After what has really been an embarassingly long silence, I’m back at the blog. And I have the best excuse ever for this absence: an international move! Yes, as I’m sure most of you are aware, I moved to Italy last September. But the story about that will have to wait for another day as this post is something entirely different: Budapest!
I’ll go ahead and give away the ending of this story: I had a fantastic time!! But naturally, this trip was also not without its own unique snafus. Thursday night, after I stepped out of the shower around midnight, my roommate immediately said: “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
I could feel my own eyes grow wide and immediately sensed that something had happened to our travel plans. “Just tell me. What’s happened?”
He said: “Think Italy, think airport, think strike.”
Still not able to guess, I anxiously replied, “What, what is it? What’s happened?”
“Well, I’ve just received a call from my cousin Marta [in Budapest] and she said that tomorrow the baggage handlers at the airport in Budapest are going on strike. So then I checked on the internet and sure enough, our flight, along with all the other Alitalia flights to Budapest, are cancelled.”
I’ll omit the string of expletives that issued from my mouth at this point but suffice it to say that I was not very happy with the Hungarian baggage handlers at that moment in time. As it turned out though, not all flights to Budapest were cancelled, mainly just Alitalia and a few other airlines. So we decided to wake up really early and try to get on a flight, any flight to Bp. (By the way, I never did find out what the good news was.)
We arrived at the airport just after 8 and dashed around for about an hour trying to gather any bit of information we could. We considered changing flights to Vienna, to Prague, to Bratislava. And then we spent the next three hours standing in a line in front of a check-in window with an Alitalia employee that seemed to be doing nothing. But, after three hours of nothing, a solution was miraculously, seemingly out of thin air, found. (I've discovered that this is a unique ability which many Italians possess: they can actually accomplish a great deal while appearing to do nothing. Then at other times they can run around and appear insanely busy but actually be doing nothing. But that's another blog for another day.)
So we were quickly trundled off to check-in for AirFrance flight to Lyon where we would then fly to Budapest. (AirFrance flights into Bp had not been cancelled) And before we knew it, we were airborne over the Alps.
The sun was shining, there were barely any clouds and the snow-capped mountains looked absolutely beyond amazing. And very close. A little too close. I secretly wondered if we should be flying higher but then again I suppose the Alps are just very very tall.
Arrival in Lyon, mad dash through airport, encounter with angry German/Austrian man (we weren't sure which he was but he certainly had strong feelings about the organization of AirFrance), boarding, take-off, ham sandwich flung by passing Hungarian flight attendant, and then finally arrival in Bp!!!
To be honest, I went to Budapest this past weekend wanting to be anti-social. I was seeking some solitude: some time to read, to write, to think, to be able to hear myself think. But as is so often the case in life, the cosmos clearly had other plans.
An Australian girl befriended me within minutes of my arrival at the hostel and we soon set off to meet up with another American. As we walked through Pest (the Eastern half of the city), I barely recognized it. The streets had gotten a much needed facelift, there were new stores everywhere, and an Easter market was in full swing.
Much later we returned to our tiny, tiny hostel and found it quite crowded. And no staff were anywhere to be seen. This wouldn't have been a problem except that later in the night, more people arrived. More than there were beds for. Now anyone who knows much about my life here in Italy, knows that this sort of thing has become the norm in my life. Italy has educated me well on the concept of expecting the unexpected. Nonetheless, some of my fellow travellers were a bit stressed out about it (surprisingly not the one who was left without a bed!). But “In qualche modo faremmo,” meaning roughly “we’ll work it out somehow,” has become the mantra of my life abroad and so in qualche modo faremmo we did.
This next morning I got up very early, too early for anyone to try and make plans with me, and went out for a morning coffee and a walk. As I sat, holding my latte macchiato, a feeling of absolute bliss washed over me. For the first time in I didn't now how long, I had a day before me with absolutely no plans or obligations to anyone else. The day was completely mine to do with as I please, to re-connect with my old love of Budapest. In fact, I decided that I didn't even have to speak to another person if I didn't want to.
The not speaking lasted for about an hour.
Then, as I was strolling through my old neighborhood in Buda (on the Western side of the Danube) I decided to stop by and see my former landlady. I knew she was living in the apartment she used to rent to me and so I was hoping that if I just stopped by, I would be able to see it again.
