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Szia from Budapest, Hungary!

Budapest, Hungary. "Queen of the Danube." The romantic, exotic land of folklore has been dramatically replaced by a bustling, developing, boisterous 21st century Eastern European city. Because of that striking contrast to our preconceived notions, Budapest was rather disappointing to us at first. But after some unimpressive first impressions, we decided to dig deeper and ended up meeting some very nice people and having some memorable experiences.

JOE: Budapest is a cosmopolitan city of 2 million that is 1000 years old, yet constantly under construction. That, of course, is a positive sign of economic recovery after its very rough transition from communism, but it also makes it quite noisy and messy. The famous Danube River separates the two communities of Buda and Pest, which used to be separate cities. Buda has a famous castle on a hill and several monuments and Pest has a terrific old cathedral and a stunning parliament building. But our best experiences here in Budapest had little to do with the old scenery. We had several firsts. We attended an international soccer match between Hungary and Germany (we'd both never been to an international soccer match). We also attended a High Mass of the Catholic Church, an event of substantial pomp and ceremony the likes of which we'd never seen before. And we watched a symphony performance; a brand new experience for Jenni.

We arrived in Budapest substantially tired from a tumultuous overnight train ride from Poland during which we were rudely awakened several times in the middle of the night by scary, rough-voiced guards in bile green uniforms. "Pass-a-port! Ameri-kan?" Pause. Pause. "Okay." We were awakened so often because we had to cross a couple of borders: from Poland into Slovakia, then from Slovakia into Hungary.
Our weariness, we believe, contributed to our initial bad reaction to Budapest. Frankly, we were getting tired of being pedestrians in big, noisy cities with crowds of tourists. And Budapest is the loudest, tourist-infested city we've visited so far.

JENNI: This is true, and I worry that we might not give Budapest a fair shake. This city has always ranked high on my list of places to visit, so it's a little disappointing to realize that my expectations were too high. I think if we had come to Budapest first on our trip, it would have exceeded all my expectations - after all, it's a big, cosmopolitan city where almost nothing is familiar. That said, Joe and I were determined to find something about Budapest that set it apart (in a positive light) from all the other cities we'd been to so far.

JOE: We thought we were ready for Budapest. We had hotel reservations, we'd read some of the romantic-sounding history in the guidebooks, and we learned a few phrases of Hungarian. (The word for "Hello" and "Goodbye" is "Szia" - pronounced "see-ya." Once, we actually heard someone answer the phone, "Hello? See-ya!")

But as soon as we arrived in Budapest, everything began to change. We were immediately accosted at the train station by an insistent lady named Beata (pronounced Bee-all-ta) who, through her broken English, was doing her best to convince us to stay in an apartment she's renting out. We told her we already had reservations at the Strawberry Hostel. Beata looked horrified! She twisted her face in disgust as if we'd told her we were spending the night in a dirty toilet bowl. "Bugs … eeeew!" she said, as she writhed her body as if in pain. "Strawberry bugs. Beata no have bugs!"

Finally, she wore us down, gained our confidence and convinced us to go to her apartment and check it out. We immediately decided we liked it because it had a shower and kitchen and gave us privacy: all for $30 a night. Also because Beata was so helpful. She sat us down and gave us a thorough (and I mean thorough) debriefing on the ways of Budapest from subway lines to maps to tips on good restaurants.

JENNI: As little as we saw of her throughout our stay in Budapest, Beata was a good friend. She gave us her phone number in case we had any trouble, so we felt that we had a lifeline if anything went seriously wrong. We got oriented to Budapest the next day with a bike tour - my favorite way to get to know a city. Our tour guide is 26-year old Bea (pronounced Bay-ah), who recently graduated from college with a degree similar to a Hotel and Restaurant Management degree. She works at the new Hilton in Budapest and also spends three days a week giving bike tours. Although Budapest is not especially bike-friendly, we have no problems navigating the streets. Bea's tour lasts about 5-and-a-half hours, and we cover the major sights: the Opera House, Heroes Square, the City Park, the Parliament building, Chain Bridge, and the Castle.

Hero Square is a monument to the heroes of Hungary - from King Stephen (who was later sainted), to the most recent political heroes, some of whom lost their lives during Communism for their political beliefs.

City Park serves as a tree-lined refuge from the heart of the city for many locals, and there are lots of things to do here - something was going on each time we came here. My favorite statue in the park is the hooded figure of Anonymous. He's Hungary's historian; the chronicler of everything of importance during the medieval Hungary, providing a wealth of information. He wrote down everything…except his own name. Hungarians show their appreciation by rubbing his pen for good luck.

