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.