Clark Adam ter

Clark Adam ter, on the Buda side of the Szechenyi lanchid (Chain Bridge), was once planted with flowers to form the shape of a red star. Of course that's changed now. Symbols like that are outlawed (though that's being challenged in court).  Still, the imagination has an easy time here. Like sitting in front of a fireplace, it's easy to stare at for a while...

Wilderness river

Walking tonight across the Margit hid (a bridge between Buda and Pest with an angle in the middle where it meets the tip of Margit Island), we noticed someone had a campfire going on the bank of the island. The island is almost completely dark at night. A campfire, steeped in its ancient sense of home, safety and civilization surrounded by wilderness, here tonight looked every bit the refuge for someone down there against the surrounding darkness, and the city sparkling just across the water.

Car-free on Andrássy út

   
Last Sunday was European Car-Free Day, in which several major boulevards in Budapest were closed to their normally hasty and impersonal types of traffic and opened instead to the slower, messier, and liberating foot traffic more favorable to civic interaction. (While street fairs and festivals are of course not unique to this city, my impression of life here is nevertheless shaped by the fairly frequent events like this one.)

We jostled through the crowds past blocks of booths for theater groups, environmental advocacy groups, art displays and stages. One stage had a cricket player batting bread rolls into the audience, which was showering them back at him en masse. Another stage too far to see had its audience laughing in sudden bursts. 

Knowing little of the language written and spoken around you can lead to a state of bewildering magic, as when at one point we were followed by a group of meters(???). I later caught one of them captivated by a group of break-dancers that had drawn a crowd.

  

The lights of the city

Some things take repeated sightings built up over time to recognize them as traits of a place. One of them for me in Budapest has been the look of neon signs and how they are used.

The fall riot season

It seems there were some minor upheavals here in Budapest last Saturday. We were in much of the day to catch up on some work, when it became noticeable that the helicopter high up over our neighborhood wasn't going anywhere. I can't say how long it was there, maybe an hour or so drifting around mainly overhead. Meanwhile more and more sirens were darting around. Because ours and most of the buildings around here are 5-7 stories there isn't a lot of visibility. It was a time one would normally turn on the news for any breaking stories. We don't have the cable hooked up, so no TV for us and English radio is very intermittent. I recalled a story I'd read in the paper a few days earlier about the mayor of District V being concerned about possible clashes coming from opposing marches planned for Saturday.

Over the next hour or so I was able to find several breaking stories posted on news websites, first in Hungarian (in which I loosely translated the ones accompanying photos of police in riot gear and other turmoil), then in English, all of which were confirming the opposing march violence theory. Finally by around 8PM the police sirens had died down and this all clear was posted on Pesticide, an informal English language Budapest website. 

The extremely brief version of the scoop is that there are some extremist 

right-wing groups (Hungary for the Hungarians, down with the WWII treaties which gave up a lot of the old homeland to surrounding countries, down with immigrants, down with the Roma, etc.) here in Hungary that have been increasingly vocalizing themselves over the past couple of years, against which some leftist organizations are starting to reformulate themselves. They are organizing to oppose the discrimination and racism that they see as a growing threat to national unity. Well, Saturday they had simultaneous marches that finished very near each other, and our apartment. Apparently some clashes broke out between the police and the Right-wingers and things were thrown, violence escalated, tear gas was sprayed and fire hoses were squirted before it all disipated.

We had a wonderful late dinner at a bar/restaurant called Dupla a few blocks away that night.

Early Fall in the Buda Hills

Last weekend we made our way up into Buda Hills, a large area of wooded parklands punctuated by residential areas with a vast network of hiking trails west of town. Following a very brief guidebook description, there was quite a bit of feeling our way through guesswork and asking for help to get up there, though now that we've done it once it seems amazingly easy. Working to find the right bus out of the busy Moszkva ter and then wandering aimlessly along the back roads after being deposited at the end of the line, we still managed to find the chairlift to Janos hegy, the highest point in the city on top of which sits a stone tower overlooking the Buda hills and Budapest. 

Fueled by a couple of pastries bought at Moszkva ter, one filled with some earthy chicken liver and the other filled with bright yellow marjoram scented potatoes, we hiked along the ridge top until we found the upper end of the cog-wheel railway at dusk. This mostly empty train slowly clinked us back down into the city, though all of the trains we passed that were climbing back up were filled with passengers and mountain bikes indicating the relative popularity if riding down out of the hills compared with climbing them.

  

Moszkva ter

   
We passed through Moszkva ter on our way out into the Buda Hills last weekend. It is a highly energetic node on the Buda side of the Danube where all forms of transportation come together. Countless buses start their routes here, along with a number of tram lines and the metro subway. Even on a relatively quiet Saturday the hustle of the week echos here. The socialist era Moszkva ter metro station acts as an exclamation point with its landmark roof lifting the people out of the subway underneath and fanning them into the heart of commercial Buda.

The first sign of Fall

One of the first things I noticed upon arrival this summer in Budapest was the ubiquity of the sidewalk cafes. The sidewalks everywhere are loaded with the tables and chairs and they always seem to have so much business. Ordering a cup of anything could be a refresher, but I'm sure is often no more than an excuse to sit outside and chat, catch your breath, conduct business, meet a someone or read by oneself cheaply and leisurely while remaining part of the world. Most of the cafes here seem to offer wi-fi, and many people use it.

On the hottest days, the fans will blow mist over the tables which does a good job of cooling the seating areas (just don't sit under the dripping jets). On cooler days people will be huddled under their jackets -whatever it takes to carry on the conversation and stay outside.

