pictured: budapest looks better at night // nice map // clouds that looked like a painting (more so in real life)
now at the end of our 3-month euro-stint, we've just arrived in berlin after a few days baking in the budapest heat.
before arriving, i purposely did little research and held back from looking at pictures of budapest. beautiful, romantic, amazing - that's what people said it was like. so i wanted to be surprised. and i was.
there are lots and lots of really nice old building throughout budapest. but you can't put an ugly girl in a really nice dress and expect one to make up for the other (the dress is the architecture, the ugly girl is the commercialness, grime, and vibe of the city). overall, budapest sorta felt like what i imagine poland to be and what i imagine new york was like in 1970. poland because there appears to be no sensibility to contemporary design, fashion, or interiors - everything feels a little generic and cheap (which it kind of is). even restaurants that look nice end up just looking like channelside (in tampa) mall restaurants - and that's not what you expect from one of the prettiest cities in the world. new york in 1970 because the subways look and feel like that time period, and there's a bit of dirt on every wall. oh, and the people lack emotion - saying little and smiling never.
and when your city's subway maps are sponsered by mcdonalds (with icons to show you where the nearest one is - even though there's one on practically every block) - you are far, far from being beautiful, romantic, or amazing.
but as i said, there are lots of nice buildings. some are even so nice, that they are what places like vegas and disney copy - which unfortunately makes it kind feel kind of cheesy. but they are nice.
there's the castle district that kind of feels like a big sand castle.
and there are bath houses...which on a hot hot day, are amazing. the one we went to had 18 pools filled with the local spring water - rich in minerals. most of the pools are warm to hot, which after spending some time in the cold pool, are surprisingly enjoyable on a warm summer's day. but the cold pool felt great - they should make pool suits you wear when it's so hot. every 10 minutes the pool's jets would rotate between creating 40 or so jet/bubble clouds (which are intended for one person to stand on for 10 minutes for a nice massage) and a whirl pool shaped like a snail in the center of the pool (which is just sort of weird, since it was pretty small and rather fast). we were happy here.
something else that's pretty nice about budapest is how cheap it is. it's not taiwan cheap - but it's pretty close. most meals are generously portioned, and a three course meal with a drink at an everyday spot typically costs $10. not bad. one place we are at was a bio/vegetarian restaurant (there's not much bio/organic stuff here) and to our surprise had an interesting menu with some hungarian specialties - which were pretty yummy - and presented their food in a rather fancy manner. other things didn't seem so special, but it may just be the facade that threw us off (since the veg place didn't look nearly as good as it was).
and of course after surviving 2 days of extreme heat and no air conditioning (not even in restaurants or shopping areas - usually my releif when i was in ny) the last day was cool and windy. it really made the place look better, and we began to think our image of budapest was skewed by its hotness. but then our eyes caught site of the cheesey malls and mothers who were wearing skin tight shorts way too short and heals way too high (for shorts so short).
maybe it'll change in 30 years, like new york did. all it needs is a hungarian rudy giuliani. or something.
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