Budapest, or A Week of Mingling with the Hungarian Bourgeoisie

Budapest. Buda and Pest. This was not part of my "plan" (I put this in quotes because I am not a good "planner" and I did not "plan" Budapest . More on my poor planning below).

I had heard good things about Budapest, of course, but had not heard very much about it. But it was a logical choice: I had five weeks before I needed to be in Costa Rica, and Budapest is relatively close to Bucharest. So I bought the train-ticket.

I was happy to get out of Bucharest. Very happy, in retrospect. Like any large city, I cannot condemn the entire city as " boring" or "lifeless" or " sterile;" I am sure that Bucharest has its "hidden treasures," as the guidebooks like to announce. But I do not have many good things to say about Bucharest. The streets are too wide, the public transportation is not very good (and stops too early), the food is so-so. Bucharest is not a "happening" place, in my opinion. Given recent history, of course, this makes sense. But c'mon, Bucharest , you're so boring ! The stereotype about Romanian women, however, is spot on.

So on to Budapest I decided to go, but not before receiving a lesson about communism. The train-ride was to be overnight, so I made the necessary preparations and arrived at the train-station a full hour early. Buying a ticket for the train, however, was much more difficult than I had anticipated. After buying a sleeper-car "ticket," I attempted to board the train, but was stopped. According to the men in uniform , I had a ticket but not a " reservation." They sent me back to the "Reservations" area, where I spoke to three different 50+ women , each of whom were bored to the point of suicide. They sent me back to where I had originally purchased my "ticket" – a kiosk on the other side of the building – and this woman promptly sent me back to the train. The men at the train tried to send me back to reservations, and I had finally had enough. Like anyone, I enjoy a good walk once in a while , but this was no longer enjoyable . I asked to speak to the conductor , and was flatly denied. "Who do I need to talk to?" I asked. "What can I do to get on this train?"

Finally, one of the men shrugged his shoulders and made a small motion with his hand, indicating that I should board the car nearest to him. This was absolutely not the answer I had wanted – in essence, he was telling me that I could board the train, but the responsibility was not his if I were to get in trouble or get kicked off for it. After boarding the car – not a sleeper-car – and plopping myself down into an uncomfortable seat, I came to the conclusion that the legacy of communism is alive and well in Romania . From start to finish, nobody was responsible for anything that had just transpired.

The room in the train car had seats for six people, but they were generally unoccupied and I was the only occupant who stayed all the way to Budapest . So my room ended up functioning as a revolving door of Romanians. First was a 35 year-old Romanian of Hungarian descent. He was a professional dancer, and throughout the trip he played me a number of Romanian folk-songs and dance videos on his very modern cell phone. In general he was very interested to talk to me, and was deeply in love with his fiance. He left after four hours , and the next man, whose age I would approximate at 75 years, was a man who looked (physically)as if his life had been difficult. He mumbled to himself as he boarded , took gigantic swigs of hard alcohol from a clear-plastic bottle, popped in a cough-drop and laid down flat on his back. He was snoring within three minutes -- what happened to that cough drop? -- and his cheeks sunk far enough into his face that I began to wonder if this would be his last train-ride as a mortal. His mouth was also open, and his lips were curling around his teeth. I would describe his facial expression as " corpse-like." He made it through, though. My last two travel-companions were a husband and wife who smelled like farm.

There are a lot of intangibles that make a city good for traveling. Some of them have nothing to do with the city, itself: the traveler might be jet-lagged or sick, the weather might be terrible, it could be the off-season, etc. But there are also a lot of factors that simply make one city better than others. As soon as I stepped off the train into Budapest at 8 AM, I immediately felt happy to be there. Goodbye Bucharest !

Budapest is a high-class city. It is not a wealthy city – it is not too difficult to travel on the cheap, there– but it is one of the few cities to which I have traveled where, regardless of income, the citizens are universally classy. There is a focus on the arts here that I have not seen anywhere else. It is a liberal city, calling itself the "gay capital" of Central Europe, and for the first time in a very long time, I am seeing hipsters . Yes, real hipsters. Chuck Taylors and all. You could drop them off in Capitol Hill, Seattle, and they would be at home. Well, almost. They are a bit less pasty and are notably less anorexic than their Seattle counterparts.