So, recently it dawned on me that as it's now September, the weather should be changing soon. I realized that I'd come to take this fact of life in Budapest for granted.

The other day we stopped at the Mai Mano Cafe on Nagymezo utca. It was a beautiful cool day; the first to bring on the excitement of the looming fall. Sitting there zipped up in a hoodie, I noticed a woman reading nearby with a bright fleece blanket over her lap. Then I noticed another woman, hunched over her table in conversation wrapped in another bright blanket. Then I saw another.  I thought it was interesting how Budapestis bring blankets with themselves on outings. Finally, I noticed a cafe chair stacked with them, and discovered how the cafes must stretch the cafe season. Then a guy rode by on his bike with nothing but a blanket strapped to his bike rack.

Regulation vortex

As much as we tried to be fully prepared for the requirements of an extended stay in Hungary before departure, there were so many subjective aspects to it that it was impossible to feel concretely ready. Ultimately we were told by the Hungarian consulate in New York that we should have no problem with getting a residence permit and that it would be too early to apply for one while we were still in the US.

With the deadline approaching we spent much of last week dodging a variety of opening hours to round up all of the required documents from the health insurance company, our banks in the US and an official office called the Korzeti Foldhivatal(???). No small part of the maelstrom was the fact that several calls to the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN) for guidance were providing inconsistent advice from the Hungarian consulates in the US and regulations available on the government's website. 

The key here is that until the end of 2007 our 90-day visa-free stay in the country would have been renewed every time we entered. In other words, simply cross the border and come back. This advice is still being given by the OIN. According to posted regulations and the Hungarian Consulate, the Schengen Agreement regulations have since taken effect meaning the 90 days is only valid within any 6-month period. To avoid a risky gamble should we try to return from a trip, we found ourselves urging the officials at the OIN to please confirm their advice, to which they finally huddled around their computer scouring the regulations and discussing among themselves in Hungarian, when finally... "Itt van!" (Here it is!)

Our second trip to the OIN on Friday (after previously being sent away to get more documentation), was mostly sitting silently while the official sorted through our application packets shuffling, stamping and stapling. Only ABBA faintly singing "Sup-p-per Troop-p-per" broke the silence. Finally, he showed us where to sign, enclosed our paperwork in folders and stood up to indicate he was finished.

He said "no problem" when I asked about any -but did he mean there's nothing missing this time or that we should expect no problem getting approval? Our limited ability to communicate didn't allow for such distinction. That'll become evident soon enough...

Late summer mattress

   
Some of many sprawling flower beds that punctuate the huge fields and woods of Margitsziget (Margaret Island)

Permit application suspense

Today it seems we've finally jumped through all the required hoops; there's temporary relief while we wait for our residence permit applications to be reviewed by the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN). Approval will allow us to remain in Hungary beyond the normal 90-day limit. 

It's been a few days of running around town, sweating out lines in government offices and trying to understand the stern faces and Hungarian conversations among officials regarding our applications. The regulations, application requirements and processes seem to have changed recently enough that quite a few times we found ourselves informing OIN employees of Hungarian requirements for foreign nationals in Hungary (see The Schengen Agreement). More about it after I take a breath and catch up on some work...

Sunday morning szeszesital

This is the cheap-liquor bar at the outdoor flea market in the Varosliget. There's something liberating in an anarchic way about seeing that in the open on a Sunday morning. 

The bottles lined up to advertise themselves are are generic alcohols with flavorings to help them taste like different things: brandy, fruit-flavored brandy, herb flavor, vodka, etc. I know because I've tried a few of them from the grocery store and then translated the labels. I tried making a sidecar with the brown brandy-flavored alcohol once and Jen, who got used to them in New York, puckered her face and told me it had an "interesting" flavor.

Some people just want to chat with a stranger

Sometimes someone stops to ask a question, and I'll say in (no doubt very rough) Hungarian that I don't understand Hungarian. They'll usually nod with quick realization and then mumble something else in Hungarian and move on, or continue the question in English. The trick is to quickly determine when I'm going to interrupt so as to not let them waste too much of their time. 

Occasionally they're obviously just chatting, such as "...last time I was in here I looked everywhere for this and I was told it wasn't made anymore, but now this week here it is, taking up a whole shelf. How do you like that." When that goes on too long it starts getting dangerous. 

Will I just be able to chuckle and nod my head knowingly before escaping or is there going to be a question at the end, which will reveal that I've been letting them waste their whole story?

Hungaria Furdo

A public bath ruin in Erzsebetvaros

Instant family outing

Wandering the Varosliget for a place to sit and read (and sleep), we eventually picked a tree. It took a minute to stand there and scope out its suitability since there was a lot of activity going on. Over here was a pack of dogs flowing this way and that while their owners chatted with each other. Over there was a bunch of kids chasing each other on bikes. I noticed a woman standing nearby watching her kids run around.

When the target tree turned out to be a good enough distance from out of control frisbees, dogs or bikes, we went for it. In the same instant, so did the woman. With neither party wanting to make an awkward change of course, we sat down together and shared the tree. Then a dog joined us. He kept nosing his way into our faces, then chasing 'Andras' the son on a bike, then circling back over to sit down. Then the daughter would get up yelling after Andras, followed by the dog, and on and on... Occasionally we and the mother would smile and exchange a few casual syllables with each other, disregarding the fact that none of us understood them.

We had a family for a while, and the companionship was amplified by so many other suitable trees standing around unused.