Who’s Hungary?

It’s been a long time since I made a blog post. Mostly because it seems like such a daunting task these days, not because nothing has happened. I’m going to attempt to catch things up to speed by writing about what I did for winter break. I took two trips, the first to Budapest, Hungary, alone, and the second to Malta with my friend Armando.

I took the 6 hour bus from Sevilla to Madrid because it is cheaper than the train. I spent a night in Madrid staying with a Dominican friend of mine that I had met when I studied abroad in Madrid in 2008. Originally I was supposed to couchsurf at another guy’s house but at the last minute he cancelled. The following evening I flew on Hungary’s low-cost airline Wizzair to Budapest. I had decided ahead of time that I would spend the first two nights in a calm hostel and do all the sight-seeing and the last two nights I would stay at Retox Party Hostel and, well, party for New Year’s Eve. That ended up being a really stupid decision because I ended up meeting very cool people at the first and cheaper hostel, and not meeting anyone of interest at the party hostel and it cost 3 times as much. The first hostel’s motto was “sleep like a baby in our hostel” which I thought was pretty hilarious in comparison to the name of the party hostel, Retox. HBC Hostel, the first one, was owned by a Croatian man who had lived for years in Hungary and all over the world. At first he gave the impression that he was a fatherly figure but over the course of two days he did crack a couple inappropriate sexual jokes (“What is your father’s profession? Oh I thought he was a sculptor because you are a piece of artwork”), but I think it was all in good fun. For the most part he was super helpful, polite and funny. He even took van-loads of people that were staying at his hostel for drives around the city at night to see the lights. He also cooked some spicy Hungarian dish (Goulash?) one night and even though I had checked out of the hostel that morning, he invited me to come back for the free dinner.

I saw the most on my first day in Budapest, and my tourism went downhill from there. The whole time it was gray and cold but for once in my life I had dressed appropriately and wasn’t too cold. I had on tights, two pairs of socks, jeans, long-sleeve shirt, hoodie, hat, coat and gloves. The first day I crossed the Danube river over the Chain Bridge from Pest to Buda and went up the funicular to explore Castle Hill. I saw the Royal Palace (not inside), Matthias’ Church (didn’t go inside), the Fisherman’s Bastion, the labyrinth of caves below the city that were created by thermal waters and then expanded  by man (also didn’t go inside), and I just walked around and explored that whole area which is a World Heritage Site. That took the whole morning. I can’t quite remember the order of events from the afternoon or the rest of my trip but I will mention what I did.

Basically the second day of my trip I saw a little less than the first. I saw the Parliament building but didn’t go inside. I went to one of the famous spas, Szechenyi, which was an utter disappointment. It was probably the most expensive touristy thing I did and it was miserable. Besides that, Budapest was very cheap. I spent less during the whole trip, including accommodation than I did on the flight. I had to pay for the ticket to enter the baths, wait in a line, there weren’t any flip flops to rent, the locker rooms were super confusing, there were lines and crowds everywhere, the sprint to the water (“hot” outdoor pools) was impossibly cold, and then the water was luke-warm after all that!! I lasted 5 minutes in the water before starting to freeze to death and then I made the mad dash back inside, down to the locker rooms where I dried off with the rented “towel” that was really a sheet, put back on my layers, and then stood in a long line to return the rented towel. Terrible terrible idea. I wouldn’t recommend those particular baths to anyone.

I walked to St Stephen’s Basilica and went inside after paying a partial entrance fee that was disguised as a donation. In fact, I had asked the man at the hostel if it would cost to enter and he said “No! Does it usually cost to enter a church?” And I couldn’t remember if it did. Then I got to the Basilica and there was a priest or something, I don’t really have my religious authority figures straight, who was asking for something like 350 forints, or about a euro if I remember correctly. I looked at him in shock and said “I have to pay to enter?” and he said “It’s a donation” and I said “How about 100 forints? I don’t have more” and he said “Or you can give a euro” and I told him that I didn’t have euros either, and we ended up conversing for a good 5 minutes, and I must say his smile was borderline flirtatious. He was trying to guess where I was from (He guessed France – mais pourquoi??) and in the end I flirted my way (blasphemously?) into the Basilica for 100 forints.

I also walked down Andrassy Ave to Heroes’ Square and saw the Palace of Arts and Museum of Fine Arts buildings on either side. Behind Heroes’ Square there was a giant outdoor ice rink and I was tempted to go skating but I remembered how much I detest rental skates so in the end I decided against it. Also on Andrassy Ave, I went to the House of Terror which is a house full of history (it housed Fascists and Communists and many people were tortured and killed in that very building). It is also a “memorial” to the victims now and a museum. My feedback is a mouthful to say the least. I even left a lovely note in the guestbook. First of all, there were no tour options so it was all on your own; there were pictures of people all over the walls in the inner stair-well area but it was unclear if they were the victims or the aggressors; there was a normal-sized (A1?) piece of paper to pick up in each of the 30something rooms with information about each room (the least Green idea ever- I had a stack to make a book out of by the end of it and no place to recycle) and that was the only explanation you ever received. Now, the paper was very informative about the history of each room but it didn’t explain why the museum was presented how it was. In fact, the papers had so much information that it took me over an hour to make it through the museum because I spent so much time reading the papers and way less time looking around. Each room had no connection to the next, many had multiple videos playing at once in Hungarian and only a few of them had subtitles in English. The paper was only available in English or Hungarian, but most of the tourists were from other countries, in fact I didn’t hear any Hungarian while I was in there. The noise from the TVs was unbearable at times and for me caused confusion since I couldn’t understand them. Rather than having the effect of depressing the visitor with the tragedies that occurred in that building and educating about how not to have history repeat itself it dazed and confused people. After purchasing the entrance ticket you are instructed to go to the 3rd floor, where you make your way from room to room like a maze and then down stairs until you eventually end up in the basement in former torture cells. From the looks of the guestbook, I wasn’t the only one that was unhappy with the presentation.

