a country and a half behind

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We are now in Zagreb, Croatia, so I am a country and a half behind in this blog. I'll try to give some highlights...

We had a wonderful time exploring Budapest which is a striking and intense city, and full of surprises. The first was the price of Coke. We saw a sign for coke taped on the window of a window in a wall on the sidewalk, which served as a store front. It was 50 forints (160 fts to the dollar) for some amount of soda listed in "dl"s. Jan bought it and recieved a little white cup, like you get to rinse at the dentist, full of flat Coke. We began to pay more attention to translating sizes and weights after that.

We saw tons of shops, most of them called "outlets," but luckily I have no room in my backpack. We also saw many bookshops, but Jan and I have between us at least 10,000 pages to read (we may have over done it).

The scenery is gorgeous - picturesque bridges crossing the Danube, neo-classical buildings on the Pest side and the Buda Castle facing it. When the lights on the bridges come on at twilight and the rest of the city is lit up, it is really breathtaking. The whole city is a mix of old (Soviet) and very older. As Alba, our couchsurfing host for the next few nights told us, all appliances and furniture are at least 30 years old, and she had the coffee pot and stove (and radio, etc) to prove it. Parts of town, including the metro, are like stepping back in time. The rest of the city is under construction.

It is not immediately the most friendly city. One person described Hungarians as shy; a book on them described them as lonely, unrelated to other Europeans. They generally don't smile and don't look at each other, but seem to stare at us. At the same time, once you get to know them they are bewilderingly generous. For example, one day we were supposed to meet Alba (our host) at her work to give her her set of keys. She had been getting sick throughout our visit, and that morning she had stayed in, so instead of getting to work at 7 she got there at 10. We hadn't known she was still in bed when we left and had taken the keys, so she had jumped out of her window (you can't lock the door from the outside). Then she stopped and tried to find the poppyseed pastry I had mentioned I like, and, unable to find it, bought us two substitute pastries and a box of chocolate milk instead! There was no appropriate response to this, we simply did not know what to do. Her roommate Osje (sp?) was similarly nice - she let us sleep in her bed and went to her boyfriend's for as long as we wanted to stay.

We hit up most of the tourists spots, eventually, though we did it in our own roundabout way. Instead of walking directly from the church in the cave to the Buda Castle (all deserted - I love traveling in the off season!), for example, we took an hour long "shortcut" through the beautiful park running along the water, and got fairly lost. We also loved the recommendations we got from people. Especially of note was a bar called Szimpla (Simple) in a (formerly) abandoned house in the Jewish quarter of Pest. We got lost there too (very few people speak English here, so we spent a lot of time trying to figure things out). In trying to find it, we stumbled on a community of Orthodox Jews attending a service in a dark courtyard, complete with wigs for the women (I had been wondering at the number of wig shops nearby) and huge hats for the men. The little boys had long hair, and there were no little girls. Our hosts in Pecs (more on them later) told us that many American Orthodox Jews are moving to that part of Budapest, so these people were probably actually English speakers, but I doubt they would have been able to help us find our bar!

There are McDonalds, Burger Kings, KFCs and Pizza Huts here, but they are all a rip off. Most coffee here is terrible (Nescafe) and it is impossible to get anything but "espresso" (a small amount of black water) but at least it costs less than a dollar. At McDonalds they charge $2 for the same. We went because we were having trouble finding a satisfactory breakfast (not a major meal here as far as we can tell, and limited to pastries - made us miss our Bavarian breakfast!) and we found we were too cheap to buy anything. We have been very happy with fast food here though - there are gyro shops on nearly every corner that stay open late and only cost a few dollars. Even on gyros and falafels there is sauerkraut.

We've generally really enjoyed the food, an important component of any trip. Before leaving Budapest we bought a half pound of salami for $5 and loaf of sliced bread. It has served us several lunches, some snacks, and I still have some in my backpack. Alba also bought us some salami because I mentioned that Markus had told us we must try it. We have been so lucky with our hosts so far, and I think that they take their duties as hosts much more seriously than Americans in the same situation would. We are really grateful for, if overwhelmed by, the kindness.

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Comments

[cathy]

Happy Hosts
Hi Jan and Sarah, Boy, you two get around! You have had such wonderful hosts! I guess I shouldn't be so gumpy the next time Daddy's relatives want to stay! What lovely people you have met, and you are getting an interesting view of the world. Any turquoise water around? Love, Momma