La Roche-sur-Yon

La Roche-sur-Yon

Friday, May 13, 2016

Everything I ate in Budapest...and some bonus material

St. Patrick's Day at Cup
The six-week stretch between the February and April breaks was the busiest I've had since moving to France.  Between my regular assistant and au pair duties, planning weekly lectures and lessons for my university students, teaching private English lessons, and translating documents for friends, my plate was pretty full.  Add to that the job search, application submissions, and trip planning...and you'll understand why the morning of Sunday, April 3 was such a welcome relief.

First, the holidays:  Saint Patrick's Day was celebrated with some of my colleagues from Haxo.  We made a reservation for a special dinner at Cup, a tiny but adorable English tea shop run by an English woman here in La Roche.

Post-chasse aux oeufs
I spent Easter revisiting Biarritz and looking after the kids.  We spent most of our time at the park or on the apartment terrace overlooking the city and Atlantic ocean; the weather was perfect.  One of the highlights was the chasse aux oeufs (Easter egg hunt) on the terrace.


The Friday before the April break was my first April Fool's Day working in a French middle school.  In France, they call the day poisson d'avril - literally, "April fish" - and the tradition is to spend the day trying to stick paper fish on others' backs, among other more inventive pranks.  Pairing poisson d'avril with the last day before a two-week vacation is a recipe for mass pandemonium.  Elaborate cut-out paper fish were strewn everywhere, white board markers regularly went missing at the beginning of class, flash drives were switched, teachers arrived to class to reach into their bags and find that their photocopies and lesson plans had been swiped (that last one was teachers pranking teachers, I'm fairly certain)...

Snazzy shot of Notre Dame
Sunday, I had a nice long train ride date with my Kindle, down to La Rochelle and back up to Paris for an overnight stay at the foot of the Eiffel Tower where Elyse lives.  It was the first real spring day in Paris, and I spent most of is basking on the Champ de Mars...on the phone with the airline because the passenger information on my ticket listed me as a 116-year-old man.

After three phone calls, they finally believed that I was a 26-year-old woman and the next day allowed me to board the plane to Budapest, Hungary.

hortobágyi palacsinta
Getting in late in the evening, my initial blind attempts at public transit and taking out and using cash (Hungarian Forint) went rather smoothly.  My hostel pointed me in the direction of a traditional restaurant, where I tried hortobágyi palacsinta - meat-stuffed pancakes.  Lessons learned:  Hungarian food is delicious but heavy, and Hungarian wait staff is almost frighteningly attentive.

English is sufficient for getting around in Budapest, but a small effort in Hungarian tended to end in more fun-filled conversations.  Through geographically surrounded by Germanic, Romantic, and Slavic languages, Hungarian is a relative of Finnish and Estonian.  Once you learn the pronunciation of each letter, word stress is always on the first syllable, and you're ready to roll.  Here is the crash course:

szia (pronounced "see ya") - hi and bye
köszönöm - thank you
kérem - please
beszél angolul? - do you speak English?
igen - yes
nem - no
elnézést - excuse me
hol van ... ? - where is ... ?

Deciphering the currency was another fun game.  The cost of nearly everything (restaurants, food, museums, household goods...) is much lower than in western European countries, so you are not very likely to overspend even if you don't get out the calculator every time you scan over a menu or buy a keychain.  I mostly thought in terms of Forint to Euros, but here are some benchmarks for the U.S. dollar (at the current rate):

$1 = 275 HUF
(just under) $15 = 4,000 HUF

One of my first projects was a walking tour covering the basics of Budapest.  The city is divided in two by the Danube river; the west side of the river was originally its own city called Buda, and the east side was called Pest.  Hungary gets some of its traditions from Turkey, like paprika, public baths (I didn't go, but there are several popular baths you can visit throughout Budapest), and coffee, though it was later replaced by Italian-style coffee.  Ernő Rubik, inventor of that famous and frustrating cube, is a native of Budapest; Zoltán Kodály, creator of the solfège system (do-re-mi) and music teaching pedagogy was also Hungarian.  Hungary also claims composer Franz Liszt as its own; he was born in the town of Raiding, Austria, which in 1811 was Doborján, Hungary.  I guess Austria has enough composers to keep track of already, so they generally allow Hungary to keep Liszt on its list of achievements.

Matthias Church
After the walking tour, I spent some time on the hill of the Buda side.  The main attractions include the Buda Castle, Matthias Church, and Fisherman's Bastion.  Interested mostly by the colorful roof, I went inside Matthias Church; you can apparently buy the roof tiles as souvenirs in gift shops.  The inside of the church is dark and painted simply, but looks ornate when you step back to take it all in.  Just outside, Fisherman's Bastion offers a panoramic view of the Danube and Pest.

