Budapest

Budapest is far enough north that I enjoyed very long hours of summer daylight, and it was still light out in the evening when I got into Budapest, in spite of the delay. The rain had stopped and the only commuters in the metro system were stragglers. I came out at the East train station—I'd picked a hotel near it, since I’d take a very early train to Prague—and took a number to line up for a ticket. Being there, surrounded by backpackers, brought on a wave of nostalgia. It felt so natural, as if I’d been doing it all along, as if it hadn’t been over a decade since I regularly hung out at European train stations. A $38 ticket to Prague for Friday in-hand, I headed to the hotel to check in, and to a restaurant around the corner for a light dinner. The restaurant was pretty empty, so the meal—and generous glass of wine—came with a fascinating chat with the waiter. We talked about how Eastern Europe has changed since the transition, though not monolithically. He noted that Budapest is still far from the radar of many travelers. Americans tend to dream of London, Paris, and Rome, while Brits tend to gravitate toward dirt-cheap beer. Of which there happens to be plenty in Budapest, but Prague and the Balkans are more up their alley. I didn’t think to tell them that I could name a handful of coworkers who’d been there recently; one had loaned me his guidebook. When I headed back to work yesterday, I toted five books (three guide books, one phrase book, and a novel) and one map to return to three coworkers.

I hadn’t been to Budapest before, so I couldn’t speak to how it had or hadn’t changed. Prague has changed enormously since I was there in 1998, and I imagine that the Budapest of those years was even more different. It’s still has a very Eastern European feel to it. It reminded me quite a bit of St. Petersburg—stunning and somewhat decrepit at the same time. It’s hard to get a sense from the cosmopolitan capital the mood of the rest of the country, much less the atmosphere that brought about a super right-wing, nativist government. I can’t speak intelligently to the politics, so I won’t.

I probably can’t speak intelligently to the architecture, either, but I’ll try. Budapest is stunning, on both a large and small scale. By large scale, I mean that from any bridge connecting the two parts of the city, or from either bank of the river, or the Buda hills, the view—the skyline, for lack of a more precise term—is breathtaking. By small scale, I mean that when you turn a corner from any street—small streets, streets in unexotic parts of the city—you unexpectedly stumble upon a beautiful building or tower or balcony. The morning of my first full day in the city, I made my way to the Buda side for a guided tour that was included with the transit pass I’d bought. It was true, as my friend’s guidebook said, that this particular pass was a bad deal for transit—I’d bought it a few days before I read the book—but it was worth it, for me, for the tours. For those of you considering Budapest—and I highly recommend that you do—you can get by on single tickets if you can be bothered to buy single tickets every time (you can also get ten-ticket passes or other passes). Also, a pass will get you into the city from the airport—that trip and the handful of metro, bus, and tram rides I took over the three days probably came to about half the cost of the pass; adding in the discounts for the Synagogue and the Seycheni baths—the only two things I paid admission to—would probably get us to two-thirds. Of course, you can get by with the self-guided tours in the guidebook, but the first rule of making travel decisions is “know yourself,” and I knew I wouldn’t have the patience for that. You could also go on various free tours offered by random residents, but I was happy to have something more established to count on. So I made my way down one of the main boulevards, then through the Jewish quarter and Deak Ferenc Terrance, to the river, where the first breathtaking view opened up before me. As I walked across the bridge, the view shifted but remained grand and stunning. Once across, I wound around and up the hills to an even more breathtaking view of the Pest side. I took to finding the meeting place for the tour—a statue, by the cathedral—and it took all three maps I had on me to figure it out. Even once I found the cathedral, I was hard-pressed to find the group. There were several statues, and various tour groups congregating throughout the square around Castle Hill. “Deep breath,” I commanded myself. If you miss it, you miss it. You guide yourself. But I didn’t want to miss it. I wanted the history, and, I realized, the social aspect of the group tour. I continued to circle the square, eyeing the statues in search of this mysterious group. I didn’t know if there would be a sign, an umbrella, any sort of guidepost. Just as I was about to turn back, I noticed and approached a smallish group congregating around a young man. It was, indeed, the tour I was looking for. The tour made my morning. We walked around Buda, learning about Hungarian history and culture. The guide was interesting and well-informed, not just about historical matters but about the latest research about the origins of the Hungarian people and language. He presented various perspectives—for example, the versions still taught in Hungarian schools, as well as the versions supported by archeological and scientific studies conducted within the last year. I learned that, contrary to conventional linguistic wisdom, Hungarian is not at all related to Turkish or Finnish. Also, did you know that the pre-Catholic Magyar people believed in a monotheistic religion with striking similarities to Christianity, thousands of years before Christ?

The guide, L., talked about the transition from having to learn Russian in school to having to learn English. The Russian, being compulsory, went in one ear and out the other. It fell out of favor initially upon the transition, but came back in style as Hungarians found that it was good for business. There’s also some nostalgia—the waiter I’d spoken with the night before said the same—for the communist past. (At least some) people selectively remembered the positives, the financial security, for example.

