Budapest

We are in Budapest. Unfortunately, we are only going to see parts of Buda, and not Pest. The heat and humidity are oppressive. The only other time I remember it this bad was on Long Island in September of 1976. So we are going to stick close to the hotel, maybe take in a mineral water bath tomorrow. (I was reminded after writing this that it is very hot to begin with.) We’d like to see and do more, but it’s not pleasant in the August doldrums.

There is a lot to take in here. We in the west through our propaganda media had an image of life behind the iron curtain as gray, the women plump and the news in black and white. As we rode through the streets today that feeing certainly came through. We are just out of Italy, France and Switzerland, where there is widespread prosperity. Here there is not. The buildings are gray and run down and the cars are old.

The train overnight had a Gulag feel about it. It must have been made in the 1960’s. It was all metal except the bed makings. The cars are old and rusty. We had a compartment to ourselves, thankfully, and I did sleep well. Breakfast on the train was not good, the coffee was not good, and (with a pleasant exception) the conductors were as one might picture a Soviet train conductor in a James Bond Movie – plain, middle aged and humorless.

It’s only been 20 years since the wall came down, but long enough for them to realize that while Soviet communism was not a good life, Western consumerism is as vapid. We have nothing to offer them. Maybe they know that now. We’ve not encountered anyone especially friendly. We’re not in Western Europe anymore. This is not as happy a place as where we have been. The supermarket is not full of chatter, the train station was a large dungeon. (They have pay toilets, as in Italy, but they are not sparkling clean as they were there. This is so Soviet – toilet paper is in a large roll by the attendant out front. If you need it, you have to take some under his watchful eye.)

Hard to know, though. Maybe we are all just suffering from the heat. My wife expects I will find some roots here, as my ancestors on my Dad’s side are from somewhere around here. She is looking for lean bodies with high cheekbones – here we have found a rotund and short people with very ordinary, almost Russian plainness.

Anyway, I am half Irish. Which reminds me – the hotel clerk was talking to my wife and I was only half hearing him and not much making out the heavy accent, but I did clearly hear the words “beer festival.” Yes, up high on the hill by St. Matthias Cathedral and the Roman ruins is a “festival!” We paid 1,700 forints (one forint is about one half cent) each to enter, and then had to advance them 1,200 forints for two glass mugs (refundable), and what did we get? The right to pay 500 forints each for a glass of twenty or so featured beers. Maybe that is what beerfests are, but it seems silly to pay for the right to pay for full price for something.

We did get a coupon for a “free” beer, and when we tried to use it were told that we had to go to a certain booth to get a certain beer, which turned out to be their version of Bud Light.

These Hungarians, they are getting it! This is American style marketing, complete with the over-promise, under-delivery, and the sense that you are getting something of value when you are not, all due to the way it is advertised.

Western culture is creeping in.