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Published: January 30th 2006
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The Three Amigas
me, rachel, lindsay
on the bank of the danube It was both unbelievable and completely normal to meet my girls from College Park in Budapest. Rachel and I arrived mid-morning, after a three-hour early train from Vienna. "Well, here we are!" we said, a little baffled, as we were the only people in all the train-station bustle lacking direction. I had to use the bathroom but that required Hungarian forints, which neither of us had; to add to our general bewilderment couldn't read signs and kept on forgetting that asking questions in German did little good.
But it was a beautiful day. Sunlight floods the station through huge, art-nouveau style windows. We managed to find our hostel on a map, and decided to ignore the directions Lindsay had given us ("take bus 7, it goes directly there") and would walk to the hostel instead. We had been sitting for hours, I craved sunshine, and it didn't look very far on the map. Besides, I consider my sense of direction rather accute.
Unfortunately, my perception of my sense of direction could be compared to my perception of myself as a morning person. I aspire to rise with the sun, do yoga or have a jog before a healthy breakfast, generally greeting
the day in a serene and prepared manner; those who know me (is anyone from Winchester Drive reading this?!), well, let's just say the reality of the situation is quite different. Rachel and I agreeably set out, and in between admiring the architecture, sampling the food, trying to put our finger on the distinct flavor of the city, and commenting on the differences between Hungarians and Austrians, well - we got pretty lost. I thought that we were on track, but when we ran into a gigantic, beautiful synagogue (we later discovered, the largest in eastern europe) I realized we were definately going in the opposite direction. Standing on this street corner, Rachel was taking pictures of the synagogue and I had pulled out the map, was turning it around to orient myself, when I happened to look up. And there, rounding that very corner, was a van with a face pressed to the window in disbelief. It was Lindsay! On her way from the airport to the hostel (where we were supposedly waiting for her, hehe)! The strangeness and pure beauty of seeing one of your closest friends waving from the window of a bus on a random street
corner in Budapest cannot be described.
That evening we spent walking along the Danube, enjoying the sight of the river smeared with twinkling lights, first as viewed from the bank of Buda, then from the bank of Pest. Each side hosts its own great landmarks -the parliament building with it's spires, the soflty glowing palace, numerous churches. Bridges - most notably the Chain Bridge - link the two banks like strings of fairy lights in the distance. We walked and walked, arm in arm, laughing together and catching up on everything going on in our lives. The air was cool and there were leaves all along the banks - Lindsay launched a sneak attack and we had a big leaf fight, with that scent of autumnal decomposition all around. The night ended in a cafe with traditional hot mulled wine and live music.
The next day, we were determined to "take the waters" as they call it. After climbing up to the citadella (with a few sidetracks through the playgrounds and the leaves along the way), we went to the Gellert baths, which are the oldest and most famous of the Hungarian bathing complexes. They are built upon thermal waters
beloved by Romans and Turks, and have been flowing for over 2000 years - now they are contained in a maze of pools within an imposing, elegant building. Like some sort of whimsical factory, team was being pumped from the roof and billowed up into the crisp air, a veritable smoke-signal to the tourists: HERE are the baths!
We read in our hostel and guidebook that the traditional bathing experience - moving from pool to pool, then to steam bath and later massage - was separated by gender because patrons are in the nude. That being said, american puritanism is hard to shake; but we worked up our courage because hey - when in Rome...
The interior of the building is domed, with amazing art nouveau stained glass, vaulted cielings, statues of naked women taking their baths... we had little time to enjoy it though, because we were thouroughly confused. There were no signs in English and the attendant showed us to a closet but didn't speak English eigher. We didn't get it at first, but then realized we were meant to change in this tiny closet - and, horrified, we watched as the women around us started popping out
of their closets in BATHING SUITS!
So, there we were, the three of us crammed in this little room, laughing and a little panicked. Had we gotten it wrong? Lindsay took charge and went and confronted the lady with the cabin keys, and she returned with these ridiculous little white aprons. So we took a deep breath, stripped down and ran out to the baths with these silly little cloths - no bigger then a dishrag- clutched to our bodies. Happily it turned out that we weren't the only naked ones... the oldest women were in the buff as well. So while we didn't exactly fit in, we derived a silly sense of superiority from all those tourists in their speedos.
After luxuriating in the thermal pools we went into the hottest, most humid steam bath I have ever experienced. I immediately wanted to cough and heave, the air was so dense and sulferous, but when I focused on breathing it actually felt good. Sort of. It was so hot that my lips and nasal passageway tingled. We didn't last long in that room. After the whole experience you shower and are wrapped in a gigantic, starched white sheet by
an ambivalent old lady, to walk back to the changing area toga-clad and triumphant. We left the bath all glowy and nice smelling and agreed, that should we ever live in Budapest, this would become a habit.
What more can I say about the city? I liked it a lot. It is like Vienna - some streets could pass as Vienna - but it doesn't have the haughty edge or Vienna's feeling of "old europe" . Budapest is beautiful but a little dirty, cheap but never gaudy, and the language is beyond belief (it belongs to the Finno-Ugrian family which includes Finnish, Hungarian, and some obscure western Siberian languages). Most of all, I liked it because it was comfortable. I felt this was a city you could live in, spending weekends taking walks, having coffees, going to the baths and climbing hills to look out over the expanse of a living, breathing city.
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