluded that at the ripe age of 27, he peaked in life, and from here on, it’s all going to be downhill. All he had to look forward to was a mundane career, a family, some serious illness, followed by death. As a young artist at the time, I also adopted the traditional Eastern European suicidal mindset – Attila József was THE poet. As a painter, I worshipped Malevich, who also lived a self-destructive life. I only turned to Kafka if I wanted something cheerful. I was a scowling, misunderstood, often drunk, chain-smoking artist. Where does Rio de Janeiro come into this? – I agreed with Ákos but suggested raising the stakes: if we can agree that the end is painfully near, we should spend his money together somewhere amazing - it also seemed logical that he would lend me money to join the ride. The next day we flew out to Brazil. We had an 8-hour layover in Amsterdam – we'd never been there either – so we started the adventure then and there by visiting the city. Even as kids, we used to play stupid games, so after a few beers and a visit to a coffee shop, it seemed like a good idea to pretend to be Eastern European drug dealers and try to Brazil
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