East of Wiener World

In a scene in the movie Fargo, police in pursuit of a suspect through the Minnesota winter ask different people to describe their contact with a quixotic fugitive.  They invariably describe him as "funny looking."  When asked to elaborate, they can only repeat that he was "kind of funny looking"; the officers always nod in comprehension. 

I have found it a struggle to get beyond "funny-looking" to describe Budapest.  The Danube, the Castle Hill views, the bright shop windows, the cafes, the grandeur of ornate doorways and statuary on structures built in centuries past are the lights that make the city attractive.  Its Communist past, stern-looking police and guards in long coats and fur hats, the reported prevalence of pickpockets, notorious taxi drivers, grimy side streets and decaying facades--all are shadows that at times make the atmosphere unattractive.  Yet if light and shadow were music, Budapest would have an oddly appealing harmony.

Saturday morning we left on the train for a 2-and-a-half-hour ride through the Danube Valley across Hungary.  We arrived at Keleti train station, grimy but charming nonetheless with its 1904 art-deco style:  its huge arched canopy extends protectively over walks and tracks, graffiti-decorated local trains, and gray, dingy fast-food shops and money-exchange windows.  In Budapest the biggest thieves, we read, are the taxi drivers, and a clutch of them met passengers descending from each train car, hawking their services.  To avoid them, I had printed off a map of the way from the station to our hotel, and we found it easily, perhaps a half-mile walk in the refreshing winds of January.  We had chosen a large, modern hotel like the one we had had in Ljubljana, even though we usually prefer small, family-owned establishments that give us a feel for a culture, a town, or a city.  We felt, however, that we had little choice...a sample of descriptions of our alternatives presented in one guidebook:  "spartan but a great value"..."grimy, smelly, but safe"..."cheap and dumpy but beautifully located"..."big, cheap, musty rooms facing a dingy courtyard."

Once we had checked into the hotel, we had just two hours of wintry daylight remaining.  We bundled up well--ski masks would have been welcome because of the wind--and headed off to see Pest, the lower side of the city split by the Danube.  St Stephen's church, honoring the country's first Christian ruler, was our first stop.  It is a fine structure of columns and domes, with a dimly lit interior resplendent with varicolored faux marble.  Its chief attraction is a glass reliquary with the small, gnarled hand of Stephen himself, crusted in jewels, from the 11th century; it is the very hand that directed his heretic uncle to be quartered and the parts taken on a tour of Hungary to demonstrate what would happen to those who refused to accept the love of Jesus.  From there we walked past the gigantic Parliament and across Chain Bridge, and then rode the funicular up Castle Hill on the Buda side.  Although most of the area on the hill had been heavily bombed in World War II, it has been well restored.  On the hill are great views of the Danube and the sprawling city, but there is also a modern, glass-sided Hilton hotel smack in the middle of the medieval structures and fortifications.

By the time we had headed back across the river to the Pest side of the city, the wind had swept in the darkness, and we continued our tour via street lamps and lights from shop and cafe windows.  The city  streets and riverfront were lined with buildings dull and ornate.  Many of the government structures combine stone Gothic spires with curlicues and pointed arches, with a mix of red Romanesque domes that look as if they have been squeezed slightly out of round.  Many of the other buildings downtown are charmingly like those of 19th- and early 20th-century Vienna but are not always in as good repair.  Patches of cement, some quite large, have crumbled off some of the pastel exteriors, exposing flaking walls beneath, like gray acne on the face of the city.  Yet there are lovely streets, too, like Andrassy, with palace after palace with carved stonework and statuary; huge, arched doorways of rich and intricately worked wood; and Renaissance-style window pediments.  Finest of all is the city opera.  On the walk back to our hotel, we passed a beautiful, century-old synagogue--the image of what was not there, however, crowded out what was there.  It is said to be the second largest in the world, in a city that today has very few Jews...greatness and hollowness.Sunday morning we decided to reinforce our impressions of the best of the city and again strolled up  Andrassy street, admiring the beautiful old palaces in the daylight once more before leaving Budapest behind--cold, windy, and interesting...oddly appealing...kind of funny looking. 

Filler

-- New Year's Eve:  Silvester.  Although we had been warned by our former German teacher about the noise and the drinking downtown on New Year's Eve, here called Silvester, we knew we had to spend that night in the inner city just for the cultural experience.  Vienna is about music, and on New Year's Eve all kinds are available in parks and squares across the downtown area.  We visited three stages before we found one that we liked; it was playing German hits from the 1930s, ones I could imagine Adolf and Eva having danced to.  Among the singers were some quite good voices, and they were followed by a 16-member band dressed in Habsburg imperial uniforms.  All this sonority perfectly linked the most memorable eras of the past century to 2012. 

The streets in the inner city were closed off, even to taxis; it was all a giant pedestrian zone, and it was mobbed.  Many of the areas that had been Christmas markets were filled with stands selling good luck charms for the new year, but mostly wine and beer.  A person could buy not just a glass of sparkling wine but a whole bottle, and lots of people did.  Gaggles of drunken kids milled and staggered around wearing witch hats, goodluck pig hats, and dealyboppers with flashing colored lights. 

Coming home on the tram...it was a loud, drunken, standing-room only crush of mostly young people, lots of shouting and loud laughter, and a huge puddle of vomit just across the aisle from me, ebbing and flowing to the motion of the tram, like fingers of surf on the beach, under the feet of passengers.  Sitting just opposite me was a young lady, perhaps late teens, bleary-eyed and half blitzed, sprawled in the chair like a drunk on a park bench, occasionally swigging out of a half-full bottle of gray-green muscatel.  I wanted to cover her with a newspaper.  Carrying open containers of alcohol is unrestricted here, and nearly every passenger had one.  It occurred to me as we neared Grinzing that people were heading up the nearby Kahlingrad Mountain to watch the fireworks all over the city, which went on until well after midnight.

--  Yuk Part II.  A morning cooking show featuring chefs Andi and Alex, Freshly Cooked, recently presented a particularly heart-clogging recipe.  The chefs first placed three calf livers and a raw egg in a food processor and made a ruddy puree.  Meanwhile, three slabs of beef cut from a raw roast were sauteing in a frying pan.  The beef was removed from the pan and placed on a tray, and the puree was poured over each.  These beef slabs were then covered with thin, wide strips of lard and baked in the oven for 20 minutes.  The chefs took the pieces of meat out and ladled the melted fat and puree-runoff onto each with before serving them on a plate with boiled potatoes.