22 observations about Budapest

My two-week visit to this supremely relaxed city began here. Blog-wise, it ends on this page.



One for every year Hungarians have been able to utter Imre Nagy's name in public:

1. Does any city have more phone booths?

2. The pizza here is good!

3. Andras Torok's observation, in his quirky "Budapest: A Critical Guide," that one shouldn't try to ride a bicycle in the city except on Sundays before 9 a.m., is sorely of date. I can't think of a better urban European bike experience outside of the Lowlands. Motorists on the Pest side, in particular, are quite sporting.

4. If you find the touristed areas of Prague and Vienna a bit precious, you may find Budapest's griminess refreshing. I do. Once the sun goes down, however, the night sky acts as a concealer and it's pretty much a fairyland.



5. Hungarians smoke a lot. Aside from public conveyances, you can pretty much light up anywhere.

6. When paying in a restaurant, don't thank the waiter when he takes your money. Doing so can be construed as completing the transaction, and you won't get your change.

7. Using the trams and subway, you can reach any place in the city center in 15 minutes, tops. It's easy to overestimate how much time you'll need. The 14-day pass requires a passport-size photo. Individual tickets are good for 60 minutes -- enough time to get halfway to Zagreb.

8. The notion that English is widely spoken is something of a canard. The podcasts at LetsLearnHungarian.net are a fun way to learn basic phrases. And making the effort is universally appreciated.

9. Channel 53 is the greatest sports channel ever. At 2 a.m. one morning, I watched Hal Sutton hold off a charge by the Golden Bear in the 1983 PGA at Riviera, narrated by John Facenda.

10. District Six (Oktogon and environs) has outlawed package-liquor sales after 11 p.m. Most corner stores ignore it.

11. Soproni tastes like peaches. Dreher tastes like ass juice. Stick to the Czech beers.

12. Even the cheap white wine is drinkable. The cheap reds are turpentine. With notable exceptions, this is white-wine country.

13. My neighborhood bar, Kiado Kocsma, has good music (Pixies right now) and a tasty menu. Try the winecream soup and the smoked-cheese mashed potatoes.

14. The recession/depression has taken its toll, of course. Even well-dressed, clean-shaven retirees may politely ask for a few forints. But in the city center there are surprisingly few shuttered storefronts.

15. If Sandra Bernhard were a city, she would be Budapest. Striking but not pretty.

16. Budapest is chizzeap! My apartment is centrally located with Wi-Fi, cable TV and bicycles, all for 35E a night.

17. The center-right goverment is worth watching, in a whatchoo-talkin'-'bout-Willis kind of way. Sure, the Socialists were a disaster, but now all Hungarian print, broadcast and online media have been placed under the control of a "National Media Authority." These are not European values. Just cut it out.

18. The prostitutes here approach you and say, "Sex," without any inflection of a question, as if they were saying "chair," or "tree" or "muffin." Sure, hon, what could possibly go wrong?

19. In Hungary, like Korea, last names come first. Liszt Ferenc (Franz), Bartok Bela and the like.

20. The one website I wish I'd discovered before I came here.

21. Worried about transpo to and from the airport? Try Alajos Pulai. Dude's a machine.

22. Think I hear him pulling up now. Fiddlesticks.

End

This fleeting tour

“If you live to be a hundred,
I want to live to be a hundred minus one day
so I never have to live without you.”
―Winnie the Pooh

Like no place else

Temperatures in the high 40s and a sky straight out of a Dutch seascape. The previous night I began to notice these enormous piles of junk blocking the sidewalk at regular intervals. Not potato-peel-variety garbage, but architectural materials, 1960s televisions, framed pictures of Lenin. Some good picking, if you’re so inclined.


By daylight, the piles are still there. Both sides of the river are awash in scrap metal and other oddments.


I’m biking today in the hills of Buda, where most streets will funnel you eventually into Moscow Square, an enormous transit center populated by lost people, day laborers looking for work, and the occasional gangster and Gypsy. This is just a tiny slice of the square's northern edge.


