Blue Danube, Part I March 28, 2014 Budapest, Hungary

Blue Danube, Part I 

March 28, 2014

Budapest, Hungary

A slurry of Viennese coffee and cream chases omelet laced with salty cheese, my last breakfast in Vienna. Hopelessly jet lagged, I am fuzzy headed and in a rush for my 10 a.m. train to Budapest. 

My hopeless with trains makes me wary enough to arrive 30 minutes early. With nothing to do, I chat with a couple from Chicago, comparing notes. They have just come from Krakow, which they enjoyed. We are in the same boat, nervously checking every train that comes, even one nearly boarding a train leaving Budapest until the ticket agent helpfully stops us. 

Our train is half an hour late and we doze in the sunny spring morning. The platform is across from a cemetery, adding a strange sense of familiarity to an otherwise sterile train station. Our Railjet train arrives and we quickly say goodbye as we head towards different compartments. 

At least this time I have located the correct seat, which I will occupy without company for the duration of the journey. It’s a fast train, comfortable with private, airline style rows of reserved seats. I set up my laptop to unwind the previous day in my mind, trying to hide my sniffles when I write about my Dad and Max. The two and an half hour pass unnoticed as I tap, tap, tap into my keyboard. This has been one big adventure that I am finding I need to write about to digest. 

As we pass into Hungary, new building take shape. The cottages of the countryside grow broader, unkempt, some crumbling. I dismiss them as country hovels, assured the city will be better looked after. Mile after mile, wildflowers dot the hillsides filled with pit mines, small boroughs and tall, leafless trees. 

The conductor announces Kelenfold, one stop from Budapest. I swallow, afraid that there is more of this to come. Rubble lines the tracks alongside graffitied walls. There’s some trash, but it’s almost worse than that- buildings are crumbling. Next to neogothic storefronts stand odious cement blocks of the Communist regime. Satellite dishes adorn flat rooftops of instead of gargoyles. I had imagined Budpest as something like Istanbul, exotic, spicy and romantic. Right now it is reminding me of Russia, and I get a sinking feeling.

The signs announcing Budapest Keleti are hand painted and unlit, a far cry from the modernism of Russia. Most of them are rusty as well. The train pulls into the station, a mammoth building of yellowed brick supporting an aging cupola. I unboard my coach to a gritty, hazy stream of locals wheeling past me. Dismayed, I drag my heavy bags over uneven pavement to the curb, avoiding a taxi hawker although I need one (I never trust them inside a building). 

After crossing some unmarked pavement i think is a road, I arrive at the official taxi stand. Three or four men chatter around me and grab for my bags, but I can tell they are trying to help me. “Local money,” one asks. I shake my head. “Euro,” he says as he nods. 20 Euro will get me to my hotel. Thank God, anywhere but here. 

As we pull away, I see a huge Burger King neon sign that spans the side of a once beautiful building. Oh God, what have I done?

The taxi driver is polite, but drives fast amid the choking smoke of all the diesels here. As we zig and zag though Budapest, I scan the streets for what’s to come. Run down shops present themselves one after another after another as the ground level of seven story grey-brown buildings. 

I pray there’s more to town as we round onto Andrassy Ut where I meet- a Nobu? Chopard, Armani, plus many fashionable European shops line the Unesco World Heritage Boulevard. Well, at least there’s good shopping, be it something I can get at home.

We arrive at the Chain Bridge Sofitel in a flurry of stops and starts, where the driver pulls up onto the sidewalk to let me out. This must be normal because the doorman simply opens my door. I pay the driver, but son’t tip because I know I just got hosed again on taxi fare. It was easily 10 minutes, probably an 8 Euro fare. Plus, I never saw a  meter running (they are not all in boxes like the US, some are in mirrors like Vienna- others are in there pockets, like this fellow). 

My hotel luck in in session, with a suite upgrade and a river view swapped for my value double in my package. I try listening to my bellman in tattered uniform as he explains the feature of my two room suite to me, (two doors, two tvs, two thermostats) but I am busy being freaked out. 

The view is stunning, or would be, if the haze permitted a clear view of the Buda side of the river Danube. Adjacent to my hotel is a traffic circle with a park and statues that sits in front of The Four Seasons Gresham Palace. I am in one of the nicest parts of town. 

I quickly start considering heading to Amsterdam tomorrow. I berate myself for using photographs and my imagination to book a trip somewhere this exotic. No wonder no one I know has been here. I start to wonder why they would even bother. 

After calming down a little, with vodka from my flask, I realize I am being a bad traveller. Every city, just like people, have their good and bad sides. Aside form the pollution, Budapest is really a gorgeous city, the scope of Roman buildings applied to neogothic architecture. Its beauty is even more evident in the nighttime, when the lights of the buildings reflect off the waters of the black Danube. 

With the hope of making new friends, I dress up and head for my evening tour, a river cruise with dinner. I wander up and down Ziriny Ut twice before locating Duna Palota (Danube Palace), which I had been looking for in English.  A crowd of waiting tourists tips me off as the addresses are numbered only on the whole number (so if you rent a shop at 1/8 I guess you are in trouble for mail). Between number 4 and 5 are at least 3 storefronts. 

My hope of conversations dwindles, then stalls, when I here no English spoken in the hall. The tourists are Hungarian, Russian, French, Japanese and Austrian. At least, those are the ones I can pick out. Hope is extinguished permanently when I am seated by a well meaning waiter by a window at a table for eight, with a couple already seated. They decide to move to a window themselves, leaving me alone. A French couple is then seated, but only the man replies to my timid “hello”.  Unwilling to get down, I note that I have a perfect view of the stage, and look forward to whatever entertainment is on because I have the best seat in the house!

The waiter pours me a glass of wine to accompany my welcome champagne as the barge rumbles to life. The musicians take the stage,a  trio of violin, viola and cello. The buffet opens and I pretend the French are gone, as they have to me. We never speak another word (sometimes I understand why my Dad’s family left that country), which means I get to sketch and take notes. 

As I gaze at the buildings, I see a different city. The night takes away all the blight on the city. The smog creates halos on with the lights, there are no crowds and traffic is barely audible in the middle of the river. It becomes the Eastern European treasure it claims to be. 

After the trio plays my favorite Hungarian Folk Dance melody (I let them choose and that’s what I lucked out on), I climb the stairs to the outer deck. I think it must be a sign that the band played me a melody from my Nick LaFlame playlist. Pondering the weirdness that leads me to create Itunes playlists for fictional characters in the first place, I settle onto a cane back chair on the forward deck.

Well lit bridges pass silently overhead as we head upriver to our dock. The bank is lined with river cruise barges overnighting in Budapest, as well as barges turned into pubs. The night is mild. The inky river is calm. Still full on chicken paprikas, something like spaetzle, stuffed cabbage and a few other unidentified but delectable items, I cozy into the quiet of a river in the middle of the city with other passengers huddled on the bow.

The evening ends with a short walk to my hotel where a huge feather bed awaits. I can’t fathom the TV, give up after ten minutes of searching for movies just in case I can’t sleep. I don’t even realize I have drifted off until that clatter of hooves wakes me.

Below my window, a pair of grey horse pulls a carriage around the city streets. I check my clock, nearly midnight. 

I smile and turn out the light, vowing to seek out the carriage tomorrow every time they clatter by, which is several times more in the wee hours. 

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