Budapest April 30 to May 3

By Eric

Hungary reminds me of Pittsburgh. I always noticed after being away for awhile, that people in Pittsburgh looked somehow Eastern European. The kids in the pictures of my Grandma's elementary school classes from 1910 look very very Eastern European. But I never really expected Pittsburgh itself to look like an Eastern European city.
 

We arrived at Budapest's small airport in early afternoon with plenty of time to ride the 16 kilometers to the city center. There was not a single hill along the entire way. The highway was a narrow, gritty-edged two lane with lots of traffic. Thankfully the traffic gave us plenty of room. The crucial first hour on Hungarian highways did not have me panicking about death.

But it was not a scenic ride. Like the impenetrable urban ring of other cities (though this one was rather easy to penetrate), we passed lots of plain rectangular structures totally unstriking, not old but very aged buildings, gravel parking lots, weeds between the cracks where there was pavement, faded signs missing letters, boarded up buildings, places selling plumbing, greasy garages filled with internal combustion engines, windows with letters stuck on then scrapped off.

The good thing was we didn't get lost. We picked up a free tourist map at the airport. When we got close to the city center a young man on a bicycle stopped and helped us.

Joan: It was really weird. The guy saw us poring over our map, looking confused. He came up and asked, in perfect English, if he could help. He gave us great directions. I was really pscyhed. I figured he'd tell us his name, maybe even give us his phone number. But instead, as soon as he gave us directions, he raced off. Eric yelled after him "What's your name!" He screeched on his brakes, cycled back, laughed, and then said something that sounded like Oozh Gazh Ba Ghoozh. I repeated it carefully. Then he turned heel and raced off. I guess he really didn't want to meet us.

Eric: In no time at all we found the hotel we were looking for. But it was full.

We were totally washed out. Neither of us had slept more than a few hours the night before in Gatwick airport. I had read in the in flight magazine that lack of sleep affects your communication skills more than anything else. I noticed the truth in this. We had conversations like this:

JOAN: What did you say? ME: I didn't say anything. JOAN: What? ME: I didn't say anything. JOAN: No before that, what did you say? ME: I said that I didn't say anything. and so on.

We wandered around the suburbs looking for hotel signs. This is when I was reminded of Pittsburgh. The houses were large, square, and solid - the industrial revolution look. Probably built at the end of the 19th century when both towns were booming. The stone is stained black by the old soot just like the similar old houses in Pittsburgh. For a preview of Budapest's suburbs, check out Morningside in Pittsburgh.

Before being disappointed by any more hotels, we figured we would at least fill our stomachs. Things always seems a little brighter with a full stomach. We found a restaurant and stuffed ourselves with goulash. I loved it. Hungarian food is very heavy - lots of meat and potatoes with gravy - but fortunately I like it that way. It's great biking fuel.

The language barrier was huge. I could not understand anything and the waiter couldn't understand me much either (lots of pointing went on) though it turns out that most restaurants in central Budapest have English menus and English speakers in the city are not that hard to find.

We ended up at a hotel out in the suburbs. It cost a bit more than we wanted to pay ($50!!!) but it was very nice and had plenty of rooms available. We figured we would stay there for one night anyway, catch up on our sleep, then find a cheaper place the next day. It never happened. We stayed at the same place for four days.

The location was not bad as it turned out. We were at the end of the yellow line subway, across the street from the big city park.

After sleeping soundly for over 12 hours, we jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to get our free breakfast. (In London we had missed breakfast because we got up too late.) It turned out we had our clocks set wrong (thanks to the airline stewardess) so we were among the first to breakfast. Breakfast looked more like lunch with breads, meats, and cheeses laid out. I gorged on excellent thick bread with lots of butter and wonderful honey.

We rode the subway about halfway into the city and decided to walk the rest to get a feel for it. The first thing that struck us both was the quietness. It was the quietest city we had ever been in. People didn't yell to each other much. Groups talked quietly amongst themselves usually. There were not so many irritating over-revved motorcycles zipping by as in Spain. It felt just a little strange. We walked though the city park on a Sunday afternoon where lots of tents were set up selling food and there was an outdoor stage with girls doing tricks with batons and even there it was quiet.

We did some site seeing. The word "museum" or "cathedral" or, especially, "interesting" just about puts me to sleep after almost two years on the road. But even we were impressed with St. Steven's Cathedral. Its stone exterior is coated with soot and scaffolding but the inside is beautiful. We found the French cathedrals a little too simple inside - a little too much stone. The Spanish ones were too gaudy inside. But this giant Cathedral had a good combination. Lots of marble pillars instead of plain stone. An ornate altar but not too much.

Budapest has great pedestrian streets full of tourists; a wonderful square full of overpriced cafes; and an amazing mass transit system -- subways underground, trams and buses and regional railways above. It even has an incline (just like Pittsburgh) though only tourists ride it. Budapest had its share of homeless people as well.

I have to give the street performers credit. They discovered a way to make money I've never seen before. I've seen the guys paint themselves like statues and stand on a box perfectly still and wait for money. I've seen that a lot. But I've never seen street puppeteering.

One man had a marionette of a trumpet player and a recording of some Spanish sounding trumpet solo. He moved the puppet to the music. It doesn't sound like much but the guy was actually quite entertaining. I gave him a few Forints (Hungarian currency). Another guy did a great job with a Dolphin on two sticks, one at the head and one at the tail, and a piece of blue glass to look like water. The dolphin swam and jumped to the music. Both men wore regular dark colored Hungarian clothes and both took the puppeteering very seriously. Watching them was half the fun.

On the way out of town, I decided to do something I'd been thinking about for a long time: shave off my beard. Back in 1991, on my last big bike tour, I grew a beard and never shaved it off. I met Joan the next year and lately she's been curious to see what's underneath. I thought about doing it on the Annaurna trail in Nepal, but everyone was growing beards on the trail and I didn't want to be one of the masses. Then one day, in our hotel room in Budapest, I just shaved it off. It freaked us both out. Every time I passed a mirror I wondered who was looking back at me. Joan thought there was a stranger in the room. It took about a month to grow back.

Next: Spying on Eger with a Telescope

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