Day 11: Pickled Veggies (and Tourists)

This is one of a series of entries from my travel journal chronicling my recent trip to Europe. You can click here for the archived entries.

Day 10 | Day 12

Budapest photo gallery.

Somewhere Over Hungary 16/06/08

Yesterday and today have been fairly busy and this is the first chance I've had to catch up on my journal. Jeff and I took off on an easyJet flight from Budapest to London Luton Airport about twenty minutes ago. I'm now on my way to the third and final leg of the trip in England.

I awoke at the hotel in Lajosmizse yesterday morning feeling incredibly groggy and dare I say perhaps still a bit intoxicated from the night's festivities - however I didn't have a headache, so despite the fact that I slept through breakfast I felt pretty good. We got our stuff together and took the shuttle bus back to Budapest. We had another night to stay in the city and wanted to stay in a different hotel - one that was close to the city center and preferably wasn't an old workers' hostel and offered better breakfast fare than eggshell-laden scrambled eggs and unspeakably poor coffee. We had befriended one of the younger guests at the wedding, a French girl by the name of Celine who knew the couple from their time in Chicago. She had also coincidentally stayed at the spartan and underwhelming Hotel Rila on Friday night and she was spending Sunday night in the city as well. We decided to find another hotel and split it three ways - this way we could get a decent room and not break the bank. After a miss at a full hostel that allegedly had decent private rooms, we came to the Hotel Art (a Best Western affiliate), which seemed perfect from the start. The concierge was incredibly friendly and helpful and we ended up getting a two-bedroom, four-bed suite for the double-room rate. The three of us dropped off our luggage, refreshed ourselves, and then headed out to spend the rest of the day touring Budapest.

The hotel had an attached restaurant, and I was a bit peckish since it was afternoon and I had missed the breakfast at the hotel. We stopped in at the étterem for a bite. I ordered the Transylvanian meatball soup, primarily because it sounded like something Vlad Dracula might've gnoshed on back in the day. The menu was quite extensive for a smaller place and all the items had - as we found to be quite common in Budapest, especially the more popular tourist areas - descriptions written in hungarian, english, and german. The soup was delicious - a flavorful broth of sour cream and very tasty, piping hot beef meatballs. I had a tall .5L Dreher to go with my soup. Dreher is a common local pilsner that we would have quite a bit of over the next couple days.

After lunch we walked along the Danube to the Chain Bridge, the links of which are more like those of a bicycle chain than an anchor chain. Most of the vibrant nightlife and cafés of the city are on the Pest side, which was also where our hotel was located. We decided to cross the bridge and investigate Buda. One comes off the bridge at the foot of a hill, on top of which sits the National Gallery art museum. The Gallery used to be the Royal Palace back during the days of the dual monarchy with the emperors of Austria. On the same hill beyond the Gallery is the Fisherman's Bastion, a formidable defensive work which affords a fantastic view of Pest across the river - we could see the towers of Szent Istvan Bazilika as well as the ornate white Parliament building. Perfectly situated in one of the ramparts of the bastion is a café, where we enjoyed a beer as we took in the tremendous view.

We headed back across the river to check out a restaurant Jeff had read about in the Lonely Planet guidebook. We took a leisurely stroll back through St. Istvan's Square as Celine hadn't yet seen it. At this point Jeff suggested that we speak only in French from that point on for a change of pace - Celine spoke excellent English but this gave him and me the opportunity to brush up on our rusty high school French. Somewhat surprisingly, both of us could understand Celine quite well, although we stumbled a lot trying to speak ourselves.

