Budapest

BUDAPEST (Fri. 11—Sun. 13 Feb.)

Awoken four times in the night for our passports to be checked didn’t prove restful (we’d gone through part of Slovakia), and as the Australians sharing our six-bunk sleeping compartment opened the blinds I was discomfited to see the snow-embellished landscape. The small peaked-roofed houses flashed by the train, as we lowered our various bags from the top bunks and tried to wake up.

Budapest is a city of contrasts: magnificent structures from its Imperial heyday clashing with the legacy of Communism. With its 20 years of unadulterated tourism, Prague has managed to restore all of its buildings, maintain a Swiss level of street cleanliness, and train its townspeople to speak the lingua franca. I can see Budapest getting there in five years’ time: the EU will shower money upon the Hungarians, and soon the train station won’t have peeling paint, buildings’ moldings will be scrubbed to a pristine whiteness, ubiquitous graffiti will be waged war upon. Will Budapest lose some of its gritty charm? No doubt. Will it become a cookie-cutter Prague? Doubtful.

Our first day in Budapest had its ups and downs. I present it in list form:

1.) Good: upon arrival at the hostel our friendly Hungarian door clerk apologized for our door’s squeaky hinges.

2.) Bad: having to spend an hour-and-a-half at the post office to mail Michelle’s Czech crystal home to her parents. (My guidebook warned of huge lines—we should’ve known.)

3.) Good: the two English-speaking clerks were so nice to her that we wanted to buy them flowers.

4.) Bad: being told to by the tourist information ladies to head “down the stairs to the left,” we thought there might be a florist among the shops in the metro. Not so. On trying to go above ground we were approached by two controllers demanding to see our nonexistent tickets. They spoke no English; we, no Hungarian. The only English word they knew was “fine.”

5.) Good: luckily we were approached by trilingual Mormon saviors! Two girls, one German, one American, translated for us. We explained we’d only wanted flowers; the horrid little bearded guard explained that you need a ticket to use the metro station, even if you weren’t on a train.

6.) Bad: even showing him how we’d entered without noticing the ticket validation posts didn’t work—he bent down to a tiny sign a foot above the floor, hidden by some plywood walls for construction. Apparently it “clearly” said you had to pay. The fine? 10,000 Forints each.[1]

7.) Good: when we got back to the hostel, upset and angry, our desk clerk pointed out the door. While we were gone he’d thoughtfully oiled the hinges for us. When told about our predicament, he said they tend to prey on tourists. “Next time,” he said, “run.”

Saturday we were in much better spirits with the arrival of my Austrian friend Alexander. Alex and I were involved in the international students club at the U of I when I was a senior. He and I and the other Austrians from his university hung out on occasion, and when I was traveling last spring I visited him and Kerstin (my official club “buddy”) in Vienna. I’d only planned on staying in Vienna a few days, but it was so entrancing a city—and they so hospitable—that I stayed for longer, and fell in love with it.

When he found out I was going to be visiting Europe, Alex wrote: “if you are not to far away from Vienna and if you wonna see me maybe I could go abroad (prague, budabest) for two days!”  I was, of course, delighted—and honored that he got up at 5:30 a.m. in order to take the train to Budapest to meet us.  His infectious enthusiasm and sense of humor (yes, Austrians can be funny, and even silly at times) helped him instantly bond with Marissa and Michelle.  The latter is even visiting him in May on a return trip to Europe, and I’m sure she’ll have just as much fun in Vienna with him as I did.

Saturday morning dawned cold and snowy—our only day with any precipitation.  Large, fluffy flakes obscured the grand vistas along the Danube, but muffled the city’s noise.  Fortified with chocolates from the most famous pâtisserie in the city, Café Gerbeaud, we ventured to the stunning St. Stephen’s Basilica, named after the patron saint of Hungary (aka St. István) who united the Magyars in the 8th century.  Devout Catholics Michelle and Alexander attended Mass there the next day and were treated to a procession of bishops (Alex recognized his from Vienna).  They’re not sure what was so important, though, as everything was of course in Hungarian.

Seems every city we went to had a famous bridge—Budapest’s being the Chain Bridge, a monumental construction that was the brainchild of an eccentric nobleman.  I was amazed to learn that the first bridge to connect Buda (on the left bank) with Pest (on the right) wasn’t built till 1836 (by English architects, incidentally).  We admired the swift current of the Danube as we walked over, then treated ourselves to a ride up to Várhegy (Castle Hill), in a small tram called funicular.  The fortress, first founded in the 12th century, has been besieged a colossal 31 times since then.  What remains now are structures built in the 1800s around a nucleus constructed by my namesake Maria Theresa of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  It was interesting to me to be in the company of an Austrian—for without the Austro-Hungarian Empire Budapest would not have become the mighty city it was.  Nor, without WWII and the Axis powers, would it all have been destroyed.

The Hungarians, as I remarked before, have done a remarkable job of reconstruction.  Indeed, as we walked around Old Town on the crest of Várhegy, I couldn’t help but compare the cheerful, brightly-colored houses, each with their individual character, to the tract houses built in slap-dash fashion after WWII in the United States.  The difference in style and substance stems from the fact that the Hungarians built to reconstruct what was there before, while Americans built what was quick and cheap.  It was piquing, though, that none of the houses were truly historical (although they looked it).  Michelle’s brother-in-law rightly teased her before our departure: he claimed she wouldn’t see any old buildings on her trip.  He was partially correct, since almost everything in Old Town had been restored and reconstructed except for two buildings.  One, incongruous in its placement halfway between the glowing white castle and Old Town’s dense medieval-style streets, stood in forlorn decay.  Bullet-holes and blasts from shells pockmarked the huge stone bricks, and a temporary corrugated roof had been placed overhead.  No mention was made of it in our guidebooks---a lost building, waiting for money from the EU to be restored.  Yet I liked it, its still starkness crying silently, “Remember me.  This is what Budapest looked like not too long ago.”  In whitewashing buildings, are memories as well?  The other building was just a tower to an old church my guidebook mentioned as the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.  Scattered holes abound in its original cream stones, and reddish bricks carefully fill in the remnants of what was once a proud structure.  Most tourists no doubt give its two-tone shabbiness a cursory glance on their way to the cuter church, Mátyás Church, down the street. But my memory is transfixed by the small comment my guidebook made: that the rest of the church was so badly damaged it was torn down.  How much else was lost in WWII?  Or in any of those other 31 besiegings?   

