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May 22, 2007

The Ballad Of The Whiskey Robber: Three (3) Things About Budapest

A charming weekend in one of Eastern Europe’s Grand Old Capitals

I was a bad traveler last weekend. I went to a lovely city (Budapest) in a cool country (Hungary) and did about three minutes of research (if that) before I arrived. I knew that Budapest was actually two (2) different cities, Buda and Pest, split down the middle by a river. I didn’t know what the river was called, though. (Turns out it was the Danube; more on that in a moment.) I knew that Ferenc Puskas was Hungarian, that he was totally sweet at soccer, and that he kicked ass on behalf of the all-time F.C. Camena imaginary video game soccer squad. Any sort of color I had on the city was from The Ballad Of The Whiskey Robber, which is the rather colorful tale of a bank robber/ hockey goalie/ folk hero named Attila Ambrus, who spent the post-Iron Curtain years getting drunk and emptying bank vaults throughout Budapest. Cool book, and it mostly convinced me that Budapest was a little rough around the edges, certainly in its post-Communist years. It also convinced me that this was a town that had a sense of humor about drunk people.

And that was pretty much it.

Things I didn’t know (but probably should have): they’ve got their own currency there in Hungary (called the Forint, with at least six denominations of notes, all predictably in the hundreds and thousands – that really never got easier to figger out), how to say hello and thank you in Hungarian (I usually can mange this much – I finally figured out “thank you” on the final night: “Kosono”), and any sort of history in re: the history and culture of the city/ country (shameful really; Wikipedia would have gotten me at least 75 percent of the way there). Like I said, I was a bad traveler.

So wasn’t I surprised to discover an absolutely classy/ gorgeous city (!). Wow. I suppose it helped that the weather was gorgeous, but I was blown away by how breathtaking the city was. Three (3) things about my weekend in Budapest:

1. I definitely picked the right hotel: the hotels in Budapest were pretty reasonably priced, so I decided to go for something on the nicer end of things. I stayed at the Hilton on top of the hill in the Castle complex in Buda. Wow. I had this killer view of the Danube from my room, and easy access to all sorts of good stuff. Additionally, I had the opportunity to look down on the Pest (pronounced, “Pessssht”) from on high. And, like any good resident of the Buda, I know how to look down on the Pest (“Pessssht”).

I might also add that I spent the better part of my childhood playing soccer for the Danubia Soccer Club in Northeast Philadelphia (rep-ruh-zent!), an offshoot of the local German cultural association/ club. For the record, this was the first time I had ever set eyes on the river that was the club’s namesake. Helluva river, that Danube. I’m glad to have played soccer on its behalf.

2. Europe’s Most Charming Visitors: our plan for Saturday afternoon was to check out the F.A. Cup final in a sports pub that had been recommended to us by the fellas in the Doner Kebab shop (see below for gratuitous photo of said Doner Kebab) at 6 am that morning. It was a big game with two high-profile teams (Man U and Chelsea), and we were all pretty fired up about it. Of course, we expected a crowd at the bar, but we figured it wouldn’t be too out of control.

Right. So the guys I was with have been doing a lot of traveling throughout Europe over the past couple months. Allow me to paraphrase: so no matter where you go in Europe these days, you can be sure to find roving packs of Brits. While of course we applaud their initiative in getting off the island for the weekend, they don’t always seem to, um, embrace the local culture. That is, upon landing in a new city, these packs of Brits pull on their track suit pants and golf shirts, locate the nearest pub with a Union Jack out front, and start ordering Guinnesses – it’s as though they’ve never left Brighton!

Our bar was full of these guys. For the most part, they were well-behaved, though occasionally they had moments of self-parodic awkwardness, typically involved a narrowly missed chance and a stream of barely comprehensible profanity (punctuated by frequent and fluent deployment of the c-word). Also, it was pretty funny when they ordered the super-sized portions of French fries…classy!

3. Party Time On The Sidewalk: speaking of dudes getting after it a bit, I got this great video of these older guys whooping it up on the sidewalk. Note that I originally thought that they were singing in Hungarian, before I was corrected by an anonymous commenter on YouTube. To be honest, I have no idea what they’re singing, but I do like the tune, and I was more than happy to capture a little moment of late-afternoon drunken camaraderie – the dancing is pretty tight as well:

In closing, I’d like to take back everything I may have intimated about Malev Hungarian Airlines. ‘Twas a lovely airline, and they were more than accommodating when I rolled in there on no sleep Sunday morning and drooled my way back to Munich. Malev Airlines, Kosono!

Posted by thatkid at May 22, 2007 5:26 AM under ThatKid

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Posted by: thegeneral at May 22, 2007 2:06 PM

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