Budapest
When you are travelling in former East Block countries you can
always be afraid of worst. However, Budapest was a glad surprise.
If Prague is wonderland of architect, Budapest is meant for all
of us. I prepared for down fall travelling to east but situation
seems to be like wise.
Czech has developed in field of economy better then other East
European countries, but that’s it. There are very few other
fields of which they can be proud about. The biggest difference
between Prague and Budapest is mentality, so I am going to tell
few examples about it. I would like to mention in this point that
these are generalisations but all five or six Budapest lads that
we met intensify these stereotypes to all Hungarians.
Service
You cannot even buy your way to decent service when you’re
in Prague. People in service industries are awkward, which leads
to communist times when everyone worked for government and did
only what they had to. Everything else, like smiling, was unnecessary
to make your money. One of my colleges, who is native Czech but
has lived in States almost whole life and speaks both languages
perfectly, told that he gets even worse service when he uses Czech
language. It was very positive experience when waiter in Budapest
called me as “sir”. This went along the way during
our visit in Budapest. Hungarians are more open and strict, just
the way Finns want it. For example one waiter asked if our friend
is really sure she’s going to eat food she ordered. Kindness
flourished in every meeting we had. When I was really tired and
bought gyros from Turkish looking man, who served me really fast
and even said, “Have a nice day”. Something that I
was not prepared after few months in Prague. So it seems that
mentality of Hungarians have also affected to immigrants.
We noticed some sort of kinship between Finns and Hungarians
since Finns are so much liked in Hungary. Biggest surprise was
in local tourist info where almost all brochures were also in
Finnish. They have done this for two years now because there is
so many Finnish tourists. Well, we met few but are we really so
many. It seems that Finns have been behaved properly in Hungary.
I never have had to shame my origin during my trips – but
on the contrary. I suppose there has been so much micro level
co-operation between Hungary and Finland. I must clarify to our
English readers that there is absolutely nothing in common between
Hungarian and Finnish language, as some guides claims. Only words
I can now understand after my visit are “beer” and
“please”.
Nature
Budapest itself is really charming city. I shall make some comparison
between Prague and Budapest, so you know where to go. In town
images biggest difference are trees. Prague is beautiful in architectural
way but you cannot find parks elsewhere then from Petrin hill
and Strelecky ostrov, as in Budapest parks seem to be in every
corner. You could tell that from quality of air. This was partly
affected by trolleybuses.
Place absolutely worth visiting were Gellert Hill on the bank
of Buda. You can see all Budapest from there. Only proper way
to get there is by climbing but you can get closer by tram numbers
47 and 49, which leaves from crossroad of metros, Deak Ter. In
front of Gellert there is famous bath, which nowadays too famous
and thus priced for tourists. Bathing is something very Hungarian
like and that’s why we recommend you to go to Széchenyi
bath just on north side of Heroes Square. Less tourists, more
locals and fear prises.
Klara Vappen Budapest!
We happened to be in Budapest at May First and saw the celebrations
of first year after EU membership, which was very visible in streets
of Budapest. I heard that in Prague the biggest happening was
communist demonstration, which was ‘disturbed’ by
skinheads. In Hungary there was benches from all EU countries
from which you could hear music from these countries and weird
boxes full of smells from member countries. Well, Finnish bench
was silent so we thought we should educate Hungarians, but since
smell of Finnish wood was so strong that you could smell it also
in the French box, we figured it was enough. Other wise celebrations
were quite formal. There were markets going on in the park of
Városliget that went through out the day. Political parties
had the day. We even saw communist march, although they were quite
smaller then Social Democrats had and their members were much
elder. So, it seems that communist party in Hungary is past and
new generation does not agree with them. Well, there was one boy
in communist part of market singing but I doubt that ten-years-old
boy knows anything about politics. But you know, sometimes one
can still witness this kind of forced propaganda in post-communist
states.
Smelling
Striking in Budapest was the smell of urine. Of course Czechs
are famous of urinating to streets but smell of main railway station
seems to beet even Czechs. In this matter you can see clear difference
between Prague and Budapest. Those who make the urine for our
pleasure are mostly homeless and dogs, which in Budapest live
in the neighbourhood of main railway station. And although you
can see these people who urinates in main railway station of Prague,
most of them are oust by police. We could notice much more homeless
in Budapest then in Prague. But the attitude toward urine was
quite different in Budapest then in Prague. We had the chance
to witness why the streets of Budapest are sometimes wet even
if the sky is clear. One local grammy was wetting the street with
watering can and whipped the rest away with her broom. At first
I thought there was some shops that wanted to keep their best
sides clean but soon I noticed there were no shops and it was
just the old grammy who was cleaning her own yard. In Prague urine
tend to stay even in front of shops. I hope that this very concrete
example helps you to understand the mental difference between
Czech and Hungarian. Czech has developed fast if you just look
statistics but Hungary will beat Czech soon because common attitude
of people is much more healthier ground.
Fine Wine
One more thing, I cannot be with out mentioning the fine wines
in Hungary. Well, we all know that Czechs can make beer but who
would have figured that Hungarians are the best wine makers. Even
French wines taste like buttermilk after you have tasted Hungarian
wines. I especially recommend muskotaly wines and one called Villanyi
Portuguese. These are really worth drinking. If you really want
to get to know what local wines taste like go to a wine cellar
that local use and where they don’t serve wine in bottles.
Some pictures
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