Saturday 26 September 2009

Like a Virgin



So my Italian friend told me last night that I dress 'Like A Virgin'. 'Er, what?' 'Madonna! Like a Virgin! The early years!'- apparently this is a genuine way to explain how someone dresses in Italy. I looked it up today and boy, Madonna the early years is so much cooler than me and a complete aspiration. She is amazing! I've always wanted a fashion idol....

Friday 25 September 2009

Gay Pride & Roof-tops



So last week was gay pride. It was the day after we had moved into our flat and all very exciting, except for one thing; we basically missed the whole march. We just saw the commotion to do with the police. The road was completely barricaded off and had police standing against it at every point. If you wanted to be on that road during the Saturday afternoon you had no hope without a press pass. I talked to Arnold about it the day before, interested because I’ve never lived in a city big enough to have a real march, and he expressed a view which from later research seemed to be the norm- ‘I don’t mind it, but don’t put it in my face’. Apparently, there is an anti-gay march parallel to the gay march, which gestures that this country is more conservative than I first envisioned, and there are still no marriage or adoption rights for same-sex relationships. That evening there was an after-party at Corvinteto and we headed along without much consideration. We were therefore pretty shocked when a row of policemen with shields and batons greeted us at the entrance. There was no way to get past them without a brief interrogation – “do you know what party this is?” And we were asked yet again before we were properly inside. It was very strange and made my heart beat enough for the next half hour to need a calming whisky. Once inside it was pretty normal- (from a liberal standpoint anyway) - in that there were many openly gay people about and everyone was ok with it. But the barricading at the door hints at some bubbling tensions within the social life of Hungarians that I still haven’t got to the bottom of.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

Glimpse..


The corridor in my block....

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Trama

It has been difficult adjusting to the amount of homeless people in the city. I have an apartment pretty much central- Astoria- which is one the main underground stations and tram stops, and there are literally hoards of men (I’ve seen only a couple of women) slumped against the walls and digging through the bins. I'm beginning to accumulate horrible experiences of tramps scraping along near me, begging for food; excrement lining their clothes and loose trousers falling off their wastes. I have been exposed all too often to scrawny malnourished bodies and other parts I won't horror you by describing in detail. The stations are to be avoided at all costs past 9pm. I am not exaggerating by saying it actually feels like you are entering the misty steps of underground dystopia.

So last night I almost had to become part of this group. I need to tell the story because it is an experience I cannot ever imagine going through again. The situation: I live with one other girl and only one key to the courtyard between us. You have to go through the courtyard in order to get to our flat’s door. So Katherine left the bar first and took the key with her, vowing to open up for me when I get back. An hour later, I was outside the flat, using the remainder of my phone credit to try and wake her up. Failing to rouse her, I started to panic, and my credit was consequently devoured. It was now half four in the morning, extremely dark and I could hear a beggar pissing in the street next to mine. I aimlessly tried ringing the bell, knowing it wasn’t working. So I moved onto ringing the other bells, not getting any reply apart from one man who probably assumed I was a street urchin harassing people in the night - as you would- and quickly hung up. I tried to ask a polite looking couple to borrow their phone, tears swelling in my eyes, but they declined abruptly when hearing it would be a foreign number. Sleep was pushing down painfully on my head and temples, so I tried the near-by hostel. Another abrupt “afraid not” in a tone that gave no room for compromise. I was beginning to become frantic and had no idea what to do. In order to ring Katherine I would now need an international phone card, and there would be nowhere to get hold of one at this time. A young student was briskly walking down my road, and I had to tap her on the shoulder to get her attention as she had an i-pod in, which probably scared the hell out of her. She let me borrow her phone, but there was still no answer. She offered to wait until I was in, but feeling bad I said I would be ok. Half an hour later and progress consisted of getting a little nearer to the hard, cold floor outside the door.

With a stroke of luck, the student from earlier came back down the street as she had lost something along the route. Seeing me sitting down, in tears of sleep-deprivation and worry, she took me along with her to her flat. Never have I been so, so grateful for something being lost. Her flat was beautiful and airy, with just her living there. She let me sleep in her amazingly comfy bed, and I woke the next morning dazzled by sun through the huge bay window in front. So I spent the night in a complete strangers bed who I no idea what she was called or who she was, apart from an amazing artist.

This would not be such a bizarre story if not for the fact that it was a brutally ironic situation. Earlier on in the same night we had patiently sat outside our flat for nearly an hour while our door was broken into and new locks attached, because the only key for the front door was lost that day (along with one of the courtyard keys). We were determined to get into our flat that night, even though it was late on Saturday, because we didn’t want to have to stay at a hostel or somewhere unknown. We kept repeating the fact that it would not have mattered if the courtyard key was lost- one of us would be in, or we could ring doorbells! Yet that night, if I had had a courtyard key I would definitely not have been in the sorry state I was in because I could have just banged on the door until Katherine woke up. To quote Mum (the band) - yesterday was dramatic, today is ok!

Yes and before I forget the memory (as pictures have been proof for nothing in Budapest so far), I went to an amazing house party the week before which had professional VJs, DJs, light installations, a dwarf bar-man offering free drinks all night (champagne yes please) and more people I could ever imagine fitting in a flat. It was pretty unreal.

Oh, and Erasmus student buddies’ are the nicest ever, mine, who is called Arnold, is taking me Kayaking, round parliament and on folk nights!