Violent crime is almost unheard of in Budapest, but petty theft happens, as everywhere, in crowded trams, train stations and fast-food restaurants. The most menacing spots I’ve encountered have been the neighborhoods east of the Millennium City Center and around the Keleti Palyaudvar, or East Train Station. The dead-end kids here drink a bright yellow beverage out of big plastic containers. I guess it’s wine, but it’s the color of piss, and after several swigs they can get a little unpredictable.

As in most big cities (Budapest is the size of Phoenix or Philadelphia), homelessness and beggary are also big problems here. Asking for money and pawing through trash cans is now outlawed in the Eighth District. Aside from being unenforceable and appearing to have a racial component, this seems like bad policy. Do you really want to fan these flames? The political rhetoric coming from the right-wing Hungary-first crowd is hot enough.

This time I attack Castle Hill from the northwest. Well, actually, I push my bike up Ostrum Utca, which seems like a 40-degree climb. First thing I see is the Magdalena Tower, which is all that’s left of a 13th-century Franciscan church destroyed in World War II.


Not sure if Allied bombing or the battle for Buda knocked her down. When the Turks ruled here in the 16th century, this was the only place Christians were permitted to worship. At the bottom of the photo, a garbage truck solves the sidewalk-trash mystery. It’s brush-and-bulky day!

Next door is the Military History Museum, a former army barracks constructed in the 1830s. Visitors are invited to handle a lot of the weapons. I now know that a Tokarev pistol is too small for my hands. The “light” machine guns must weigh 50 pounds.


The cockpit of a MiG-21 Soviet fighter.


The museum has some outstanding propaganda posters. This fist appears to crash through the roof of a newspaper office. The caption reads “Bastards! Is this what you wanted?” The context escapes me. I wish the gift shop carried some of these.


The street-by-street tank battles in Budapest were some of the fiercest of the war. Nearly 40,000 civilians died in a seven-week span. Pity, because the Germans were in nearly full retreat and the whole European conflict was practically over. Only 11 years later, the city would be wrecked again. Budapest is a sad, sad place.


Pages from a Life magazine in 1956.


Time magazine’s 1956 Man of the Year.


The Matthias Church anchors Szentharomsag Square. Doesn’t do much for me. Parts of it date to the 1200s, but it’s been heavily worked on since. Unfortunately, it was closed for a wedding.


The Fishermen’s Bastion (1900 or so) looks cool, but doesn’t appear to have much utility or historical value, nor does it have any obvious link to fishermen. In medieval times, the fish market was nearby. A fun place for kids to clamber about.


I always wondered what a “hussar” was, and this statue of Andras Hadak fills me in. It’s a Hungarian cavalryman. At exam time, college students climb the statue to touch the horse’s testicles for good luck.


Because Castle Hill so resembles a movie set, it’s arresting to realize people actually live here.


A palinka (fruit brandy)-and-sausage festival is taking place, but the whole thing seems … too organized. The festival workers are all wearing the same green windbreakers and admission is $10. Ten dollars for the privilege of spending more once you’re inside. Mrs. Sibley didn’t raise a fool. But I’m not done climbin’.

First I coast down Attila Utca at a million miles an hour. Wait. What’s Haydn doing here?


Turns out he lived in Hungary for 20 years. (Cue Johnny Carson voice) I did not know that.

A bit to the southeast I now ascend Gellert Hill, intent on reaching the highest spot in Budapest, where the Nazis were able to significantly slow the Russian advance. Holy shit. A panorama I will never forget.


I zoom in on my Pest neighborhood.


When I say my goodbyes to this idiosyncratic city, as I must in a couple of days, I shall have to return here and do it properly.

Guy walks in to a bar

Orders an Achel brown, some crispy fries and a bucket of mussels floating in a garlic and white wine sauce.


Sorry. No punch line.

Mosselen Belgian Beer Cafe
Pannonia Utca 14, Pest
12-12, daily