Enough.  We walked to the last stop on Várhegy, the Fisherman’s Bastion, which a friend and a cousin had both recommended.  What its nautical/military name belies is its purpose: a delightfully ornate overlook to the British-inspired Parliament Building across the river in Pest.   As dusk fell we grabbed a bit of goulash, attempting to say thank you, köszönöm (kur-sur-um) as we left for our boat tour.  It was fun gliding up and down the river, drinking champagne and bad red wine, as we learned about the various structures we passed. There, Parliament, over there, Elizabeth Bridge.  As the tour neared its finish, the famous “Blue Danube” began playing.  “You must waltz with me,” said Alex, himself an accomplished dancer.  (At the balls they hold throughout the year in Vienna, he often is part of the select couples who get to open the dancing.)  So although none of us girls knew how to waltz, he took it in turn to teach us.  There I found myself, waltzing on the Danube in Budapest with my Austrian friend.  Lucky girl.

The only thing I absolutely had to do Europe was visit the baths in Budapest, and I spent the weeks ahead of the trip reminding the girls to bring their swimsuits and telling them how after one therapeutic soak my cousin’s bum knee was healed for a year.  The hype, I’m happy to report, was true.  We chose for our inaugural bathing the most famous complex in Budapest, the Gellért Baths.  Built at the turn of the century in magnificent marble and mosaics, it once served as the honeymoon destination of a European princess.  After the day spent there, I can see why—and if I don’t spend my honeymoon in Slovenia it just might have to be at the Gellért Hotel.  It’s just so eminently civilized to spend one’s days at the baths.

Yes, there were lots of flabby old ladies running around starkers on the women’s side of the baths—and plenty of girls with perfect bodies in the nude as well—but this only made Michelle, Marissa and I feel vastly more comfortable about our own physiques by the time we joined ab-tacular Alex in the co-ed hot bath. It was liberating being around so many pale Europeans, no one overly concerned with their muscles or their tan (who’s going to get tan in Budapest in the winter anyway?). And it was relaxing soaking in the different levels of hot baths on the women’s side. And it was just plain fun playing around as we did haphazard laps in the large swimming pool. By the time we got out my fingers were shriveled, and I spent the rest of the day feeling heavy without my beautiful mineral-laden water to give me buoyancy.

Buoyant spirits abounded in the nearby restaurant we chose, as we giggled into our traditional Hungarian dishes. Most of the rest of the evening was spent trying to teach Alex useful (though highly inappropriate) English phrases he missed out on while studying abroad. He’s been putting them in good use ever since, addressing me in his latest email as his “favourite lady of the night.” The restaurant, for some reason called the Nevada Pub, was host to one of the most friendly Hungarians we met. Our delightful young waiter laughed at our attempts to say kérem (please) and köszönöm (thank you), and wrote down for us how to: ask for the check (kérem a számlát), say “you’re welcome” (jzívesen), “enjoy your meal” (jó éjvágyat kívánok) and—most importantly—how to say “cheers.” My Hungarian-descended aunt-in-law had told me it was ishtun altushun, but it’s actually “egguh shegguh druh.” Say it with me now: Egéségedre! Not being able to speak English, he luckily could speak perfect German with Alex, and gave us directions on things to do later in the evening.

Alas, we had no time to explore the outskirts of Budapest, for Alex’s train back to Vienna left a few hours later. We contented ourselves with visiting the nearby Cave Church, a church in—you guessed it—a cave. Staffed by monks for eons, when the Communists rose to power they filled the entrance with concrete and arrested all the monks. Now it’s been reopened, and we waited for Mass to be over before venturing inside its white, organic interior, decorated with candles and fake plants.

With time for one last drink, I bought a round of my favorite Hungarian liqueur, a strong brandy called palinka (my favorite is peach) that sent shivers up Marissa’s arms each time we drank it. Our farewell to Alex at the train station was so sad he took a picture of us crying and waving our handkerchiefs. (Okay, so that one was staged. It was Kleenex, not handkerchiefs.) I know that, having seen him already in three countries, I’ll no doubt see Alex again soon.

With one last night in Hungary I had a hankering after more alcohol (what kind of tourist would I be if I didn’t sample the local liquor?). I convinced Michelle to go across the street so I could try the delicious sweet white wine called Tokaj (toe-kye), and unicum, a chartreuse-type drink made out of 40 kinds of herbs. The latter wasn’t at all to my taste, so I asked the guys at the next table to help me out. They were two Australians from our hostel, Stuart and Phil, and we spent a delightful hour in conversation with them. Stuart doing the typical around-the-world trip, I gave him my email in case he made it to Chicago. Last week I received an email from him, currently in Syria with plans to visit Egypt, Jordan and Russia before the U.S. Would I be able to host him for a night in May? With alacrity I said yes, while thinking how amazing it is to have had not one, but two foreign visitors come out of this whirlwind trip, Stuart and Louis-Philippe.

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[1] Okay, so that’s only $10. But still, it’s the thought.