Phase Two of our study tour took us on a bus from Vienna to Budapest, arriving a little before midnight on the 13th. We were met on the bus by a cheerful woman possessing a high girlish voice and a cheerful disposition. I was still waking up and very confused, and so after she'd introduced herself and told us to follow her to the hotel, I made the mistake of owlishly wondering aloud, "who is this bitch?"
She was polite enough to pretend she didn't hear me. Or maybe she really didn't. Or if she did, it didn't translate. Whatever.
This hotel was noticeably more cramped than the other, but size aside, there were two major differences between our Vienna lodging and our room in Budapest, and they were both in the bathroom. We were back to a hose-shower, this time connected to the bathtub, and perhaps more importantly, we had no shower curtain. WET FLOOR was the order of the stay. BUT there was a super cheap internet cafe/bar attached to the lobby. Technically, almost everything was cheap because Hungarian currency, the forint (or HUF, for HUngarian Forint) runs about 160-200 to the dollar. So a beer listed as 400 forint actually costs around 2 bucks. Thank goodness!
After we'd gotten vaguely settled in, S., A., L., M., and J. (plus myself) went bar hunting. We had been told that our hotel was near a great street for nighttime bars and cafes. We walked, apparently, away from that street. It took us a while, and we passed some adult theatres and other porn related businesses on the way, but we found a bar. Right at the same time we found a lady getting slapped around in the street. Well, more to the point S. saw her get slapped; the rest of us saw her get up off the ground and start yelling. We hustled inside and enjoyed both flavorful Hungarian beer and peeping through the window and spying on our new friend. She flounced into our bar a few minutes later and started talking with some bearded men who looked like regulars as if they were old chums, so maybe this isn't totally out of the ordinary for her. If that's the case, sad. She should learn Kung Fu.
OH! Whomever is in charge of Budapest PR knows how to do lights. The city has a bunch of really gorgeous buildings that have absolutely fantastic night lighting - almost a little eerie, in fact. When I saw them I was in the bus, unfortunately, so no pictures.
Day One (Two?)
Hungarian hotel breakfast does not, sadly, live up to the stellar example set by its Austrian neighbor. It did the job though.
We were staying in Pest (I found out), and spent our morning in Buda. We bussed up to the wall/old buildings overlooking the Danube and had a few minutes to look around. The view was FANTASTIC.
We had a walking tour of the area by a Danish professor who is on research leave in Budapest. He speaks not only Danish and English, but Hungarian and German too (and potentially French?). SUPER smart dude. The walking tour was really neat, although in a group of 26 it was hard to always be in a position to hear what he was saying. We walked around some official buildings and some official ruins - it's still weird to hear, "And the Americans bombed this building in 1943." We just don't get that side of the story in our history classes. Also, a lot of the walls sported bullet or shrapnel related damage - before I left, one of my mother's professors told me she loved Budapest because the walls could talk, and now I believe her. You could feel the history oozing all around you, even more than in Vienna or at the Viking ruins in Denmark.
Then we went to the Center for Advanced Studies and ate lunch. It's a center for post graduate research and thinking. Based on the desserts we had, of which there were three, I'm getting the feeling that a lot of Hungarian sweet includes fruit of some kind. We had a chocolate cake with grapes in it, as well as a different chocolate cake with orange filling. Hmm...
After lunch we had a lecture. On what I don't know. Given the stress of the trip, the turkey we had had for lunch, and the professor's monotonous voice, it was all I could do to remain awake for most of the time.