The Parliament Building was built by the winner of an architectural contest. Two surrounding buildings were built by the second- and third-place winners of the same contest. This is the site of the 1956 uprising that began peacefully, but ended with Soviet troops firing into crowds of demonstrators. The revolution ended with 3000 dead Hungarians and a nation's hopes crushed. There are still bullet-holes from that uprising in some of the surrounding buildings.

Chain Bridge is by far the prettiest bridge across the Danube, linking Buda and Pest. It's the oldest bridge in the city, but had to be rebuilt after the war. This bridge, with lion statues standing guard, is often in the images you see in brochures depicting Budapest.

The castle at the top of the hill is a very big complex…built, taken over and destroyed, rebuilt, taken over and destroyed, rebuilt again, destroyed, rebuilt yet again, destroyed again, rebuilt for a fifth time, only to suffer neglect at Soviet hands. It's said to be only a shadow of what it once was. Little wonder.

As a tour guide and historian, Bea is wonderful. As a conversationalist who offers us personal insights into Hungarian life, she is priceless. A comment she made still stays with me now. She said that Americans are lucky because we have a wide variety of places we can visit in our own country that require no visa; no border crossing. But most Hungarians have only Budapest. Since travel visas to many places, including the US, are required of Hungarians, it is not easy to broaden one's horizons. And those visas are not easy to get. Currently, Bea is looking for employment with an American company that will sponsor her for a work visa. We wish her luck. Her ambition, her confidence and especially her enthusiasm should bring her all the success she deserves.

JOE: Bea has a terrific, dry sense of humor, when she describes Hungary's long history of foreign occupation. She says the problem is, the Hungarian people have always been such generous hosts that, throughout its history, Hungary's invited "guests" have constantly taken advantage of the Hungarian hospitality. Those "guests," of course, are the oppresive regimes - from the Romans to the Austrians that have nearly constantly ruled Hungary with iron fists. Perhaps the most rude "guests" were the Communists who ended their occupation of Hungary in 1989. Bea tells us that Hungarians today won't even refer to the Communist period by name. It's just too painful, so they simply refer to that period as the "40 years" ... And those "40 years" (between 1949 and 1989) encompassed perhaps the darkest era in Hungary's history.
So, given that Communism is still such an ugly, fresh scar on their conscience, what was Budapest to do about all those big, blocky Soviet propaganda statues that still dominated the landscape? Immediately following the fall of communism (sorry, the "40 years"), newly independent citizens struck back at the figures that represented so many broken dreams. They vandalized the sculptures of Lenin and the other Soviet heroes; breaking them in pieces or scratching out the Russian words or painting them red. Before the statues could be destroyed, however, the government decided they needed to be salvaged for museum purposes. But where could they keep them safe?

After years of struggling with the issue and holding individual votes in the legislature over each one of the dozens of statues, the Hungarian government decided to banish the sculptures to a small patch of land way out in the suburbs. Statue Park - or Tyranny Park - is now a graveyard for Soviet-imposed statues. Statues like this giant Soviet carrying a flag now dominate only the weeds that grow through the little park. (That's me leaning against the statue's knee). Kruschev himself ordered this Lenin statue to be built in front of a factory because he felt like the workers needed to be "motivated" every day. Legend has it that once, during a tough period when bread was in short supply, the factory workers mocked Lenin by placing a piece of bread and gravy in his outstretched hand.

When we approached the park, our immediate reaction was disappointment that we had traveled about an hour-and-a-half to see what looked to be a collection of overgrown grass and some huge, ugly, blocky statues. But once we grasped the historic importance and - most importantly - the political courage it took to collect these statues with so much public hatred toward Communism - we realized we were witnessing more than a very unique sight. At the entrance to the gate, a tinny tape recorder plays what is apparently Soviet military music and several t-shirts are for sale (pro- and anti-Communist). Without a guide, the visitor might mistakenly think the park is somehow celebrating Hungary's Soviet past in a positive light. According to the park architect, though, the collection is not about Communism, but about the FALL of Communism:

JENNI: It was a hot day when we visited, and there is very little about Statue Park to make it comfortable. No benches, no shade, except for the shade created by the largest of statues. The grass is dry, and growing up between the rocks marking the paths. It's surrounded by abandoned rural, weedy countryside and very quiet except for the highway traffic a few yards away. It's perfect. The bleak, blocky appearance of the park is what I would imagine Communist life to be like during "those 40 years". The Park is unfinished, and will likely never be finished due to lack of funding. Sketched plans for the completed Park are too elaborate in my opinion…it should stay exactly the way it is.