L. and I got to talking about learning languages, and then about the common theme between Hungary’s pre-Christian faith and Zoroastrianism: the victory of lightness over dark. Jay would have called me the teacher’s pet, as he did in India, before we both turned against our tour guide. After the tour, I asked whether he’d be leading the Pest tour the next day, but alas, it would be another guide. We agreed it would have been interesting to chat more. I’d also chatted a bit with some of the other tourgoers, particularly a mother and daughter from Belgium. I recalled how much I loved that part of traveling: meeting, learning from people you meet on the street, on trains, in hostels or even hotels.

I left the tour to see if I could get into the Parliament building, which is supposed to be even grander on the inside. So grand that in actuality, one should line up at 7am to get tickets. Between the hassle and the expense, and the fact that I’ve seen my share of blinged-out spaces and preferred to spend my time outdoors, I let it go (same with the Opera building). I just walked around town, and then popped into a vegan restaurant (I $hit you not) for lunch. I spent the rest of the evening just walking around town, which was equally but differently beautiful with its night lighting.

I’d walked all day—morning to evening, with a brief respite at lunch—and my legs were urging me to get some rest. Back at the hotel, the loneliness hit from out of nowhere, almost the way hunger does. I remembered how my friend had appeared on the Dulles bus, just when I needed him to; how he introduced me to his (girl?)friend, whom he was accompanying there, and how wonderful it was to catch up with him and talk to her a bit; how I couldn’t have planned for them to be there had I thought of it. And so I comforted myself with the fact that companionship would come soon enough—just another day before I meet up with Nina, and her family, who are for all intents and purposes family to me, too.

I didn’t have to wait that long. I came to the Pest tour meeting point— right by Budapest’s first McDonald’s, which invoked very conflicting emotions, a symbol both of the beginning of the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, and of the worst of the food system. This time, I took a different set of small, beautiful streets and parks, equally full of little surprises at each turn, and soon after getting there was enthusiastically greeted by my Belgian co-tourists from the other day’s tour. Shortly thereafter, we were all greeted by L., who was informed after midnight that the designated tourguide had to cancel and asked whether he’d fill in. It was a larger group that day—the sky was clearer—and I was glad to be amid friendly faces, while simultaneously and cynically surprised that they were already that.

Where the Buda tour, focused around Castle Hill and its more distant history, the information shared during the Pest tour had more to do with the more recent past, though not exclusively. We started with the Basilica before walking to the Imre Nagy bridge and the Parliament. We took the tram along the river to near the shopping district and learned about the man who inspired the statue on the hill: a bishop sent by the Pope to convert the newly conquered people to Catholicism. One person, apparently, was not interested in what the bishop was selling, and so nailed him into a barrel and rolled it down the hill, into the river. The statue was an attempt at collective atonement, an admission that perhaps that course of action wasn’t necessary—that the bishop could have been turned away with words instead. After this tour, L. asked what I was up to. I said I’d go see the Great Synagogue and eventually work my way out to Sechyeni for a much-needed thermal bath. He asked if I’d be up for lunch before all that, to which I said I’d love to, but food’s complicated for me here, as I don’t eat meat. To which L. said, “nor do I; I don’t eat animal products at all.” Holy $hit: I befriended a local vegan, in Budapest. Hi-fives all around. He said he knew just the place to put together the ideal vegan picnic, and off we went, to a nearby organic food shop. I picked out a macrobiotic spinach pie, and L. got a different macro savory pastry, as well as some macro desserts to share. Over the next hour or two, we had the most interest conversation about a wide variety of topics: food, food politics, post-communist transition, resistance to change (on a personal and societal level). The last of those grew out of the other three, not just the last. We wondered why so many people persist with unhealthy food habits, even when they know they’re unhealthy. He was writing an article about change and resistance to change, and our conversation fed in some ideas. After the picnic, I explored the synagogue and garden, with its steel weeping willow memorial to Hungary’s Holocaust victims. Afterward, my legs insisted they’d had enough, and I went back to the hotel to rest for a few minutes just until I could move again. I was in the perfect state to hit the baths. They were amazing. I realized, enjoying the hot, healing water and the surrounding architecture, that I’ve been to too many scenic hot springs to deem these the most beautiful—there’s just no point comparing them—but these were the only ones in a cool building. I’d hot-springed in Iceland, Panama, Ecuador, Canada, West Virginia ;), and Washington State, usually surrounded by mountains and other natural scenery; this was my first ever hot spring amid statues and towers. After soaking for a bit, I headed out for a light dinner, this time to a vegetarian café that had a few vegan offerings. I had a combinations of salads inside and took a veggie pie to go, to a nearby promenade full of sidewalk cafes and benches. The weather was perfect, the night was beautiful. I loved Budapest, but I was ready for Prague.