Hi all!
What an exciting 6 weeks... I took a leave of absence, a sabbatical if you will, from Deutschland to go to Minnesota, North Carolina and then back to Minnesota. I was made in honest women in a 39 minute (no Lit of the Euch, baby!) ceremony and then jetted off to Hungary leaving my gleaming Le Creusets behind.
Since this blog is supposed to be about Europe I will focus on the aforementioned trip down the Danube, which brought E and I to Budapest. Buda, the hilly part of the city is said to be on the last ripples of the Alps. Then comes the blue Danube leading to the shores of the flat Pest the first ironed portion of land that acts as an entry to the central Asian steppes. It's a city where locals believe in their own mythology of East meets West: Crossing the Danube is considered medicinal, its waters healing. Gold birds top bridges to protect from invading Turks or Germans or Soviets and everywhere there are people hawking "Hungarica" (like our, "Americana") kitschy jars of paprika and peasant dresses and bottles and bottles of Tojkai wine.
The city is as architectually stunning as its empire counterparts, Prague and Vienna, but it has more of a boomtown circa 1898 feel instead of a stateliness. It's also pretty shabby; lots of cats peeing on old Trabants and road construction that looks like it was started in 1997. But overall the city gives an impression of grandness, size.
There's also a bit of hedonism. In Soviet times Budapest was a little like Las Vegas and there are still casinos and strip clubs on the banks of the river. Topping that vibe is the inflation, 200 Hungarian ft = $0.99
We did all the things you can do in Budapest: river cruises, goulash slurping, wine tasting, castle touring. It was all great but the best experience by far was going to the Hungarian baths. There are over 15 state-run public baths in Budapest, all touting thermal hot springs and medicinal massage. Erik and I chose to go to Gellert, the most well-known to Westerners, which is housed in the back of a gorgeous Art Nouveau hotel of the same name. We were dorkily dressed in board shorts and a black one-piece respectively, and we knew that swimsuits were optional, but I don't think either of us expected to see so many pension-aged Hungarians in the buff. You name it, we saw it. Full frontal, all angles. As you progress in a Hungarian bath from one whirlpool to the next (they increase in temperature by about 5 degrees, topping out at about 102 F) you see more and more flesh. I have had some experience with aging Eastern Europeans penchant for nudity as I was a former member of the JCC of St. Paul but nothing compared to this. Seeing grandmas hit with tree branches and putting on weighted life jackets fro "submersion" therapies is graphic in every sense of the word.
That's a pretty good experience for a honeymoon, right? Looking at all those arthritic bodies is sort of a preview... of eternity.
The best is yet to come!
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2 comments:
Go glad you're back, I've missed the blog dearly.
Well, I'm trying to comment again. What a blast the party in St. Paul was!! Took me a while to recover.
Sounds like I would like to visit Budapest. I remember when nephew Carl and I were in Stuttgart touring the M-B assembly plant in Sindelfingen that the place we stayed had a sauna which Carl decided to take. He came back in rather chastened after only a few minutes exclaiming that there were elderly naked women in the sauna and I can't really graphically portray his description but it sounded not too unlike what you experienced. Well, probably none of that in politcally correct Chapel Hill.
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