One thing that has stayed the way it has for more than a hundred years is Budapest's collection of thermal baths. They are Turkish leftovers from their control over Hungary long ago. We visited the Szechenyi baths; the ones recommended by Bea. You get tokens for both the baths and the pool, and a cabin to change clothes. Some baths are nude, with men and women segregated, but not the one we visited. The thermal baths are indoors with varying temperatures from hot to cool, and lead you right into the outdoor pools. The outdoor pools are about 4 feet deep, and there are always tons of people in the water. Couples, young and old, cuddle and people-watch, old men play chess in chest-high water, and kids create a whirlpool in the small circular section. My favorite section was the warm-water pool…felt just like a giant bathtub. It's safe to say Joe's favorite part was the powerful jets spraying out of fountains…like a giant hours-long massage for his aching shoulders.

Hungary is celebrating its 1000th birthday while we are here, which means we get to see major celebrations and world-class crowds. It's a two-day affair with live musical performances the night before, and a High Mass ceremony and massive fireworks show the day of the actual holiday - St. Stephen's Day (August 20). The whole city (and parts of the country) must have descended on the main boulevard hours before the musical performances got underway. We had read that the event planners did a poor job of communicating the event details to the public, and judging by the crowds gathered around signs with information, I'd say that's true. The night is filled with a wide mix of music styles - we listened to the classic sounds of the Hungarian Symphony followed by a highly energetic Gypsy band that had us dancing for hours and left us wishing for more.

JOE: The next day, thousands of Hungarians crowded Budapest's downtown area to celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, Hungary's patron saint. The Cardinal of Hungary presided over a Catholic High Mass on the steps of St. Stephen's Basilica. Although the core of the service was a traditional Catholic mass, it also had a lot of extra trappings and ceremonies that made the service last about two hours. From our vantage point, we saw what looked to be several archbishops and bishops, dozens of priests and nuns, and hundreds of representatives of the different parishes around Hungary. The President of Hungary and several top members of Parliament were also in attendance. The highlight of the service was the blessing of St. Stephen's hand - a relic that has been kept in the church for almost a thousand years. St. Stephen was the first king of Hungary who converted a lot of the pagan population to Christianity (whether they wanted to be converted or not). Some time after his death, the church leaders decided to keep and display St. Stephen's right hand as a relic of the church. During an earlier tour of the church, we got a close look at the hand. It's too dark to capture with the camera, but, yes, we can confirm for you that, in a gold cage near the altar, we did see what appears to be a small, brown, rotting fist. Anyway, at the end of the High Mass, the Cardinal blessed the mummified hand, and then some priests walked the gold cage on a red stretcher on top of their shoulders out through the streets surrounding St. Stephen's church to show the hand to the masses.

JENNI: Later that night, the festivities for the 1000th anniversary culminated in a grand fireworks display. The Budapest Sun, the English-language weekly newspaper, skewered the local government for spending so lavishly on the event, which was reported to cost upwards of around $2.5 million. (The events over the last two years of celebrations were a total of around $83 million!) I was rather excited to see an $2.5 million fireworks show! We wound up standing shoulder-to-shoulder with about ten thousand other people crowded onto Elizabeth Bridge. The fireworks exploded from three other places along the Danube in lots of greens, whites and reds, the national colors of Hungary. It was a real feeling of community with the Hungarian people around us - we all oohed and ahhhed at the same time, at the same thing. All in all, I have seen better fireworks shows at (likely) less cost to taxpayers, but never have I seen them in Hungary. This one was special for that very reason.

JOE: Okay, I agree the fireworks were lovely, but I have one major complaint. They turned off the lights to all the buildings so I couldn't get any pictures with castles or famous buildings in the background. Oh, well … actually you can sort of see the Chain Bridge lit up by the fireworks. Seriously, though, the celebration was a memorable way to end our action-packed week in Budapest. Judging fom the crowd of hundreds of thousands, most of the city joined us in wishing the best for Budapest for another thousand years and beyond.

Our experience in Budapest also taught us a valuable lesson: don't travel anywhere in the world with preconceived notions. On our last day in Budapest, while browsing through a bookstore, we found a guidebook on the United States. For kicks, we looked up our own adopted hometown of Houston and, frankly, found very little to smile about. After listing the regular sights, the guidebook seemed to suggest that Houston has more negatives than positives. And it described Houston's traffic as "Bangkokian!" True, but we know Houston has a whole lot of heart .... it just takes a while to find it. And it would be very difficult to accomplish by walking around downtown Houston for a week with a backpack! That eased our minds slightly because, we realized that, despite our best efforts, we were never going to find the "Hungary heart" in only one week.
Burned out from being in the big city, we're looking forward to our next stop: Bran, Romania. This tiny town in Transylvania was made famous by no other than a prince named "Dracula." The site of one of Dracula's castles will be our home for the next five nights. Szia later, and wish us luck!