Chain Bridge and St. Stephen's

langós
I retraced my path down the hill and crossed over the Chain Bridge (the most famous of a few connecting Buda and Pest; the other two important ones are creatively named Green Bridge and White Bridge) back to Pest.  I spent a few hours walking around the Jewish Quarter, which was my favorite area of the city; there's a beautiful synagogue, restaurants, and hidden alleyways with street food.  Nearer to St. Stephen's Basilica, I found temporary markets in city squares selling more street food and artisan goods.  I sampled langós, supposedly in the "snack food" category (but I could have stretched it into two meals): it's in the pizza family, soft flat bread topped with garlic sauce, cheese, and whatever other toppings you'd like (meat, vegetables, etc.).  Hungary is also known for its wine, especially sweet white wine.

Iron Curtain monument
I also took a walk up and down Andrássy út (avenue), known as Budapest's main shopping drag.  What I was really looking for was a chunk of the Berlin Wall and an Iron Curtain monument outside of the House of Terror museum; I found them both, as well as panels with information on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

That evening, I went to a concert in St. Stephen's Basilica, part of a small series of concerts at various venues throughout the city.  This one featured organist Gyula Pfeiffer; there were also performances on trumpet and violin, and by a tenor and soprano.  Here is part of the opening piece, one of my favorites, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  The concert was also a nice way of seeing the basilica itself; it's named after the first king of Hungary who reigned from about 1000-1038.  His fist is the relic that sits in a side chamber of the church; you can put a 100 Forint coin into a slot to shine light on it for a few minutes.

My final stop for the day was one of several ruin bars in Pest.  Ruin bars are located in the 7th district, built on ruins of buildings that have been abandoned since as early as WWII.  They can be difficult to find if you don't plan ahead, as they look like normal homes from the outside and are guarded by bouncers who make sure that no noise disrupts neighbors.  A group from my hostel chose one of the most well-known called Szimpla Kert.  Once you walk inside, it feels like you are in a different world, an old mini city in a cave.  It's quite dark, and the floor and walls are made of uneven, unfinished old stone.  There are vintage decorations, even cars turned into tables, and neon signs and colored lights covering several floors; the ambiance is fantastic.

kürtőskalács
Day 2 was all about walking:  I made a huge loop around Pest before heading up to Margaret Island on the Danube, on the north end of Budapest.  The island is rather large with trails and parks; I hiked up to the northernmost point and back.  On my way back, I swung by the market again for kürtőskalács, or chimney cake, a sweet Hungarian snack food with Transylvanian origins.  It comes in several flavors: vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate, etc.

That evening, I went to a second concert, this time featuring a small string chamber orchestra at St. Anne's Church.  It included my second (but not last!) rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons that week.  The church was small but cozy, and the pews had heated seats.  Very heated.  Maybe I got the rogue pew, but the German woman next to me and I wound up kneeling for the last part of the concert because the pew was so hot.  ...Anyway, the music was good.

Budapest is a great city for walking, and the weather was beautiful all week, so I didn't mind covering a lot of ground on foot.  During my last full day, I managed to clock about 13 miles.  I headed up to the northeast corner to take a peek at Hero's Square and Vajdahunyad Castle, which is beautiful but overrun by tourists with selfie sticks, so I turned around and headed back into town.  Before lunch, I stopped into a Hungarian national history museum, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, which gave a thorough but not overwhelming overview of the country's history.  I still can't quite keep track of all the changes in borders between eastern European countries over the years, but I did appreciate the piano that belonged first to Beethoven and that was later passed to Liszt.

Next stop was the Nagy Vásárcsarnok: the main market.  It's a massive indoor market with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, and artisan stalls.  I wasn't hungry enough to partake in the upstairs hot food vendors, but did get some freshly-squeezed orange juice and make the tour of the building.

Late in the afternoon, I had a ticket for a tour of the Hungarian Parliament Building, a definite must-visit if you go.  The tour itself is not long - less than an hour - but it's the only way of going inside the building, and you should book a day or two ahead of time if you want a specific tour time.  Parliament is the largest building in Hungary and is exactly the same height as St. Stephen's Basilica; no taller building can be authorized in Budapest.  It took nineteen years to build (completed in 1904) and houses the Crown Jewels of Hungary, guarded by soldiers with swords (we were advised to stay clear and certainly not take pictures).  The inside is magnificent, decorated in gold and red.  Much of the building had to be rebuilt after WWII, but certain things - like the original stained glass - were hidden and protected in the basement and reinstalled afterward.



Shoes on the Danube
Not far from Parliament, on the banks of the Danube, you can find Shoes on the Danube, a memorial honoring Jews shot on the river by Arrow Cross fascists during WWII.  It's very simple but moving: several pairs of shoes cemented to the ground facing the water.

Last but not least, with my last bit of leg strength, I crossed back to Buda and climbed Gellért-hegy (hill) a couple of hours before sunset for a nice view of the city.  The hill itself has several nice places to relax and read or enjoy the view; at the top is the Citadel as well as Liberty Statue, which was put up by the Soviet Red Army in commemoration of their victory after WWII and the end of the Nazi occupation.


Finally, my last meal in Budapest was the best: I went to a restaurant called Fat Mama for traditional goulash.