Following the lecture we were free for four glorious hours, and several people and I went to the SPA that was listed as an optional visit in our pamphlet. Optional my ass. It was GIGANTIC and yellow. For all that Hungarians try to distance themselves from their previous oppressors' cultures (or so I've been told), there's a lot of Turkish influence in the city. This bath, for example. Its big spired self boasted three outdoor heated pools, two of them heated. One had a raised fountain that you could stand under for a quasi massage, and the other had concentric hot tubs. The center had inward directed jets, and the ring around it had sideways jets that turned it into an itty bitty lazy river, but much more powerful. SO much fun. Indoors there were six other pools heated to various temperatures. That's all we had time to see and enjoy. The place also boasted two regular saunas and a UV Sauna that glowed blue and smelled like skin disease. Needless to say we didn't go near that shit. There was also a wing of specialty pools that I was dying to get to, but it turned into "you can go there, or you can eat, but you don't have enough time for both." I chose food, opting out of mud baths and carbon acid baths. Next time :p. OH and it's true what people say about Europeans and modesty. I have never in my life seen more overweight people in one space, not even in the states, and if I had seen them at home, they would NOT have been wearing Speedos. One large old man had his gut tucked into his Speedo. Culture Shock!
Even planning for time we were running late for the show our program had bought us tickets for, and so M., J., L., and I ended up running into a grocery store and getting random bits of food for dinner. I spent three dollars on:
Bread.
Cheese.
Beer.
We arrived at the theatre early and sat on a stoop munching while we waited for the rest of our group. Yum!
THE PERFORMANCE
what. the. fuck. We knew that we were seeing some sort of performance involving electricity and dance, but beyond that we were clueless. Here's what we got:
Stage is black. Spot fades up on the female soloist, lying spread eagle on floor. Floor is black. Soloist is clad only in flesh toned dance panties. Plastered all over her body are electrodes; their cables all gather into one strand that rises into the air, presumably to a catwalk. Cue white noise - base thrumming sounds. Dancer starts to move almost imperceptibly, rotating her body on the stage like the hands of a clock so that eventually, her head and feet will have switched places, and then she'll be back where she started. Very controlled, fluid movement. Except for the spastic twitching that happens as the electrodes fire. She rolls around the stage, twitching, for maybe forty minutes before the music changes. Now we have beeping - long tones in thirds and fifths. As she undulates across the stage, different lights come on. Rarely is more than one on at a time. Eventually, she returns to her starting position, and the rope of wires become taut. Slowly, audibly, the electrodes are ripped off until the dancer is free of their twitchy embrace. Now she is free to roll about as she pleases, which she proceeds to do, although she does occasionally indulge in some voluntary shivers. One set looks like the yoga pose, "cockroach" as I learned at Brandeis. Basically you lie on your back with your hands and feet in the air and shake them violently. Finally, after almost two hours, the lights come up and the dancer bows. Twice.
There existed in this routine some really cool elements of light and sounds and movement, not to mention the sheer athleticism the dancer exhibited, but overall I was too overwhelmed by the weirdness of the experience. I'm really glad to have seen it because it's a fabulous taste of contemporary Hungarian fringe theatre, but damn.
Afterwards: bar! They don't have Kahlua and soda's in Budapest. How do I know? I ordered one. The waiter (bless his heart) quadruple checked what I had said to make sure he got it right. "Kahlua and soda, please, with lime" "what?" "Kahlua and soda with lime please" "what" "May I have kahlua. Soda. and Lime." "kahlua, soda, lime?" "Yes please." The drink as I know it comes in a tall glass over ice, and when I've ordered it in Copenhagen, that's gone without saying. What I received in Budapest was a tumbler containing kahlua, soda, and some floating bits of lime. Oops. Now I know!
Day Three (Two?)
Morning excursion: National Museum!
Beautiful. Collection of works by Hungarian artists past and present, so you get a kind of walk through of the evolution of Hungarian art. I noticed something: in the mid-lateish 1800's, the paintings are very pastoral and happy. Once you hit the late 1880's --> early 1890's, you start getting extremely drab color palettes and depressing images. Seems like either life started sucking or there was some kind of artistic movement to paint real people and not propaganda. Or something. I spoke with my professor and that's what she suggested, although she admitted she's not exactly an expert on Hungarian art history. ALSO really cool dome at the top with hanging human-sculptures. If you stand in the middle of the dome you get fantastic acoustic echoes and tap dancing is a treat. Thankfully for the other patrons, you can only hear it if you're standing in the center, so I wasn't blasting out obnoxious foot noises for everyone to deal with.
