Budapest!

Monday, August 30th. We headed to Budapest for a weeklong orientation with the other Fulbrighters in Hungary, including the students, professors and scholars. The Hungarian Commission had scheduled daily lectures in history, culture and economics, as well as lessons in Hungarian. If you see how very long this blog has turned out to be, you'll know what a full and rich week they'd prepared.

The drive to Budapest took three and half hours, which meant five with the stops, including this one outside Kaposvár, a view tower that suddenly appears around a bend in the road. The view from the tower on this very blue day was excellent, and the stop gave us time to eat cookies and plums and scare off a lone biker.

We parked near the Keleti pályaudvar, the train station in the seventh district, and made our way to the hotel. We were quickly overwhelmed by the sounds, the people, the language.

The lectures prepared by the Hungarian commission were very good. The sociologists, economists, historians and other professors not only gave us a good foundation of past and present Hungary, but also the kind of viewpoint that only a working expertise provides. One of the last speakers was Tamás Daróci Bárdos, a composer and conductor who, for one year, was a student of Zoltán Kodály. Daróci Bárdos moved me absolutely, as he sang an old folk dirge, or accompanied one from Kodály himself, or just tapped distantly as he played a Hungarian rhapsody; and the joy he expressed as he snapped his feet together and clapped with Liszt or as he described the movement of the thieves as he played Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin (You go this way; I'll go that way), was infectious, and so inspiring.


Also, our Hungarian lesson was delivered with a sensual gusto every day by our instructor, Mária Sántháné Gedeon. She expressed not only a love for the sound and flavor of the Hungarian language but the pleasure of language learning, transforming the overwhelming task ahead of us into an adventure and delight.


Our children joined us for these lessons. But while they had the option of staying during lectures about the movement of the GDP in Hungary or the three lists that make up the 386 seats of Parliament, they chose to play in the halls instead, which amazingly, they did with one deck of cards and a small stack of paper uninterruptedly and without complaint for four to six hours every day.

In addition to the lectures, on Tuesday we were also introduced to the staff of the United States Embassy, eventually ending up at the home of the Public Affairs Officer for an evening soiree. There, many of the Fulbright grantees discovered that perhaps a life with the State Department was the thing they had been pursuing all along.

Below is a picture of exchange teachers meeting with the United States Ambassador, pictured in the foreground: from left, Keith, Kent, Emily, Meg (Keith's partner) and Franky.

Meanwhile, the kids played on the floor.

While some of the meals were served at the offices of the Hungarian Commission and others were served at the private homes of American diplomats, some of our favorite outings occurred in specially chosen restaurants most tourists would never find on their own.

 

A bus and a short walk brought us to the Fészek Restaurant, where the surroundings overwhelm any memories I have of the food.

The Fészek Restaurant sets the stage for the first of several photographs in which Kent Bailey (Virginia to Debrecen) can be seen pointing at the camera in a display of unusual alertness and brawn.

On Wednesday we were treated to a tour of the city, which started off with rain in Pest and ended with an enchanted flutter of golden light in Buda.  

Hungarian National Museum. Rain.

Magyar Állami Operaház

We happily jumped off the bus at Heroes' Square, a plaza built in 1896 to celebrate Hungary's thousandth birthday and a great place to play tag today.

The plaza is surrounded by museums, the Museum of Fine Arts on the left, and the Hall of Art on the right.

The detail on the hall is indescribably intricate. Fortunately, a travel blog relies heavily on pictures to pass on our experiences. As always, click on the photographs for better detail.

 

Kings, heroes, angels, horses, and tourists can be seen all over the columns and memorials.

From the bus, we were able to see a few things I'll have to think about further in the future. One, we passed the Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in the world after New York's Temple Emmanuel, reminding us of the history and continued presence of Jews in Budapest. Two, we passed empty bronze shoes on the banks of the Danube that memorialize the Jews stripped and shot into the river by the Arrow Cross at the end of World War Two. Before I left Seattle, I read Gratitude, by Joseph Kertes, fictionalizing an account of a Jewish family in Hungary, where I learned that the Holocaust did not truly reach Hungarian Jews until early 1944, but it did so with a vengeance. More on this later, I'm sure.


Finally, we crossed the bridge to view the magnificent structures on the Buda side of the river. You might note the sky in these pictures, which had stopped blowing rain on us but remains heavily and beautifully textured.


The Freedom Statue, or Statue of Liberty (Szabadság Szobor), is below at left. Below that, the Budavár, with an incredible sky.