As I searched for my old street, Vak Bottyan ut., I was surprised by how unfamiliar the neighborhood seemed. Maybe because it had changed a lot, or maybe I never really knew it as well as I thought in the first place or maybe my memory was just really bad. More than likely it was some combination of the three.
So many things were the same about the old building but also many had changed. The elevator had a new door so that it could now be called to the floor of one's choosing, the mailboxes had been moved to the other side of the hall (not sure about the reason for that) and there was a new doorbell system.
Gabi (my landlady) was of course very excited to see me. The apartment was, like the building, different in some ways and the same in others. When I turned to look at the back of the door, however, I saw the biggest surprise of all. There, taped just above the doorknob, was a note that I had written five years before. It read in big, block letters, "KEYS!!" I remembered the reason for writing it: if one left the apartment without keys, one would be locked in the hallway outside the door as there was no way to unlock the next door without a key. It had happened to my roommate once and then I decided we needed a reminder. I actually didn't remember writing it but I recognized the paper and the handwriting as mine. No telling how many people have lived there since I did, as Gabi rented it to students for four years after that and now she has lived there for one. When I pointed it out to her she laughed and said she left it because she liked the paper and thought it was a good reminder. So then I thought about the little touches that we all leave behind when we go places. Maybe they mean nothing to us, maybe we don't even remember doing them. But some of them still linger and even sometimes become important to someone else.
We caught up on each other's lives and she showed me the websites of the vacation apartments that she now rents out. In fact, she was renting one to Italians and for some reason they had to move to the other one that morning. She asked me to come with her to show them the other one and before I knew it I was speaking Italian again. It was one of the first times I have served as a (very rough) translator but I was pleased to have enough knowledge of Italian to be able to help.
I also enjoyed the irony of leaving one country for another but finding that the culture of the first had still managed to follow me. Two of the guys were from Sicily and the third was from Udine, a small town in Veneto, near Venice, where they all live now and play on the same football (soccer) team. I was glad to go out with them the next two evenings, as they kept me from missing my adopted homeland too much.
As I rediscovered Bp over the course of the weekend, I realized that for the most part, the city of my memory no longer exists. Even its small, but well organized wine festival seemed much more up-to-date than it would have five years ago. The park it was in had been overhauled and redone, the stalls used were the same hardwood as those found in Western Europe at such events and the patrons could be heard speaking many languages. Budapest has truly gone from crumbling ex-Soviet backwater to a thriving cosmopolitan locale. Andrassy utca, for example, has regained much of its former grandeur, with expensive shops (Louis Vuitton!) and sprawling equally expensive cafes. Hugo Boss, Dior, Escada, Tommy Hilfiger and numerous others have also taken up Budapest addresses. That being said, the reader may be wondering if increased wealth always equals the advancement or improvement of a city.
Yes and no. If the making and spending of wealth is the sole focus of the society, then no. But with wealth can also come greater public works, sponsorship of arts, community events (such as the aforementioned festival), and higher quality education. In the words of Adam Smith, if we are to believe him, "a rising tide lifts all boats."
While in Budapest, I also paid homage to some of my old haunts like the castle district, Szechenyi Baths, Suss Fel Nap (my favorite nightclub west of the Danube), Old Man's Pub, and the Fisherman's Bastion. I walked all four of the central bridges, which was one of my favorite things to do when I lived there. And to an extent, I got back in touch with the gentile melancholy that drapes certain parts of the city. To me this is one of the most strange and wonderful parts of Budapest. In the castle district, for example, this sense of old ghosts, not yet exorcised, is palpable.
And then I went to some new places. Restaurants that hadn't been there before, some of the new shops, even a café called California Coffee Company. (That place was a bit weird actually….while I was inside I honestly felt like I had taken a mini-trip to the U.S.) I found an absolutely fantastic urban oasis of a bookstore: it was huge, three floors, but complete with a comfy café and a large English books section.
By Tuesday morning, when it was time to head back to the airport, I was feeling refreshed and relaxed. I was once again comfortable with my old friend Budapest, but I'd also realized that my time of living there had finished, which was something I hadn't felt the last time I left. But I also know that it will always be there waiting, with many mysteries still to be uncovered whenever I want to go back.
