I spent three full days in Budapest, and honestly, I’m just sort of confused by them.
My first impression of Hungary was of organized chaos; the train that was supposed to take me from Zagreb to the main station in Budapest turned out to be a train to a bus to another train, but the bus picked us up and dropped us off, we herded politely and there were no problems with the changes. I met a very nice Greek girl who lived in Budapest to study Veterinary medicine to help me through. I went straight from the Budapest train station to my lovely host’s house, via taxi, the first one of the trip. She lives in Buda, the hilly side of the Danube, in the ‘burbs of the city, and I do have to take a combination of the metro, the bus, and my legs to get into the city center, but the comfortable bed, yummy food, and inviting atmosphere make it well worth it.
Day 1:
I headed into the city with a vague mental sketch of a plan and a borrowed guidebook tucked in my bag. Kris (my host) told me which metro stop to get off at and doodled a little map on a post it note for me. The adventure started at the train station where I had to withdraw forints, a currency where one seriously has to pay attention to the zeros. (I was fine, no mistakes were made.) I hopped on the metro and got off at the Parliament stop, Kossuth Lajos tér. Walking outside and seeing that grand and beautiful building was a real shock, as the train station and metro system are, and I’m being kind, functionally designed. After being duly impressed by the grandeur I meandered to the ethnography museum, which Kris recommended, which is also housed in a fancy-pants building, and got a little look into traditional Hungarian culture. I spent the rest of my afternoon wandering around the edges of the main part of Pest, (pronounced Pesht) and sipping a cappuccino at a cute cafe.
Day 2:
I took the same path into the city on day two but I took the metro two stops further to the very center of Pest. I wandered around this area for a little while before once again settling into a coffee shop and taking some time to reflect and draw. I then headed towards one of the main squares where I joined a free walking tour of the city’s general important monuments. My tour guide was a tiny pixie of a Hungarian lady, who proudly claimed to be born and raised in Budapest and to not want to live anywhere else. The tour started at 2:30 and didn’t end till 5:30, so I was happy to contribute to the donation bag passed around at the end. To hear a Hungarian talk about the history of his/her country is seemingly to hear a story of victimhood, of faultlessness, of oppression. I thought the combination of intense pride and victimhood was interesting, and it taught me early on to enjoy the tour but to listen with my critical thinking engaged. One very cool thing I learned about Hungarian is that “s” is always pronounced “sh” unless it is followed by a “z”, which made the spelling and pronunciation of Liszt suddenly clear. The walking tour ended on the Buda side of the river, so I caught a bus to another bus and made my way back to my accommodation. I had a really nice dinner with Kris and her two children, it has been 6 weeks since I sat around a table with family and a home-cooked meal. It was a welcome change!
Day 3:
My plan for day three was to spend most of my time in the zoo and botanical garden, but when I got to that stop and looked around it didn’t seem appealing so I headed back to the center and tried out a new coffee shop. I realized that it was getting close to the time that the tour company I went on the walking tour with the day before had another tour exploring the Jewish Quarter leaving soon. As I hadn’t explored the Jewish Quarter and it’s one of Budapest’s most important districts I decided to tag along. That tour went past the three main synagogues in Pest, including The Grand Synagogue, which is the third largest in the world. I have to admit I was a little worried about the victimized tone of a non-jewish Hungarian guide when talking about the Holocaust, but that sensitive subject was handled fairly well. There were a couple of statements made by our elegantly mustachioed guide that rubbed me the wrong way about the harmonious nature of Jewish and Hungarian life before the first world war, but I got over it and enjoyed the tour. I had heard on the previous tour that Hungarians were very smart, in fact they had won 14 (or 15) Nobel prizes, but that factoid was amended on day two by the guide saying, “Well, in fact 13 of them were Jewish, and they were no longer in Hungary when they won.”
The tour ended in a “Ruin Bar” a specific type of drinking establishment that Budapest is known for, but because I had no desire to stay and experience that scene I asked the guide for directions to The Liszt Academy where I wanted to see a show. He told me how to get there very easily and I made it without much hassle only to learn that the concert was sold out! I was very surprised, a young string quartet on a weeknight could not have filled a cafe in Baltimore but in Budapest a concert hall was sold out. So I made my way back to Kris’ house, disappointed that I didn’t get to experience a Hungarian concert, but happy to know that the music I love is valued in this city.
So why am I confused by this city? Because it feels confused. Is it the city that loves classical music or the city that sets up bars in abandoned buildings? The city that feels like a victim or a victor? I can’t tell, which is an odd experience, and I find the streets bewildering as well. Even though they are twisted or overcrowded like the streets of Italy the streets here feel like they are waiting for you to get lost, and the gray of the buildings, and over the last few days, of the sky feels very foreboding. Those feelings are in direct conflict with the great kindnesses I’ve experienced here- a man who gave me a bus ticket before I had forints and a woman who gave me a ride up Kris’ street when it was pouring rain. So although Budapest has treated me incredibly well, I don’t feel comfortable, or like I could belong here. Maybe it’s the weird language, maybe it’s the lack of a urine smell, but I am left feeling lost and on the edge of something meaningful, and, of course, still confused.