Day one back in Budapest. 3am wake up.
Slept like a baby. Not like the crying every 30 minutes type of baby either. Passed out, really. 2 flights, 3 countries in half a day, and 2 hours of sleep. They added up to the sum of exhaustion. It’s a good type of tired, though, the tired you wish you had on a night when you’re tossing and turning.
First morning in a new place and I can’t get a coffee for hours. What else to do but lay in bed for a little. Submit requests to view apartments. Intermittently wonder how I ended up here. Thoughts come alive in the darkness.
Finally. Blue dawn breaks behind clouds. Clouds that looked to be the harbinger of snow begin their departure. Waking sky eases out pitch darkness. Laying down loses its luster. Time for getting up, ready or not. Cold out, real cold. Packed enough to bundle up. Walking will help. Espresso will help. The sun too, forecast looks promising, no snow... yet. The day is promising too. Need to make its promise bear something.
Needing an apartment by next week structures the day’s focus. There will be time to explore, but it needs to be built around potential apartments. Need to see them inside, but outside is a good start. This Airbnb is only briefly mine. It’s fine. Little musty, little smaller than those pictures let on –credit to the photographer. It’s fine. It’ll do.
I hit a cold shower. Practice the other steps in the morning ritual and I’m off. Winter jacket, scarf, chap stick. Feels like 18°, not celsius. Won’t walk long until I find a Café for a kávé as they call the drink in Hungarian. Really, it’s an espresso I want, and I soon learn espresso is called something different than kávé. This Italian import kept its name in this unique language and even held its pronunciation throughout the immigration process. One less thing to learn.
It’s funny. You visit a city once over a year before and you instantly recognize the landmarks, just not until you approach them from familiar angles. Not just the city’s landmarks, but those from your time there. The bus stop, the doorway behind which sits the courtyard that lays below the little hotel on Dohány utca.
Budapest’s landmarks are unmistakable too. Towering St. István’s, the Synagogue that stops passersby in their tracks, and that’s just on the outskirts of Pest’s City Center. The Danube that has flowed between Buda and Pest since long before these cities were settled or joined as one, that’s the most important landmark of all. On the far side lies Buda Castle, more churches that awe, and mansions that dot the Buda hills, glittering at night as they smile down at the ever-flowing Duna.
I recognize it all and it makes the walk simpler. Early enough for New York Café? Yes and no. She’s open, but her line is winding, and I can’t guess its length from half a block away. Won’t wait with whipping wind. Another day, maybe. New York, I know her well, just not this café that bears her name.
Found a quieter spot, more welcoming with its lack of a line. Espresso and a croissant and I’ve got what I need to carry on for a little while. Couldn’t shake the cold but can’t waste the day idling away. Full up as I walk again but I can’t help noticing the restaurants that line Pest’s streets and alleys. So many cuisines. Everything from Magyar classics like goulash and chicken paprikash to Korean spots serving bibimbap.
International cities. They have their specialties but they have it all too.
They have Spar. Dutch? Think it’s Dutch. It’s my supermarket chain from Vienna. Spotting Spar is like seeing an old friend. I know anything I might need is steps away. A relief.
Gusts chart a winding path, accelerating on twisting side streets to nearly blow my hood off. I’m determined to hold it in place, determined to carry on. Close now and I want to see the Danube, the Donau, the Duna as the Hungarians call it.
The wind-resisted walk was worth it.
Sun blinds as I look up at the Freedom Statue that caps Gellért Hill. Squint to make out cars darting Buda and Pestward bound on a not-so-distant bridge beneath the jutting landmass.
The Freedom Statue. Hungarian freedom was hard earned, and they value their culture, their language. Freedom for the Magyars might not be the same as we Americans know it to be. For them, it’s freedom to be Hungarian, freedom to be what many powers have sought to alter or destroy.
Turn to relieve my eyes from the brightness but specks of white now distort my vision as I turn to the glistening Duna. My eyes come to just as my ears hear the rumble of the iconic yellow tram that hugs the edge of Pest and glides smoothly above the water’s edge. As the tram passes, its wake of open air pulls into view Buda Castle, the columns of which rest above the river. An inviting stone grin.
Not today. I’ll visit it once more, but for now it’s Pest that demands my attention. I’ll see more of this split city each day, but at the moment I’ll treat it as two in need of individual attention. Day one back in Budapest and there’s no need to spread myself thin. 364 left to fill up.
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