Days in Budapest generally go roughly like this: mornings are spent at a café, afternoons exploring the sights of the city, dinner is early and possibly Hungarian, and the evening is spent enjoying the fine-arts or the fine-bars (this city ranks a close second to Dublin in the piles of puke that I have seen on the ground on the "mornings after ").

Besides the major sights in Budapest, while there I saw two films (one of them at the nicest movie theater I have ever been to), a ballet ( Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), and an opera ( Andre Chenier), with the opera taking place at the Hungarian State Opera House. Acoustically the opera was perfect, and the ballet was a lot of fun. I saw it with Eva, a 21 year-old, gay New Yorker currently studying philosophy in Munich and singing with a Bavarian choir. We spent three days together seeing the sights of Budapest, whereupon she left for 30 hours of train-rides with five train-changes (I subsequently found out that she missed nearly all of them).

Anyway, seeing as the ballet was "Snow White," the theater of the ballet was approximately 50% children, all of whom were laughing and screaming with delight during the show. One of the boys in front of me was wearing his father's tie, and it ended roughly at his knees. Dopey was the indisputable king of the show, a real tour de force with a keen sense of comedic irony and timing. As always in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the prince saved the day by kissing Snow White after she has died, which, if you ask me, is a kiss with grave – very, very grave – moral implications.

I should mention that all four tickets – the movies, the ballet, and the opera – cost me a combined $17.50. Normally I do not mention how "cheap" things are, as everywhere I have been traveling is "cheap." But I do not quite understand this. Are the arts subsidized here? Or is there simply a higher supply of them? Regardless, it is a pricing structure that allows everyone in the city to attend. And everyone here does attend.

So Budapest is a city where, for a short period of time, you, too, feel as if you are a high-class citizen. It is a good feeling. There is a limit to this, though: when I show up to an opera wearing tennis shoes, jeans that I inherited from my father (that have gaping holes in them), and a collar-less shirt, I do not feel "high-class." Instead I feel a little bit like an "idiot." There is a limit to what I can carry while traveling, though, and a suit is not on that list. But most tourists throw themselves wholeheartedly into the act. Today I drank coffee at the most venerated coffeehouse in the city, Gerbeaud, and had the misfortune of sitting next to the two most pretentious New York men I have ever been forced to listen to. One of them, believe it or not, was actually wearing a black turtleneck; at some point, I believe, this man took Pretention 101 at an ivy league school. I was trying to read in this cafe, but their commentary made this impossible. "Why don't we go to the lap pool," suggested the man in black. "Aren't you in the mood for the lap pool?" I am not a praying man, but seeing as God is the only one I know of who is capable of smiting someone, I asked for his help.

I have seen the city very well in seven days, but I will always be happy to come back to Budapest. Any city where hot, mulled wine is served in street-side vendor-carts already has a leg up on the others. Combine mulled wine with a city full of Turkish baths (I literally combined the two one afternoon, in fact), and, my friend, you are in a very good place. Mark my words, though: Budapest is the next Prague -- it is becoming (or has become) an American ex-pat capital, bringing with it both the benefits and detriments of such a status. I am sure there are a lot of people who noticed this before me.

At the beginning of this entry I mentioned that I am a bad "planner," or one who is bad at "planning." In four weeks I meet my parents in San Jose, Costa Rica, which I am excited for. Unfortunately, when booking the ticket for this online – London to San Jose, that is – I entered the wrong airport code: SJU instead of SJO. Easy enough mistake, I would argue. So now, entirely by accident, I am to visit San Juan, Puerto Rico. Oops. When I received the e-mail confirmation from Expedia.com, I could feel my face turn red and my armpits began to itch a little bit. So this is something I have to work on. Both the ticket, that is, as well as my irresponsibility.

Now I am in Paris. I don't really feel the need to comment on this city, though. Hopefully you know it by now. Instead, I would like to go drink some coffee. I really like Paris in the almost-Springtime.