Monday 7 September 2009

A beautiful woman with her teeth knocked out

It is common enough for British people to exclude Budapest from their lifetime must-sees. With the heat of Western Europe enticing our miserable drenched souls and the accessibility to it offered on high-speed trains, why would we travel to a country with a complete dearth of beaches and a history of being engulfed in backward regimes? And anyway, Prague holds enough beauty and communist museums to compensate for all the cities formerly belonging to the Soviets, surely?

Unfortunately, we aren’t exposed to the common tourist gaze of the famous sites which would normally cause us to swarm such a stunning city of Budapest- the achingly attractive bridges on the Danube and the towering Gellert Hill with its very own liberty statue in a stance of omnipotent grandeur, looming over the whole city. So naturally, these sites seen on the postcards and focussed in on your plane-landing are what explain the 'beautiful woman' part of my title quotation. So what of the next part?

In order to give an impression of the reality of the city from someone who has grown with little awareness of it on a map (I am not alone!) I have to explain the title statement. It was quoted by Robert Capa- the photojournalist born in Budapest who became one of, if not the best war photographer of all time. I went to see an exhibition of his work at the Ludwig Gallery on my first day in Budapest this year, and could not stop thinking how much the simple statement made sense even up to today, when he was actually referring to his experience coming back to Budapest after the war with the streets in upheaval and buildings gnawed to shreds.

The way I can think to explain the city aesthetically now is like the recent film Syn-ech-dok-hee New York: a sprawling master-piece stage production stuck in the never-ending process of being created and adjusted but never unveiled. The streets constantly look like the builders have gone for a fag break and never returned. On the street right behind me cars naturally roll up onto the pavement in order to get round the perennial road works, and pedestrians are regarded as little more than a trash can to swerve but not slow down for- zebra crossings mere graffiti on the road.

So far, everything I have experienced can be reduced to being a pedestrian in a country which uses the right lane. I’m dizzy with looking both ways. I’m a foreigner-English-left-hand-sider. Everything is topsy-tuvry.

A city with creaks and crevasses entices me; it’s well known that caves can hold the most amazing beauty if you are handed a light and have the guts to go there in the first place. Wondering down main streets it is easy enough to glance curiously into an apartment courtyard and discover all sorts of batty shops, small exhibits, cafes serving cottage cheese and strawberry pancakes (not bad!). On a time I have wondered aimlessly, I came upon a courtyard I doubt I will ever be able to find again. A crippled old man greeted me at the entrance. Noticing that I was lost and vulnerable he swooped a guiding hand to his bookstore, piling my weak arms with any English language book he could find. I was not intending to trek these around with me for the sake of being polite so sidled towards the exit, not quick enough for him to realise and intervene, taking me instead to a large stand with black and white photographs of rural Transylvania. These were surprisingly incredible and I was enlightened to his talent. I vow to get lost again and end up in his domain with a photograph purchase.

On a different note, the nightlife provided in Budapest can also be summarised by the beautiful woman metaphor. Ridiculously cool bars exist, but only so far as money is in short supply- as in the early days of East Berlin. No way can they deck out a bar in beautiful matching sofas and sparkling tabletops with jewelled lights and diamond encrusted vodka bottles; they make do with crappy chairs from skips and pad it all out with a lot of great artwork and imaginative wall designs to cover the decay beneath- the beauty being that it will always show through. A local wifi haunt round my corner- Csendes- is a perfect example of this type of place. Crawling up the 'vintage' standing lights (or rather, just plain old and tacky) are fake fruits and headphones, dangling from the ceiling are bikes, kid merry-go-rounds and fake chandeliers. To mark male and female toilets they have stuck on Barbies’ on one and Kens on the other. I’ve been on top of supermarkets, on old school stages, underneath a glass roof rained on by a giant waterfall and in the famous Szimpla with outdoor cinemas and computer keyboard doors. It’s a finger up to Shoreditch: this is real; we aren’t pretending to be skint! Oh and usually, pound a pint is reet standard.

MY LOCAL....


That's not to say it's all been fine and dandy moving to another city which is dramatically different to what I'm used to. A physical impairment I endured during my first week came my way via atmospheric incense from a reggae tea-shop gathering, messing my eye up so badly it looked like blood was seeping from my pupil"one bloodshot eye is totally in this season"!

I was battered materially when my camera was anonymously stolen- explaining the lack of pictures to correspond to this post (although I'm going to legally nick a few to make up). Realising my camera was snatched quite literally felt like an internal organ had been wrenched from inside unknowingly. The next few weeks I duly undertook the routine of reporting it to the police, which is more difficult than it sounds with them speaking no English. Arranging a meeting to report the crime and consequently turning up twenty minutes late was bad timing, I quickly found out, when I got nothing less than a brutal hounding by the red-headed interpreter, who was painfully polite after that was out of her system, even managing to crack a joke with me (the usual- "you're studying ENGLISH? In Hungary? How bizarre of you!" me- "Yes haha I am going to get a first clever clever plan yadayada".) Katherine and I have decided from now on we’re going to make up new identities; the same questions over and over are getting as painful as Freshers’ week. I’m not Eliza studying English literature. I’m Julia Gummery studying Pottery. But overall, these experiences are to be expected when moving abroad and trying your hardest to be inconspicuous in a country you are about to reside in for nearly half a year.