We ended up in the Jewish Quarter and Jeff realized that the restaurant we were going to was a kosher joint with ethnic Jewish fare. Geflitefish and matzoh ball soup weren't what we had in mind for dinner, so we wandered around and found ourselves in Köleves, a "stonesoup restobar," whatever the hell that means. Although this place looked and felt like it was a bit off the beaten path, they definitely catered to tourists with a well-translated menu and english-speaking staff (we found that generally younger people spoke english pretty well, whereas older people often had none, and service people in increasingly trendy tourist spots spoke very well, like our fetching waitress at Café Kör on our first morning in town.) I wanted to go local, authentic, and a bit experimental. I ordered a bowl of goulash to start - a beef stew in a lighter broth (very tasty) - and a plate of pickled veggies. Pickled vegetables seem to be big here. It was a nice assortment of pickled cucumber, red onion, cabbage, and peppers. For my main dish I had a deer ragout of red wine and cranberries, with deep-fried cottage cheese balls. It was an interesting and flavorful dish. I think it was my first time trying venison - it had a very intense, gamey aftertaste that was a bit off-putting, although the ragout was excellent. It unfortunately overpowered the otherwise delightful sauce. A shame I suppose - I don't think deer will be making a regular appearance in the future. Jeff and I each had a 2cl shot of pálinka after the meal - I tried the plum, or szilva pálinka (I had previously tried the more prevalent apricot, or barack pálinka). Jeff opted for the raspberry pálinka, which was for some reason twice as much as the other flavors, of which there was a wide variety.

After dinner we went back to the hotel. Celine was knackered and had an early flight in the morning, but Jeff and I had a full day to spend in the city - our flight wasn't until 20:40. We bid Celine adieu and headed out to enjoy our last evening in Budapest.

After wandering for a while around Pest, we found ourselves at Szimpla, a place which both the Lonely Planet and Celine had recommended. It was a cool spot - kind of a funky coffeehouse with kitschy stuff like an old Singer sewing machine serving as our table base, the pedal still attached for the feet of the absentminded. We had a few rounds of shockingly cheap Drehers (about $2.50 for .5L) and took some small degree of pleasure in the fact that we appeared to be the only tourists in the joint. As seemed to be the thing to do, we got a pack of Lucky Strikes (no local tobacco to be had, unfortunately) and smoked and drank along with the local Hungarians. Although I hadn't had a cigarette in years (and find them abhorrent generally), it felt a more complete experience as we drank, smoked, and talked about everything from travel to money to love and family, whiling away the time until we got booted out at the rather early hour of 23:30. But we were drunk, tired and it was just as well to get a decent night's sleep for a final full day of touring the next day.

Celine had to leave early to catch her flight - luckily for us she was staying in the adjoining room and slipped out quietly in the morning today. Jeff and I grabbed breakfast (much better than Rila!) and headed out into a gorgeous day in Budapest. We walked along the river to check out the Parliament building. It's an impressive structure although it has to undergo constant restoration because the Soviets faced it with cheap, porous limestone that easily absorbs pollution (typical communists). The building, although structurally beautiful with towers and ornate masonry, offered a curious juxtaposition between the bright white recently-cleaned sections and the filthy black polluted areas. The square in front of the Parliament was the site of a massacre on October 25, 1956 - a couple days after the beginning of the failed Revolution - when the Soviets killed a bunch of protesters by firing into a crowd gathered in the square. There were a couple chilling memorials, including a mass grave and photos of the slain.

We next headed down Andrassy Út, the Champs-Élysées of Budapest. It's a long, straight boulevard lined with nice restaurants and high-end shops, which ends in Millenial Square, built in 1896 on the thousand-year anniversary of the founding of Hungary. We stopped along the way at the Terror Museum, which is in the building previously used as the headquarters of both the Nazi and Communist secret police during their respective occupations, but it is closed on Mondays. A real bummer, because I really wanted to check this out. Oh well - a sight for the next visit! We walked through the city park (not the nicest park I've been in - the scars of occupation are everywhere - but it looked like they were making an effort at beautification) and grabbed a bite at the park café. Then we made our way to the Szechenyi Baths - public pools, baths, and spas fed by local hot springs. The bathhouse was another impressive building with the hot baths inside and three huge pools outside in the center of the oval-shaped complex of yellow brick and white marble. We rented suits and towels and soaked for a while, checking out both the pool and the baths, which are arranged by temperature from 20-38 Celsius (68-100.4 Fahrenheit). Around the central pools were tables where old Hungarian men dressed in white towels sat and played chess all afternoon. It was a very cool experience (about $20 for an hour or so along with the rentals) although the amount of old, wrinkled, fat flesh on display was a tad unsettling.

