Are you Buda or Pest?

Personally, I’m Pest…..which will be no surprise to people. Particularly my mother, on several levels. Budapest is actually the consolidation of two separate cities with very different class structures in their origins. After getting overrun by the marauding hordes which was inconvenient, to say the least, to the aristocracy, they moved their capital some 40 miles away to the hill section of the Danube where they could more easily protect their way of life as they knew it. This became Buda, while the “barbarians,” trades people, and merchants occupied the low, flat ground on the other side of the river known as Pest. Over the centuries the two began to merge and overlap yet even today the difference is distinct…the Royal Palace, castle and fine buildings of Buda are architecturally ornate and show the refined way of life that was common to that class of society. Pest, on the other hand, is down home. As the merchant class developed a more affluent level of life, Pest developed its own sophistication and wide avenues and luxury homes and town houses became abundant on the flat lands and not just a feature of the hill people.

It’s incredibly easy to get around Budapest. The city has a well developed transportation system that includes an underground subway, extensive bus system and modern trams any of which can zip you around anywhere in the city and its environs. It’s truly impressive to see such public transportation. It’s the second oldest underground, electrified system In Europe predated only by the London tube. It has a daily ridership of one and a half million riders, not bad for a population of 1.7 mill. Men in suits, women dressed to the nines, young lovers snuggling in the corner, the lady with the pug dog with the pink collar and the body blanket keeping it warm and a myriad of other personality and economic types are all to be seen daily on the system. The conviviality of Budapest life continues to be evident…lively conversations are heard any time two people are together, walking, in a restaurant, or just sitting together, there doesn’t seem to be dead air….it appears to be joyous and full of laughter and joy. The highlight of our visit was our stay with our Servas hosts, Anna, Tibor, 15 year old Andres and the 12 your old pistol named Masha who has her dad wrapped around her little finger. Tibor is a retired policeman and keeps the house running smoothly…fixing the meals, running the kids to school and the house work. Anna works for the US Embassy and does translating as a private contractor because, as she noted, if you want to have a decent life, you have to have two jobs. Andres is quiet but forceful…the kids go to an American private school which sounded very much like a Montessori type educationl system….expensive, Anna said, but the best head start for her kids….Andres objected strongly to changing schools since he had just made friends, not easy for him, and the hook was that he said: “If you make me go to this school, I’ll run away.” It was later decided that he would go to this school if they let him have a dog.They now have a dog named Zeus. Masha is a whirlwind and reminded us of Alex, our 9 year old grandson…sweet, sneaky, manipulative, loving and with a mind and will of her own which she is not hesitant to display even when strangers are in the home. Home is a two story flat which is so tiny and cramped…the downstairs is a 30x20 room which includes the kitchen, dining room, living room and two half baths. The kitchen is so small that I can almost touch the walls by spreading my arms. The upstairs is two bedrooms, the two kids share, and a small bathroom….They do not feel deprived or prevented from enjoying a better standard of living…they just accept that this is what they can do and they get on with it….the house is full of laughter and warmth. Affection is displayed both in the giving and receiving and it is a happy family. We slept on the floor on an air mattress which went flat in the middle of the night…that’s a requirement of air mattresses, I think. In the morning, they get up at 6:00 to be out the door at 7:00 and so they just quietly step over the guests on the floor and have some breakfast before starting their busy schedule. Two visitors got up close and personal with the transportation system as we went from our Servas hosts to town. They told us that the bus would take us downtown from the ‘burbs where we were staying. That was really helpful since reading the bus route in Hungarian was impossible for us…. but we happily climbed aboard and then rode and rode and rode until everybody finally got off the bus. The last lady to get off was a woman of roundish 60+ based on her well-lined face. With a babushka type head scarf, calf-length flowered dress, brown, heavy stockings and shoes that were simple but sturdy she didn’t say anything, she just looked at us until she had our attention and then just nodded to the doorway of the bus and then walked off and away, carrying her cloth bag carrying, who knows what, and her plastic bag with groceries sticking out in the other hand. She sort of swayed a little back and forth as she went. She looked very old school to me…not rural old school, but citified. I wondered what her life had been like living through such dynamic events and changes in her lifetime. We got off the bus confused. We didn’t know where we were, but we knew it wasn’t downtown. We’d seen that and this was definitely not it. …our confused looks brought a sympathetic individual who explained in English to return the way we came and transfer at the metro station and pointed us to the bus stop that would take us there…so we became two of the 1.5 mill that day. We roamed around town visiting the National Museum where we were told it was too far for us to walk and noted down all the bus lines lines and metro stops …..we just walked anyway. I had taken note of the usual locater points of reference, color of buildings etc., so we would sail on home with ease where we could catch the bus back to the house. We had this one down pat now. We got on the metro, got off the metro at the right spot and spotted our bus about to take off. I didn’t see my reference store sign, but I saw the correct name in the window of the bus and told Carol it was the right one and we hopped on board happily smiling that we didn’t have to wait in the cold and drizzle for the next bus in 30 minutes…A few stops down the line, Carol mentioned that she had seen a distinctive building twice now…I, knowing that wasn’t possible, authoritatively told her it couldn’t be….a few more stops along the way I finally caught a name I could understand on the speaker and told Carol. “We’re going the wrong way. Off we jump and waited in the drizzle for the next bus except we were further away than when we started. Carol, to her credit, didn’t rag on me, make me feel guilty….she just let it pass….until, a few minutes later she quietly said: “That’s the 3rd time I’ve seen that building.” As you can see we’re living large in Central Europe…Life is good.