Buda Castle

We left the bus once more for a glorious walk near and around the Fishermen's Bastion, a very humble title for the structures and archways that comprise it, as seen below.

Taking pictures from this setting is irresistable, as Franky and Emily demonstrate below.

Our tour guide through all of this, Andrea Hadik, was knowledgeable and warm, and we relied on her a great deal.

She also had an historical connection to present when we reached the top of castle hill in the story of her many-greats-grandfather, András Hadik, a great commander against the Prussians. 

Now his statue is better known, as students reach in and rub: it's supposed to bring a little bit of luck before examinations.

At right is a Soviet era car from East Germany, a Trabant, named by Time magazine one of the worst vehicles of all time. Apparently people still drive it, though. Andrea said the best way to double a Trabant's value is to fill it with gas.













Before we left Castle Hill, a wave of light dropped over the Parliament building. The two photographs below are taken less than one minute apart.





The bus dropped some of us off near Váci utca, a street a few of us remembered from our Pimsleur's Hungarian lessons. Hol van a Váci utca? Itt van a Váci utca! Oh, and also, itt van the Church of St. Michael, at left.













At the end of the street is this market with the incredible tile from Pécs (I think).





Along the Danube, we saw this incredible old apartment building and also this Soviet era piece of art, to which our kids added a needed layer of irony that Franky thought was hilarious.





















We ate dinner eventually (sorry kids), and it was pizza again (sorry Kent), and there Franky showed the kids how to do a little head patting, belly rubbing.

Before we went to bed, we saw the palace turn to gold.

Thursday, we were driven to the Danube Bend. Franky was perhaps a little excited.





From the bus, remains from the Holy Roman Empire scattered along the edges of the highway, and sometimes beneath or in the middle of it.

















Ruins and aquaducts mixed with Soviet track housing and dog parks, preserved, memorialized, and sometimes set apart as something special.


It was certainly strange to see passing through the windows of a bus.


But we had only just begun the journey that would comprise our kids' favorite parts of the Budapest visit -- the part that had no Budapest in it. Was the city too gritty, too crowded, too fast? One night, in the metro station we used to cross the street to our hotel, I lost sight of Stephanie, Sophie and Amelia because I was carrying Maisie high up by my shoulder. We ran back outside and didn't find them. What we did find on the way down the steps again was a pool of thick, fresh blood, liberated from a homeless man's leg only a few minutes before. What's that? Maisie asked. I think it's blood, I said. I think it's juice! Maisie returned. Then she said, But it's probably blood. She thought about it and added, I hope someone's not hurt. Then she thought a bit more and said, I hope someone's not dead! Stephanie and the other girls were in the hotel already. In any event, the visit to Szentendre and Visegrád reflected the charm, color, and beauty of the countryside rather than of a homeless man's leg.























Visegrád, where the fifteenth century King Mátyás had his summer residence, was still quieter. The grounds were closed, but Annamaria worked something out so that our group in particular could visit.


The summer palace was reputed to be one of the most luxurious homes of all time, and Mátyás's Hercules Fountain, which ran with wine fed from the mountain top rather than the usual mountain runoff surely helped.



















The fountain is so emblematic that it is found on the back of the 1000 forint mark.


Other features were interesting as well.





We took a group picture by the fountain. I took a picture of Andrea taking the picture with every camera around.

At the top of the hill, from this point, we were able to see the Danube Bend, a feature that had not interested me in the guide books. But were all floored by the view, the air, the lines, and colors and light.


It was a spectacular half an hour.

Stephanie with Huba Brückner, the Executive Director of the Hungarian Commission.

Georgi, an exchange teacher (Virginia to Budapest) helps Amelia to the view at left. Then she takes it in herself.

It was somehow the kind of experience that brings you closer to people you've known less than half a month.




When we came down the hill, the best social event of the week was waiting for us at the Renaissance Restaurant, outside the tower that imprisoned Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula for a dozen years.


The restaurant, as good as its name, held heavy gowns for us at the entrance, stocky dark wood chairs and terra cotta pitchers of palinka, bull's blood and water.



And the food was terrific.










Stephanie and I sat with the O'Connor-McMullans -- Margaret, Pat and their awesome 13 year old kid, James -- and we are only sorry that they are leaving after half a year. They're joyous, interesting; they're writers; they're staying in Pécs, an hour away. We'll do what we can do know them. 








On our last day, we greeted the grenade-lobbing soldier by the Fulbright Commission one last time, ate potato croquettes, and said goodbye.