My Pécs adventure

Hi AM,

I loved the hell out of Pécs! It was so beautiful. It was like a fairy tale. I could send you photos that I took of Pécs if you are interested. I stayed at a wonderful hotel too. It was only 35 USD, yet it was the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at. It was old, like Pécs.

I had trouble getting back. I saw a museum in the afternoon, then headed back to the train station. There was a huge rainstorm. I got soaked. I decided to go to the Burger King in the mall they have there, in order to dry out wait out the rain. This mall is very big, as big as Mammut. At about 14:15 I headed out to catch the 15:15 train back to Budapest. I used my GPS to find my way back. The damn thing led me to the middle of nowhere. I finally managed to find the train station, but I had missed the train. When I went in and looked at the video train schedule, which differed from the electronic ones they use at Budapest-Déli station, I became horribly confused because the departure times seemed to differ from that of the train schedule I had seen online. The ticket person didn’t speak English very well. I think she was expressing departure times using a 12 hour clock, probably to make it easier for me, because that is what Americans are used to, yet this just made things more confusing to me, as the train schedule used a 24 hour clock. I decided to go back to Burger King, as they have wifi there, which would allow me to recheck the train schedule. By the time I got back to the station it was 16:45. I looked at the train station schedule again on the video monitor. I finally realized that some of the cryptic groups of letters, like IND, were really abbreviations of Hungarian words, such as indul, and that departure and arrival times were posted on the exact same video monitor. This is what had really confused me. I was very wet and tired and hungry and disoriented at this point. I was willing to take any train that got me back to Budapest, no matter how long it took. The ticket person kept telling me departure times using a 12 hour clock. I was too tired and disoriented to convert the 12 hour clock into a 24 hour clock. I didn’t care. I just bought the ticket. Get me on the train. Any train. I stood confused on the platform. I tried to ask a few people who worked there for help, but they didn’t speak much English. A very nice fellow passenger, who didn’t speak a word of English, but who was also headed for Budapest-Déli helped me. I was able to understand a little of what he was saying to me, as I know a teeny bit of Hungarian. I understood enough. Some Americans say that Hungarians are not nice people. They don’t understand Hungarians. Hungarians are not chatty, but they are very nice! They are always there to help you in a pinch.

I got into Déli station around 22:00. It only took me 10 hours to get back! I don’t regret going. I had one of the greatest times of my life in Pécs.

Oh, and I also tried kürtős kalács for the first time in Pécs. Thank you for telling me about this. It was an outdoor kürtős kalács stand. Two for 600 HUF. It was very sweet, maybe a little too sweet, but it was good. All Hungarian confections and breads are good. I was in the castle district last night. There was an outdoor stand which sold kürtős kalács, among other Hungarian breads. She wanted 700 HUF for one. I felt as if she was trying to take advantage of naive tourists who do not know what reasonable prices for kürtős kalács are. I didn’t buy it.

Good luck with your new job! I am happy for you!

Hotel Patria in Pécs, Hungary

Recently I had the time of my life staying at Hotel Patria in Pécs, Hungary. It was incredibly cheap at about $37.00 USD, all taxes and fees included.

If you prefer a hotel key that is a card with a magnetic strip to a keychain which has your room number engraved into a nice fat and heavy piece of brass, then you probably won’t like this hotel.

 

The hotel room was cozy and the bed was comfy. It had refrigerator and a balcony!

If you were expecting a crap American style complimentary breakfast, you are in for a shock! They have all types of meats, including sausage and Hungarian salami, scrambled as well as sunny side eggs that are properly heated and not rubbery, good Hungarian bread and confections, and plenty of juice. I believe they had fruit and cereal too, but I didn’t have any of that. The service at this hotel was beyond great.The staff spoke English very well. This hotel and this city are heaven come down to earth. The only thing that really bugged me about this hotel was that there was no extension outlet near the desk to plug my portable into. I had to unplug the night lamp in order to free up an outlet, which made things a little difficult. It was a small price to pay for this old-world style hotel in the heart of the most beautiful city in Hungary. It is only about a ten minute walk from the train station to the hotel.

Gellért Hill, Budapest

Top of the world, Ma! I shot a number of photos from this spot. A mob of Russians swarmed around me. Their sheer numbers compelled me to leave. The bastard Russians occupied Hungary for 45 years, and they still can’t get their stinkin’ paws off her.

 

This is the Hungarian Statue of Liberty. It can be seen for miles and is especially cool when lit up at night. It kicks the the American Statue of Liberty’s ass!

 

Statue of mother breastfeeding her child. You’re not going to see a public statue like this in the U.S., because  we’re too fucking uptight.

