Travelicious #4: Shiny!

I plan to have several entries regarding Budapest, considering that’s where I spent the bulk of my trip. They may be more impressionistic in nature rather than straight accounts of things that happened. After all, it has been almost a week since I returned and the days sort of run together. Fortunately, I have photos to jog my memory, or something.

I arrived in Budapest about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. The plane landed, we disembarked onto the tarmac, and then a shuttle bus took us to the baggage claim area. There was no Skyway for whatever reason. While I waited for my suitcase, I pulled out some local money from an ATM. I must say, Hungarian Forints look more like real money than Euros. Euros look like Monopoly money. An observation about both of them is that they feel thinner and flimsier than US bills. I have my doubts that such money could survive a trip through the washing machine.

After claiming my suitcase, I headed for the exit. Almost all the signs in the airport were in both Hungarian and English, so it wasn’t hard to figure out where I needed to go. As I emerged into the arrival area, I saw a man holding up a sign with my name on it. Woohoo! He was, of course, the owner of the apartment I’d rented for the duration. He grabbed my suitcase and escorted me to his car, a small wagon that was nevertheless quite large compared to the other cars I saw. The rumors about cars in Europe being small are certainly true. I will say, though, that it was not uncomfortable.

My host talked to me as we drove off toward the city center. It was dark. Lots of things were lit up. One particular structure that caught my eye was the Dohany Street Synagogue. The golden glow of its two domed towers were very striking in the dark, so naturally I asked what it was, and he was happy to explain. As we drove, he pointed out other attractions I might want to see, and to be honest I forgot most of them almost immediately. I wound up seeing quite a few of them anyway, but he spoke so quickly it was difficult to capture everything he said. He pointed out West End as we drove past it, notable for the strobing lights all over the exterior. I feel bad for anyone who has to live next to that. It must be really annoying to have lights flashing in your window all night, every night. In any case, West End is a large mall with 4 stories and an imperial shit ton of stores and restaurants. There’s also a movie theater and an arcade. Many of the businesses use English signage and almost all the employees I spoke to knew at least enough English to take your order and otherwise help you out.

After about a 20 minute drive we came to Podmaniczky utca (street), where the apartment was located. One thing this area had in common with Brussels was the way buildings were pressed up against each other. No alleyways between them or anything like that, just wall-to-wall buildings everywhere. Totally understandable for cities that are hundreds of years old and densely populated.

We came in the front door of the apartment building and I was led to a small courtyard. It seems the interiors of most apartment buildings in Budapest possess such central courtyards. I’m not sure what the reasoning is. The building did look a little run down, with cracks in the walls and chipped paint. The courtyard wasn’t especially well cared for. But I can’t complain too much: the apartment was quite cheap and in a great location, close to many attractions.

The owner took me into the apartment, showed me the trick to locking the front door (it’s a little temperamental), gave me the layout of the place. It had a small refrigerator–bigger than a mini fridge but not quite full size, and with no freezer. There was a very small kitchen with a toaster oven that had a range top, a little sink, a coffee maker, an electric teapot, and some basics: salt, sugar, rice, olive oil. I had to taste test the salt and sugar to figure out which was which. D’oh. There were also plenty of dishes.

Next was the bathroom, which consisted of a toilet, a sink, and a shower stall. The shower got its water from a sink attachment, and let me tell you it had some crazy water pressure. It reminded me of that “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer and Newman don’t want the new “low flow” showerheads being installed in their building, so they buy black market showerheads from some Eastern European thugs. Apparently, there was some truth to that. This shower was crazy. I had to keep the water turned down to avoid being pelted with speeding bullets of water. Oh, it also leaked a little, so the floor got wet.

The living room/bedroom was easily the biggest room in the whole place. It had a queen-sized bed, a dresser with a little TV on it, a rocking chair, a small cabinet, and a couple nightstands.

I also forgot the dining room, which was separated from the living room/bedroom by a half-height wall and some posts. Said posts actually held up the loft, directly above the dining area, which had two very small beds. Those beds did not get much use. The stairs up to the loft were also quite steep and probably not worth attempting while drunk.

The main bed was pretty comfortable. I’ve had better, I’ve had worse. I think it was originally a sleeper sofa and they put a thin foam mattress on top of it. You could kind of feel the bars if you laid a certain way. Still, I slept pretty soundly on it. Can’t complain.

This is all probably too much detail. Tough cookies, eh? With all this business about the apartment out of the way, the next can cover some actual sights, plus the highlights of using Budapest’s public transportation system. Woohoo!

Also, having been up for 36 hours by that point, I slept like a fucking baby. Holy shit, dude.