Two nights while I was there I met up with Nory, who had been the tour guide/entertainer in Andalo, Italy last year. Although for obvious reasons I didn’t get to know her very well then, TJ reminded me that I could contact her via Facebook to try to meet up with her in Budapest to show me around. One night we went to dinner with 5 Italian guys from Milano that she had met through couchsurfing. We went to a restaurant called Pomo D’Oro. I was drooling over the pasta menu but didn’t get to order my own because the Italians took control and ordered a zillion-course meal. The food was quite good but I was a little bummed that I missed out on gnocchi, until of course the boys paid for the entire meal and wine and grappa and then I wasn’t so bummed after all. That same night were invited by the owner of the restaurant to a club in Buda that was full of locals. The club was massive, like a warehouse, and only one floor, and still must have had thousands of party-goers. There were many tiny bars, each serving a specific kind of alcohol, but the bartenders were too busy dancing on the bar to actually serve drinks. I found that out the hard way. There were also tables of small Pringle cans everywhere! Free Pringles, now that’s something I’ve never seen in a club before. If I had brought a large purse, best believe I would have walked out of there with a lifetime supply. Since getting drinks was so hard I chose eating Pringles in the club as my man-repeller move of the night. Boy do I wish someone had been with me to witness the crowd at this club. Words cannot even begin to describe. Imagine every trashy Eastern European stereotype, 40somethings, fur-trimmed outfits, drawn-on eyebrows, and the worst American 80s music that exists. Nory was shocked that I didn’t know the words to the songs and I didn’t quite know how to explain to her that every single song that played was the end-of-the-night-you-ain’t-gotta-go-home-but-you-gotta-get-outa-here song at bars back in the States. To give an example, anyone that is up on Youtube fads may have heard about getting “Rick Rolled”. That is when you are sent a video by a friend, about some topic you may be interested in, and when you click on it Rick Astley’s One Hit Wonder “Never Gonna Give You Up” comes on with the most absurdly hilarious music video as well. Let’s just say the whole club got Rick Rolled and loved it. 

-The entire second half of this paragraph mysteriously deleted itself and I’m too annoyed to retype whatever I had written-

Not much day tourism happened the last two days in Budapest. New Year’s Eve I met up with Nory and she invited me to her University’s town Veszprém, 2 hours away. I ended up ditching the hostel and traveling with her by bus to the Hungarian equivalent of Ithaca (well not quite). I spent New Years bumming champagne off her English-speaking friends (they all study tourism) at a dorm party, and then heading to the one of two clubs that exist in that town. It was pretty fun and everyone was super friendly. The funniest thing that happened that night was learning how Hungarians celebrate New Years. Americans tend to leave home early and go out with their high school friends and celebrate the clock striking 12 at a house party or club. Spaniards celebrate at home with their family until midnight, there they eat 12 grapes, one at each chime of the clock, and then they go out and party until the wee hours of the morning with their friends. These Hungarians had actually gone back early to their University to spend New Years there with their college friends instead of in their hometowns with friends from high school. When the clock struck 12, they quickly wished each other a Happy New Years, and clinked champagne glasses, and then turned their attention to the TV, where the President came on, said a quick something, and then the National Anthem played and they all sang along. I almost died! It tickled my funny bone so much that at midnight they get all patriotic and sing the anthem and only after it is finished do they go around kissing cheeks and wishing each other a proper Happy New Year. I spent the anthem giggling and imagining what if we Americans sang The Star-Spangled Banner at gag..I mean midnight. Three hours after my New Years’ bedtime, I was up and on the bus back to Budapest, to catch the metro (2nd oldest in the world I might add) and then another bus to the airport to get my flight back to Madrid on the first day of 2012.

All and all it was a gray but nice trip. During most of my exploration I was lonely and wished I had someone to travel with, but I still managed to see most of what I had researched beforehand. At the hostel I had met some people from India, two boys from Singapore who were studying in Scotland, and some Americans doing a similar Auxiliary program in France. In the party hostel 2 days later I met a rowdy (understatement) group of Slovenian kids and group of Russians and a group of Austrians. None of them were very friendly, and I imagine since they came about 10 people deep they didn’t need to make any new friends anyway. The party hostel ended up being the opposite of what I expected. The highlight was the risqué gross artwork in my room and the fact that the staff was too hungover to help with much of anything, although to their credit they were quite friendly when they weren’t taking turns napping. One bonus of the hostel was that there wasn’t a check-out time, however it didn’t end up benefiting me since I had an early afternoon flight back to Madrid and had to get up early anyway. Oh and the fact that I didn’t even spend the last night in Budapest.