Lecture at the Theatre Museum!
This lecture (our last) was absolutely fabulous. The lecturer was the director of the museum as well as a professor of theatre at the University as well as a producer/director/writer. He was brilliant and SO knowledgeable about both his subject and almost everything else. This is because in Hungary, theatre and art were basically the only mediums for social or political expression during its various lengthy occupations, and so theatre interacted with literally almost every facet of Hungarian life. It gave a great perspective to the crazy we saw last night, and made me want to fetch this man to Brandeis to lecture. Also, he sounded a little like Mr. Bean's character from the movie Rat Race.
Free time!
A. and I went for some Hungarian goulash, which we'd been advised to try. And I say the same to you! It's a beef and vegetable soup in a tomato based broth involving lots of paprika. Ours had jalapenos. You get a big ole bowl and bread, so a simple bowl of soup is easily a filling meal. It's super delicious! Then shoe shopping - boring, but necessary. I wanted shower shoes for my upcoming visit to London (hostel), and A. wanted cheap, serviceable dress shoes for when he was with his parents so they could go to nice restaurants, etc. Neither of us were successful, so I'm going to either laminate my feet or find some other solution.
We went to the Terror Museum. AAHHHH. It's dedicated to the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Hungary, and what makes it especially creepy is that it's in the same building that served as the headquarters of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party (the Hungarian Nazis). Back then it was called the House of Loyalty. Soviet Tank on the ground floor:
Victims of said occupation (people who disappeared or were otherwise disposed of):
We weren't allowed to take pictures after that room, but there was a great display of various Arrow Cross and Soviet artifacts. The museum focused mostly on the Soviet occupation, which irritated some people ("how could they be so inconsiderate of the Jews! Six million!") but when you consider that the Soviets killed over 20 million and occupied Hungary for much longer than the Nazis did, it makes sense. There was also a great recreation of a changing room with old uniforms and lockers, as well as a nifty video showing people from various Hungarian walks of life being forced to get rid of their old clothes and change into "good communists" for their new jobs at the factories. Creeptastic.
Also: re-creations of prison cells and torture chambers. The brutality present, even in phony cells, was revolting.
We walked out, feeling "whew! At least that ended! The last Soviet left in '91; we're moving towards a better future. Never forget!" when some people walked up, maybe eight. They were mixed military-ish personnel and gothed out figures. They formed two ranks and began singing. Umm...what? None of us spoke Hungarian. They finished, SIG HEILED, and their leader put up a wreath on the museum! WHAT!!!!! They were either Fascists or Neo Nazis or something doing a remembrance of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, we think. AAAAHHHHH. SO weird that people like that still exist! And are my age!
Then: DINNER!
Our final, DIS sponsored event (aside from the return trip to Copenhagen) was a dinner cruise on the Danube. SUPER touristy, ya, but also reallllly fun. Swanky boat, buffet dinner and dessert, as well as champagne and wine. We got some really great views of Budapest at night!
this lady, unfortunately blurry due to long distance and zoom, is one of the last communist relics still standing.
Also, there was a string trio that played stuff from Mozart to traditional Hungarian melodies to The Girl From Impanema...and beyond! They were a lot of fun.
It ended all too soon, and we stumbled our collective selves out around town. I lost S. and A., whom I'd been sitting with, and found myself with a largish collection of students. That kinda sucked, because in a large group it's hard to escape feeling loud and American and, well, obvious. BUT there were some great people I hadn't had the chance to hang out with much, and that excited me. After two dud bars, we found an AMAZING hole in the wall. You walk through the door and immediately down a steep staircase into red light and cigarette smoke. It's bricky and run down and smoky and the walls are covered in writing and scribbles and images, and the patrons look run down or crazy hipster or just plain weird. It's totally where I imagine people come to plot revolutions. SO GOOD!
Then bed. Early up next morning (GROSS), flight to Malmo in Sweden; bus to Copenhagen; make giant bowl of pasta and crash. Here's some other pictures I got in Budapest:
1 comment:
Great pics and don't you look dashing with your scarf flying about!
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