Budapest: The Weird and the Wonderful

I really don't know what to make out of Hungary by my short stay in Budapest. While I've been on my whirlwind tour of Europe like a mad speed dating evening, I had been able to grasp and figure out a little bit about the culture and the national psyche quite quickly at most of the places I've been to. But so far its been a little hard here. I must admit that I am quite ignorant about Hungarian history apart from being a huge fan of the movie Sunshine (which was one of the reasons why I wanted to come to Budapest the first place). Perhaps its because so far the language barrier has been the biggest, and, um, would it be a cop out if I said that I have been constantly traveling under the influence again?

Its more like a collection of impressions and objects of interest rather than a fuller experience of what this country is like. In a really unusual way, the history, culture, art, food and fashion is completely disjoint or almost mutually exclusive with each other. Its more like a badly curated museum of sorts. When I first got off the train it was like arriving in a Goldbourne NSW but in a two dollar shop kind of way. The grand 18th century buildings and wide sweeping boulevards and endless antique and book shops seems to be completely uncomplimentary to the aesthetically unappealing way the locals dress and decorate their shop fronts. And then there's the reminiscent of the soviet era like the statue park and cute little Trabants that hoons around. And perhaps a little bit of that suspicion towards foreigners thing going on. The locals are quite business like with foreigners, in a sort of passive/aggressive kind of way. They don't have much patience for you when you are trying to figure out how express in charades "a hundred grams of cheese to go, please" or "where the blim'n hell's the nearest diary" , but when it comes to drivers stopping right in the middle of the road to give way to pedestrians and bikes they will do so very politely and graciously.

So rather than drawing a full picture of what I think of the place so far I can only give pieces of puzzles, and by far from complete.

The Weird

• Lion statues that don't have tongues
• Walking down a quiet leafy street full of tea towel shops and out of the blue there's a medieval knife shop where the door man wears a full armour smiling a"chya.
• Cigarettes disguised in child friedly bubble gum packaging complete with elephant cartoon. So like most twelve year olds that come across sommink like that, I smoked them.
• Many of the locals have blood shot eyes... The dracula thing??
• Random caves that people set up church in (reminded me a lot of Coober Pedy)
• Some guy at the Electric City internet cafe asked me if I was from "the Cockney people"
• Further random statues
• Soldiers that carry handguns patrolling the street
• The mummified and shriveled right hand of St Stephen (or Szent Istvan) the founder of the Hungarian state from the 11th century displayed in his basilica.

The Wonderful

• Thomas The Tank Engine theme song is played before an announcement on the train
• The Danube and superb views from the many bridges connecting Buda and Pest
  
• Public thermal baths with six different tempretured pools, and built in chess board (though no where near as potent as the Japanese and the Moroccan versions)
• A huge outdoor dance club called Rio in a massive park next to the bridge
• The huge market hall selling all kinds of local produce at half the price elsewhere in Europe. I was feeling generous threw a dinner party for my entire hostel (its more like a large student flat of 17 people with a beat up couch) for under 15 AUD.
• Trabants: the old school cars (well, the ONLY cars) they used to drive back in the communist era. Now its bit of a collectors item as I don't believe they make them anymore. I only saw a group of Trabants on a safari tour in Berlin, but there seems to be quite a few here. So very cute. Toot toot.
• Lush open countryside leading to this cute little village with windy terraces called Szentendre. Good for a poke around if you´re looking for a side trip.
• Glamourous art deco cafes. In fact, I found the cafe in which one of the last scenes in Sunshine was made. How do I know? cos the woman who works there says she was an extra and I believe her.
• Dobos torta, this crazy delicious layered chocolate caramel cake with a wafer on top, served with a short black and a shot of soda water.
  
• The food festival which I will tell you all about, shortly...