Day Eight: Welcome to No-English land (Budapest!)
June 30, 2008
Alright! Look at how far we’ve come already! From Rome to Florence to Venice to Zagreb and now, here we are, in Budapest. This move to Hungary marks an important turn in the trip. What’s the turn? Well, as I’ve mentioned, Leslie was sort of in charge of leading the way through Italy and I’m supposed to sort of quasi-lead the way in Eastern Europe. This means a few things
First: say goodbye to meth-driven Rick Steve!! And hello to Lonely Planet and random wanderings! (don’t tell Leslie but, yay!!!!)
Second: expect more action-packed adventures (i.e. biking through towns and the forced eating of authentic fill-in-the-blank weird foods)
Third: Expect more attempts to eat food gotten at local markets (this isn’t a me versus Leslie thing… it’s more of a something-we’ve-come-to-learn-while-traveling thing)
Fourth: Get ready to walk!!!!
I know Leslie’s excited and I hope you are, too!
So what’s been going on? Well, we got up after about one and a half hours of sleep in Zagreb, ran to the market, got a giant chunk of cheese (again, we didn’t know what kind it was), a big fluffy loaf of bread, and some peaches, and speedily walked over to the train station. And then *trumpets please* we got on, fell asleep on and off for about seven hours (seven hours is how long this ride was) and landed in Budapest! But even from this short ride we’ve already learned interesting information about Hungarians (because, you know, by meeting two we can make claims about the entire group of them!)
So, as I’ve mentioned, I’m a quarter Hungarian (my mom’s father was full on Hungarian). Now, my mom (and random others) have told me some interesting things about Hungarians. Here are the two main ones
1. (from my mom) Hungarians don’t express that much emotion and they don’t chit-chat. If they have something to say, they’ll say it. But unless the house is burning down, they aren’t going to just randomly initiate conversation with you. And, generally, they just aren’t that friendly.
2. (from Frane) Hungarians are highly sexually creatures
Now I’m not sure how 1 and 2 are supposed to go together, but who am I to judge?!
I can say, given my extensive experience with Hungarians (i.e. one woman on a train) that number 1 just isn’t so true anymore. Granted, they aren’t like Italians yelling cat calls midday, but they aren’t looking on in complete scorn or discontent either! So, the woman on the train, basically she ended up sitting next to Leslie and me and when she realized we were trying to find out way, offered to help explain it, get us on the bus, and even told us, once we were on the bus, which stop to get off at. And, it wasn’t like she only spoke when she had an important direction for us. Oh no! She told us a little bit about her sister, what she was doing on the train, how she liked Budapest, etc. It was great! And a very warm way to enter a new country.
And! Even before her Leslie and I had a positive Hungarian experience. When we first got on the train we didn’t know where on earth to go. We were fairly confident there were assigned seats (turns out there weren’t) so we were looking at all these numbers, etc. Now, I recognize that I don’t hide my emotions particularly well, and so I’m guessing that this old guy saw me looking up in confusion and decided to help alleviate it! But, of course, there was a small problem. He didn’t speak any English. So, instead, we played charades! And actually, it worked quite well. I made the gesture of sticking-the-card-in-the-validation-box and he acted back a “no” and then pretended to be the train guy walking past with a pen and checking it off. We went through a few more and they were fantastic! He was so adorable and so very very friendly.
So generalization 1 is wrong!
As for number 2 I can’t make any claims. Sorry!
So anyways, finally we made our way to our hostel, took a nap, and then decided to just walk around. And oh boy did we walk.
First we came across Judafest – a Jewish street fair in what was once the Jewish ghetto of Budapest during World War One. There were lots of people eating yummy food, singing, and just generally gallivanting about. It was so neat that we just came across it and then had the opportunity to check it out.
After Judafest, we made a stop at a restaurant for dinner, ordered some traditional-ish Hungarian food and chilled out there for a bit. Our waitress barely spoke any English at all but we made it work. The only bad part is that I think I’m somehow allergic to egg… because whenever I eat them I get such a horrible stomach ache. So I had that to deal with for a while, but otherwise it was great.
After dinner we walked up to Hero’s square and ended up stumbling upon a giant gathering of Hungarians watching the EuroCup: Germany versus Spain. It seems that Hungarians are for Spain and so we were, too! (well…because the Hungarians are and, of course, because of our Spanish friends). We sat down with the zillion of them and yelled and screamed right along. It was great!
After watching that for a bit we moseyed on over to the most gorgeous castle. We walked around, found a friggin frog prince hopping on by, and went out the back way into a gorgeous path. Budapest, like Zagreb, feels very safe at night.
While walking we stumbled upon two additional giant EuroCup parties. It was crazy! There were thousands upon thousands of people watching this game in a one mile radius alone!
After that we walked by the baths we were going to go to the next day and then made the long journey back to our hostel (but not before Leslie got her gyros fix).
So overall, it was a relaxing day used to get our bearings about this city… since, as the title suggests, not all Hungarians speak English. At all. So best to not get lost!!
Tomorrow we are going to the Giant open market in the morning (to get food and have a look around), Dohány Street Synagogue and Jewish Museum (which I’ve been excited about for a very very long time), and then we’re renting bikes so we can bike to baths and then around both Buda and Pest.
Doesn’t that sound like fun?!
Oh and to see pictures from this day, click here.
Comments
3 Responses to “Day Eight: Welcome to No-English land (Budapest!)”
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That rabbi cake looks so good! Can you bring one of those little rabbis home? Haha!
Hey Eric! How are things buddy? You still running a million miles a day?
Do the Jewish dance that Mary was doing at the Greek Festival. Hava-havila-hava-havila-hava-havila-hey! hahahahhaha!