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Buried three seats deep next to the window, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, it was obvious that after 5 minutes of airtime that I was going to need the biggest piss ever to grace my 30’s with. Window seats really are a wretch at times. The gauntlet before me was that of a small Hungarian boy and his much larger grandmother with coats and dishevelled clothing splashed all over the place. I can only assume that her bag weighed more than 15kg and she wasn’t willing to pay the hideous extra charge that Ryanair no doubt sting you for should you go over that limit. So naturally she decided to beat that system by wearing all of her excess clothing. Unrobing as soon as she had pitched her stool within the plane, effectively cementing us all in for the duration.
I do rather look forward to the day when the Japanese invent that device whereby if you need an inflight piss you just press the little yellow button on your arm-rest and your bladder telepathically empties without all the dramas of wet trousers and what not. Either that or society adheres to a flumix of social trends whereby it
becomes perfectly and socially acceptable to just piss your pants at will and no one would bat an eyelid. This in my mind would no doubt make for a refreshing change of etiquette. But alas to the best of my knowledge pissing ones pants is still not deemed the trendy thing to do. I guess the other options were to perhaps piss on my in-flight Hungarian counterparts, common sense dictating that pissing on the older Hungarian grandmother carried the lighter sentence as opposed to pissing on a relatively small Hungarian boychild.
Thankfully however, albeit much to my bladders dismay, I did manage to keep it all legal and above board and entered a comatose mind over matter directive for the 2 hour and 25 minute flight from London until my arrival in Budapest where I felt I had earned myself a well-deserved slash.
Grabbing my backpack from the carousel I made haste to my hostel amidst central Budapest. About the least romantic thing that can happen when you check into your dorm room is you encounter another Englishman. ‘Alright mate, how’s it hanging?’
‘Yeah mate, all good, how’s Southend treating ya?’
Although to be fair its
very rare that one walks into a dorm room anywhere in the world and stumbles across a bunch of frolicking exotic beauties…..in fact to the best of my knowledge that has never actually happened apart from in ‘Backpacking Sluts VII’.
I armed myself with some Hungarian Forint which due to its high denominations made me feel wealthier than I actually were, and then went for a mooch. Budapest with its population of just over 1.7 million people is a bit of a mishmash of architectures. Some wide, some narrow, some monstrous, some meek, some immaculate, some heavily corroded, all variously dashed with a multitude of colours carrying their own unique bit of discernable character. The streets of Budapest are ones that could be traversed for hours, days, weeks yet not months, a place that one could invariably lose one’s self in.
The neo-classical St. Stephens Basilica finished in 1905, so named after the first king of Hungary where I short changed God. New to town I didn’t have the spare 200 forints change suggestive admission fee for the honesty box, so I paid a close 160 forints and made sure to keep my voice down in the house
of God.
Come noon and the sun had overthrown the gloomy murk previously penetrating the skies. The prowess of a beautiful day lay ahead as I took a stroll across the Danube via the 375m long Chain Bridge. Constructed by the Scotsman Adam Clark back in 1845, a Scotsman so attracted to the city that he remained to inhabit the city after the bridges completion. And it’s easy to see why; on early glances the city certainly had charm.
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Scratching beneath the surface a little one day I ventured out into a suburb that you could perhaps more or less call a ghetto. Things were certainly a little rougher around these parts, the formidable commie blocks, heavily deteriorated buildings and graffiti strewn streets. A couple of guys either passed out cold in the middle of the pavement or just plain dead, I didn’t hang around too long in all honesty as on the opposite side of the street was a procession of hobos with black bin bags tossed over their shoulders. When I walk down avenues in Asia the white man perhaps should not tread then being non-Asian I stick out like a sore thumb. Thankfully being
in Hungary and of European descent and wearing your bog standard backpackers attire I pretty much blended right in with all the paint sniffers. So realistically there was never really any threat that I could tell of. If someone was to try and converse with me in Magyar however I could have become a little unstuck. Regardless, I made tracks back to the city center.
For a city with an evenly distributed array of swanky bars and eclectic lounges it would have been rude not to try a few. One particular highlight was a ruin bar, a little bit how it sounds really. A bar with the image of a run down and derelict building that is making the most of a once meagre existence, but in reality is a very fashion conscious enterprise with a heap of effort gone into it. All materials and contents gathered from the streets to present an array of rooms comprising of various different features, one room had a cinema in it, another a band, another a shisha lounge, I think I counted some 10 rooms all in all excluding the john. But I’ll have to confess the night ended up a blur
until the next day came into fruition with my waking.
Any communist shackles clearly revoked long ago as Hungarian society had very evidently been allowed to move with the times. It’s well groomed and attractive citizens meet one another in the park for a beer or two after work, street vendors capitalising upon the tourist trade running rife through the city as they offer their wares from street stalls to the casual passer-by, at no point forcing their wares upon them. With the Spring Fair in town I was able to sample some Goulash soup which was pitted into a small loaf of bread, some homemade cherry strudel washed down with cheap enough local brew accompanied by a local band performing masterful songs in Hungarian that I will probably never hear again. The perfect cure for a hangover however.
After a few days spent in Budapest I was left with an extremely positive impression of the place, flourishing with life giving it that integral glow that any ancient European city should have the courage to carry. In which Budapest clearly does.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
MY KINDA PLACE
"local brew accompanied by a local band performing masterful songs in Hungarian"...sounds like the best way to experience Budapest...sounds like my kinda place.