After an extremely satisfying soak we hopped on the Metro and headed to a very nice wine store that was in the Lonely Planet. I bought myself a bottle of szilva pálinka to take back to the States. Next we enjoyed an espresso at Café Gerbeaud, where the city's elite have been meeting over coffee for the last 150 years. It was a bit overpriced and filled with tourists (funny how annoying tourists can be even when you are one yourself), but it was an "obligatory" stop according to the guidebook. The inside was ornate and there was a little gift shop.

We had a couple hours to kill after we had to catch a cab back to the airport. I was in desperate need of a stamp for a postcard, so we stopped at the main post office. Add a significant language barrier to the apparently universal nature of post offices the world over to be slow, inefficient bureaucracies and you can imagine my frustration trying to accomplish what should have been a simple task. There was a long service counter with many different windows, each of which evidently had a very specific purpose, because I waited in line at 3 or 4 of them before being referred elsewhere (although I wasn't sure where to go other than try yet another window, being given just head-shaking and negative gesticulations in response to my earnest inquiries). Finally I got to one that I felt confident about, seeing some visual aids taped to the window. After a few minutes of fruitless communication with the older woman behind the counter (no English and no real attempt to try to help), I was aided by the young guy behind me in line, who thankfully spoke english pretty well and helped me get the appropriate stamps. This ordeal lasted much longer than it should have and I felt sorry for Jeff waiting for me outside, but I found him across the street at the Amstel River Café, which we would later discover to be the most expensive place in Budapest with a total bill of 3.700 Forint for a few Heinekens. After that we headed out to the airport for an uneventful flight to London.

Budapest is an amazing place. I am very lucky that I was able to go for a rather serendipitous reason. I had, I think, the perfect mix of touristy and traditional; sightseeing and simply experiencing life at leisure in a foreign city. There is nothing else quite like it in my experience. On the whole the people were very friendly and helpful, whether in the tourism or service industries or simply strangers on the street. I was pleasantly surprised with the cuisine - really excellent for the most part. The hungarian diet is heavy on meat, pickled vegetables, hearty soups and stews, paprika, deep and layered flavor profiles, pilsners and pálinka. Budapest is also very reasonable in terms of cost. The exchange rate at the time of my visit was 162 Forints (Ft.) to $1. We saw the same .5L beers range from 350 Ft. to 850 Ft. (from a bit over $2 to about $5.25). There was a significant variation even in a small area in Pest center, depending on the swankiness of the place and its touristy traffic - not a phenomenon unique to Budapest of course, but it seemed more noticeable. Our most lavish meal, complete with soups, appetizer, main courses and several drinks came to only 12.360 Ft. for three people. That's just a shade under $80. One's money definitely goes a long way, but it seems that prices will only increase with the influx of tourism dollars and a growing economy. Hungary is in the European Union although they are not yet using the Euro currency (despite its prevalence on price listings everywhere for the ease of tourists). They are in the process of meeting certain economic and infrastructure requirements before they can be yet another country using the Euro. The time to visit Budapest is now, even with the weak dollar.*

*A quick note on this, since a lot has changed since this writing. The US dollar has strengthened in the last few months against the Euro (now about $1.29 compared to $1.60 or so when I was abroad), while the Forint has fallen to an all-time low (recent close of about 239 Ft./$1 compared to 162 Ft./$1 when I was there). That's pretty significant. Aside from the general state of the economy worldwide, it appears to be an even better time to travel to Budapest.