Budapest: How I Learned to Be More Patient

        

To balance Joel's stay in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire we spent a few days in Budapest. Rick Steves had nothing but good things to say for the city so I obviously had high hopes for it.

But it turns out that all the Rick Steves Podcasts available on iTunes couldn't help the fact that I didn't know how things worked in Budapest. I had assumed that because it was so close to Vienna (2 1/2 hours by train) that it wouldn't be that different from Austria (in my mind I guess I really skimmed over that whole "Communist Era" "Iron Curtain" thing. Oops). I really need to stop assuming.

Our rides on the Metro (which is the second-oldest in the world and was originally horse-drawn) are a perfect example of how confused we were for much of the trip. I read something about stamping your ticket every time you switched lines, but we weren't sure where to do this and there were police EVERYWHERE checking tickets. This wouldn't have been such a big deal in Austria, where you only have to stamp a ticket once and you probably won't be checked for one anyway. (A Fulbrighter whose dad works for the state department said that an excess of police, bureaucrats, and government officials is a left-over of communism. I think the metro cars are too, as I can only describe them as the Trabis of subways). 

Budapest was fascinating and new and different, but the "different"  part took me by surprise. I had my list of things I wanted to see and got frustrated when I couldn't check them off as quickly as I wanted to.  I didn't know the Hungarian name for anything and we were always getting lost. The things we did do and see, and even getting lost along the way, all turned out to be great experiences, though. So to recount our trip to Budapest I think a little game of High-Low is in order.

High: We made it to Budapest in one piece.

Low: We got lost on the way from the train station to the first hostel we stayed in. A recurring theme.

High: The hostel turned out to be awesome. It was a converted private apartment and the people that worked there were so nice. It had a really homey feel and lots of nice touches- like comfortable beds, a room full of computers that we could use for free, friendly guests, and a staff that made coffee with the espresso machine for each of us individually in the morning.  So, I recommend staying at the Goat Hostel in Budapest.

Low: The first night we went up to the Castle Hill on the Buda side. Every where we turned there were cool things to see, like this archway and fountain, but what we really wanted was to find a place to eat. We couldn't. We tried to go to one of the museums to I could see the Hungarian Impressionists collection. It was closed. The castle is huge. We got lost. I was hungry and cranky. 

High: It turned out that we just hadn't walked far enough and eventually found a cheap cafe where we inhaled ham and cheese sandwiches (if you eat it fast enough it doesn't even taste like ham!). Then some nice people took a picture of us overlooking the Danube and we enjoyed the view of the Chain Bridge and Parliament.

Another high: Later we went to a place called Faust Wine Cellar in the Dominican Cloisters, which are in the basement of the Hilton (seriously). We decided to splurge and go on a "wine tour", which meant we each tasted 5 wines, had bread and cheese, and was awesome. 

We were the only customers and the man who worked there was really eager to please us. Seriously eager. He kept mentioning his fiance's family, and Joel's theory is that he came from a peasant family up the hills, wants to marry the girl whose parents own the cellar, and working there is his one chance to impress them. When I asked where a certain wine came from he ran and got a giant map. When I grabbed a blanket (which they provided because it's cold in cloisters) he offered me a few more. We each tried Palinka, which a Hungarian wine brandy, and Bukavir, which is a wine that translates to "bull's blood" and is supposed to make you strong. And we got to KEEP the wine list. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at the Matthias Church which, like the cathedral in Graz is a mismatch of styles, but way cooler looking because it's a mixture of Gothic and Turkish architecture (it's been both a mosque and a church). One of the minarets is in this picture.

Low: The next day we switched hostels because I found one that was cheaper. We should never have done this. The hostel itself was nice enough (although weird... there were teepees over a lot of the beds...) and the man who worked there showed that same eagerness to please when he gave us a welcome drink (more palinka!) and offered us various coupons, but things got strange when he said that the woman who would take us to our room would be there soon. I told him that we could just walk down the hall to our room ourselves, but when a Hungarian woman carrying a huge bag of oranges showed up and told us to follow her we realized our room was some where else.

The room, which the man at the hostel marked on a map and told us was "10 minutes away, 10 minutes away," turned out to be a private apartment 20 minutes away. The lady with the oranges left us with the keys and the inexplicable plea to not turn the radiator up to 7, "Never 7! Never 7!" 

High: We went out and explored Budapest for a while. After a picnic lunch where we enjoyed the fact that you can drink beer in public in Europe, we went to Szent István-bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica). It's beautiful. It's also home to the right hand of King Stephen, the first King of Hungary and the man who Christianized much of it. We paid 200 Florints or something to see it lit up. We also stopped by Parliament, which is a really pretty neo-Gothic building.

Low: We decided to go back to the apartment. We used the map the man at the hostel had given us, but after about 10 minutes of walking around the marked area realized he had just drawn a red "x" on a random spot. To say that we were lost is an understatement, but by some miracle after about an hour we found the apartment and sat down to rest for a while.
This was when we discovered how weird the apartment really was. The oven had no door. The water heater was in the shower exposed a flame that would roar when the hot water was turned on. A tiny shower curtain in the shower covered not a soap dish, but, 

wait for it... 

a CIRCUIT BREAKER BOX.

Is there a worse place for one of those? 

High: We went to the thermal baths at Szechenyi. Although it was really confusing at first and we couldn't tell if we had no idea what we paid for or what we were doing, the baths turned out to be really relaxing and fun. I love water and I love being warm, so the baths provided the perfect combination. Hungary has lots of hot springs and people go to the baths to relax and socialize. Szechenyi is supposedly the biggest and nicest of the baths with lots of pools at different temperatures. There were floating chess boards and a circular pool with a really quick current that swept groups of kids (and me and Joel) around in circles. The indoor pools were nice, but we spent most of our time outside. It's not often you can sit in an outdoor pool in February.

On the way back to the apartment we stopped by Hero's Square, where all the statues depict Hungarian heroes and I took a picture of Joel that's blurry but I really like. It's too bad he's not Hungarian, it looks like he's discovering his Magyar roots.

Low: We went to the grocery store to buy dinner. This should have been simple. We should have bought our food and walked right out, but I decided to go find salad dressing and more food to because lately I've been plagued by the irrational fear that I won't get enough to eat. I left Joel holding a bottle of wine, salad, cheese, lunch meat, and a loaf of bread and standing next to the only decipherable sign we saw in Hungarian, which said something like "No alcohol sales after 11 PM." It was about 10:30, and there was a short, chubby man with a thick mustache and a uniform there to enforce the rule (Joel has since named him "Mario."). While I was gone Mario started pointing at the wine, the sign, and Joel in succession. Joel nodded his head over and over, but Mario didn't get the message and started poking him. I came back right as Joel dropped the bottle of wine and it shattered on the floor, which really upset Mario. He didn't speak English or German, but luckily there was a young guy there who spoke English and offered to help us explain that we would pay for the wine and get out of there as soon as possible. So we paid and fled the scene.

High: On our way back to Graz the next day we sat in the restaurant car and had a few beers. We rode through little villages and decompressed.

 

I didn't check off all the things I wanted to do on my list, but there were definitely more highs than lows. I'd be painting an incomplete picture of our experiences in Budapest if I didn't include characters like Mario, shower breaker boxes, and hostel workers who can't read maps, and from now on I'll probably not need to stick to my lists as much. But of course I'll still make them.