Got up nice and early. I knew from previous trips that Europe closes on Sunday, but I didn't really have any shops I wanted to go to. The plan was just to explore for a few hours and to be sure to make the bus to Monument Park. I did some writing, washed my face and went out.
Streets were cool and deserted. Quiet, still morning light with a slight breeze off the Danube. I went down streets I hadn't tried yet. Brought all the lenses and fooled around changing them on street corners. It was quiet, but not eerily. Got some nice shots of some signs.
For all the exciting sights here, and this is a world-class city to be sure, I wasn't finding a lot of... urban street art. Another goal today was to poke around in some places that weren't on the bus line.
Around 8am, I started to see people. Traffic and buses. At a stoplight, a car with three old dudes pulled up, and one of them was going nuts. Waving his hands and obviously yelling. But they were all cracking up. It was like he was telling the kind of joke where you talk about how furious you were. His audience loved it. I was changing lenses, so I was only able to get him at, like a 4 on the scale of mock wrath he was displaying. I looks like a still from a movie to me.
Made my way down Rakozi ut to Karoly kt, (which I was calling Carol's Court. I'm certain I'm pronouncing everything wrong here. It's the equivalent of someone asking me directions to the Spock Nettle, I'm sure), and had to dip into the subway to get across the street. This summer, the only way out is in.
There was a little kiosk selling fresh bread and coffee, so I bought some. Coffee came in a Dixie cup. I didn't want sugar, and I waved the girl off when she hovered a bag over the cup, but the bag had milk in it, which I DID want, so I asked her to come back. Who keeps milk in a bag? You're Buda for this one, Pest.
It just had a white square on it, so I thought sugar, but it was milk all right. She was irritated that I'd asked her to come back. They have no patience for surface dwellers in the land below. I ate a roll and went back up.
Got a little more deserted the direction I was going. I saw a man with his arms outstretched like wings come soaring up to a woman at a crosswalk. She dodged him and kept walking. He was just a wild drunk. He careened around until his hit some kind of metal box in a park, and then he leaned on it. I came upon the Great Synagogue.
It's pretty hard to photograph. It's huge, and surrounded by tall buildings, so you have to shoot up, but even then... Later, I looked online for pics, and it looks like everyone else had the same problem. It's strikingly beautiful and looks more like a fancy mosque than a synagogue. The locals call it the "Jewish cathedral" since it has a rose window and vaulted ceilings and stuff. It's perfectly Budapest, that mishmash of style.
Couple times I've had my head up gawping at some gargoyle, think I'm stepping over a bike path, and an Audi will be bearing down on me.
Dipped into a marketplace that was still setting up for the day. People smoking indoors. It was weird to see, since everywhere I've lived for the last fifteen years doesn't allow it. It was like seeing a dog's balls. Like, you forget they have them, since everyone gets their dog fixed. You don't remember that women smoke in small rooms while they fold blankets to sell later in the day.
Fooled around and fell in love with a fountain.
I liked that her toenails were painted black. She has a marble sister with a bunch of wriggling marble fish in her lap. A dude was poking around in the fountain looking for coins and acting all irritated. I remembered the Drunken Condor from a few blocks ago and got out of his way. He stood up on the fountain and pissed in it. The back of his shirt read STAFF.
The clubs are open late here, 5am, some of them, so I'm going to assume he just got done cleaning up broken bottles and was headed home.
Made my way over to the Basilica of St. Stephen. This is the guy from the Heroes Square yesterday, the one the pope dreamed about and said, "I have an extra crown if you want it," to. Apparently his mummified hand is inside. I didn't go. I don't want no centuries-old hand grabbing me, no suh. I ain't shakin' that old hand.
It's funny to think about him like Thing in the Addams Family just scootin' all up and down the dome.
Bunch of cafes were setting up. It's cool to be wander around before everything becomes umbrellas and beer.
Dipped around to a park with a weirdo Soviet monument. I reckon there's some tension here, because some folks are still proud of having served the party. So not everything is tucked away in Monument Park (where I was headed later, never forget)
Scooted over to the Danube where I found the Shoes of the Danube memorial. It's a bunch of bronze shoes lining the bank. Apparently, during WWII, the Nazis put a local Nazi crew called the Arrow Cross party, and they did what Nazis do and rounded up the local Jewry and shot them on the bank of the river. They asked them "please to remove your shoes" before they mowed them down. Their shoes were of value. Their lives were not.
Pretty terrible, and it's easy to think if it were me, I would have thrown my shoes in the water. Go get 'em Fritz. Hope your own shoes are fins. You want my Skechers, you're gonna have to grow a pair of gills, you dir...ack ack ack.
I'm sure in reality, I would have taken my shoes off, tied them, set them nicely down and smiled for the bullets. Sure I would have been more then ready to see what the riverbed felt like. Maybe there'd be a mermaid making cuttlefish kugel down there.
Seemed like it was getting late, so I headed to the park where the bus picks folks up for Monument Park. Plucked my strings down tiny alleys lined by bullet-scarred buildings. This town's seen some stuff, boy. Thirsty, so I popped into what I've come to discover is the local 7-11.
Bought some sparkling water. The radio was on, and they were having a contest to see who could make the best Michael Jackson noise. This place is obsessed. They DJ would be like "mushky brushky, urzhy zizzy" and then you'd hear MJ's "heee hooo!" and then some normal person would go, "heee hooo!" and the DJ would pitch his voice to sound either excited or depressed. I found it all thrilling. It was very funny.
Drank my bubbles in the park, read more You Can't Win (incredibly cool and funny autobiography about a kid growing up in the Great Depression), and waited for the bus.
Monument Park is where they stuffed all the giant commie statues from back in the day. Like, the Russkies would take a place over and then install enormous colossi to remind folks who rules. They're huge and designed to awe. Most folks wanted them melted after Communism ended, but some folks were like, "Well, they're kind of funny, right? I mean, now they are. They used to be scary, but... let's just stick them way over in a part of the city no one goes to. Can't hurt, right?"
The bus plays hilarious Red Guard marching songs to get you fired up, you rise up into the Buda hills, and when you get there, the first thing you see is a pair of boots from a statue of Stalin.
In 1956, Budapest revolted against their crimson overlords and started off by tearing down a big statue. All that was left were these boots. Of course, I was immediately struck by the parallel to the Shoes on the Danube. Like, this city is always saying, "get out, but leave your shoes."
The Russians showed up and crushed the 1956 rebellion, though. Eventually had to leave in the late 80s, though!
The statues were awesome, but they make you stay in the park for 90 minutes. Loved the first 30. Lay on the floor bored for the last 60. A little German boy threw pebbles in a puddle while his father whispered, "Nein." He never stopped, though. A Hungarian man joined the boy and encouraged him to throw harder.
I leave here tomorrow. Trip is about to get rougher. No more palaces. No more hop on hop off bus. Loooong ride to Cluj, Romania coming up followed by longer ride to Bucharest. This is why you brought the books, Simon. Remember the books. Should be a good opportunity to think and write. Please, lord, let me sleep.
When we got back, took one last jaunt up to where they stash the "ruin cafes" and found some street art at last. I knew there had to be some. I just knew it.
Limped home, heard the clock tower strike three bells and let the sound of the touts calling folks to Sunday paprikash lull me to sleep. I needed to plan my train to Cluj, but I also needed to Budapezzzzzz.
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