The rock church at the bottom of the hill. Inside was so peaceful and so beautiful, though not ornate. It was one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had. Cost:500 HUF. Bargain of the century!

Going home on the good ol’ 18 tram. The liberty bridge in the background is lit up green.

Bar 24

This is in Budapest-Déli station. This bar is apparently open 24 hours a day. I thought about buying a beer just for the experience, but it looked, from the window, to be a shitty bar and decided not to.

I did buy a falafel and cherry coke in the station. 750 HUF. Falafel not great, but not terrible. Liked the Arabic music playing and the atmosphere.

 

I’m back home, finally

It took me a full week to finally see the Castle District again. It was just at the end of sunset. There were hardly any people. There are a sea of tourists here in the daytime, but never at night. They perhaps don’t know how beautiful Budapest looks at night from up high. I recognized the same alley cat that lives near the Castle that I would see last year. He or she does not like to venture out when there are a lot of people. I was happy to see a familiar face. I looked at Buda and the Danube and the beautifully illuminated bridges and I felt that same feeling that I had forgotten, that Budapest was the center of the universe, and that I had found home.

Budapest has become a little crazier. There’s a lot more homelessness. One would hardly ever see homelessness or beggars on the Buda side before. Apparently, the bathroom business is booming. Hungary is still Hungary though. It hasn’t lost its character. I don’t feel haunted by this place anymore. I have been unable to get out because my knees are fucked up and I can’t walk without pain, but I am at home, and I don’t care.

Live corpse serving dead cow

(Toilet use. 150 HUF, about 70 cents. This is the going rate to piss or shit in Budapest.)

What in God’s name am I doing in a country that charges one money to take a piss, even in a train station? I love Hungary, but there are some things about it that I really, really hate. This morning I almost got hit by a fucking bicycle rider. It was the narrowest miss yet.They ride on the sidewalk in this country. They don’t ride slowly and carefully.They race down the sidewalk in a blur of metal and rubber and helmet and sweat.The universe is just itching for the opportunity to break my bones, tear my flesh, and cause me to use my life savings to pay the hospital bill. The universe has my number. It’s just a question of whether the universe has enough time to execute its plan to crash 250 pounds of bicycle and person into me before I leave Hungary.

What in God’s name am doing back here? There’s nothing here for me but haunting memories of crushed dreams, subversion, and humiliation. I just had to go back to the scene of the crime. Why couldn’t I just leave it alone? This is where my future ended. I died here last year. The corpse that was I could talk and eat and breathe, but it was quite dead and still is.

I want to stop hemorrhaging money and depressing myself. I want to return to the heaping mound of shit that is the United States. I have a promising future at McDonald’s waiting for me.

Margit-sziget, Budapest

This is an island in the middle of the Danube in Budapest. It’s sort of like Central Park in NYC.

 

The 18 tram and the most hideous bridge in Budapest

I hopped on the 18 tram from Széll Kálmán Square not knowing where it the would take me. I was really excited, but started getting less excited as some big guy on the tram started to give me a weird look as I passed by miles and miles of depressing, Soviet style apartment complexes. Good crap, when does this tram end? I hope I don’t get mugged by someone who thinks that because I wear Ray Ban sunglasses, I must have money. The last stop on the tram was a dumpy mall called Savoya Park that had a big store in it that looked like a Walmart. I didn’t venture into the store, because Hungarians often get weird about your backpack and want you to check it in, and I just didn’t want to deal with that hassle.

 

On my way back I hopped off the tram to take photos of and from the most hideous bridge in Budapest, the Liberty Bridge. I think it’s the pukey color that makes this bridge so awful, not the bridge itself. Mad men and women bicycle riders whizzed by me in a blur as I did so and scared the living shit out of me.

Gellért Hill is above.

 

This is my favorite bridge in Budapest, the Elisabeth, as seen from the Liberty.

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District 2 in the rain

Yesterday I walked along the streets in the rain of my old neighborhood in District 2 of Budapest, lonely, miserable, hoping to see a familiar face among the vendors I used to frequent. In the nine months that I was away from Hungary, all the vendors whom I had used had gone out of business. The food truck I used to use, run by a friendly young couple, had been replaced by a new food truck. It was much cuter looking and red and offered similar food at similar prices, but there was a different guy inside. This was not my food truck. What had this bastard fucking universe done to my food truck, which I relied on to make me way too salty, yet freshly cooked and safe food. It is very hard to find safe food in Hungary. Hungarians do not believe in cooking food when you order it, nor do they believe in properly heating food that has already been cooked. Their idea of a hot meal is to nuke food that was cooked at the time when they were still occupied by the Soviets. I was not going to buy from this guy. I don’t care how cute his food truck was. Fuck him!