Arad/50 mm

I might claim that my project of shooting one day in Arad strictly with the 50 mm lens was a great artistic endeavour of which I thought long and hard and which was aimed at revealing something in particular about the town I’ll always fondly call home.  The truth is, I was lazy. Lazy to take the other lenses to me, lazy to change them according to my subject, just lazy in general because we set out on a very fine autumn day, which the weather gods had proclaimed to be the last but one very fine day of the year in general.

The next step was convincing myself that this is actually great, and will give disparate yet oft photographed subjects a kind of coherence which, as a rule,  lacks from both my person and what I might overblownly call my ouevre. Though I’ve recently read that nothing makes us more human than our capacity to firmly hold contradicting beliefs. Therefore I will claim that I both meant and did not mean this whole thing, and it both makes some sense- or none at all. 

Simple Green Something

I have many positive traits among which keeping my promises is paramount: like just half an hour ago I went into the corner shop solemnly promising myself I would buy nothing but half a kilo of super healthy peaches, and came out with a can of Guinness. (Which, of course, is good for you. So there, I almost did it.)

Now that I gave myself dubious press, I can move on to the part where I actually do keep a promise I made, and one week after our adventurous outing to Budafok and its environs, we have indeed paid a visit to another unexplored part of the Budapest galaxy, namely Népliget. I once threw a small tantrum of disbelief when reading about inhabitants of Istanbul who’ve never seen the Bosphorus, but frankly, what’s my excuse for not having been to Népliget? Going there we took the metro, but coming back we actually walked, with the added excitement of a detour into the infamous 8th district- so I wouldn’t necessarily say that the place is a stone throw’s away, but two would do the job. 

The first impression of the park is slightly eerie, as if you’re facing a faded, or perhaps simply wilder version of something, with an added whiff of socialist decrepitude. Some alleys are haphazard and overgrown, there are large, almost boulevardish roads, empty of both people and cars, like streets in some dictatorship’s fever dream ghost capital. It might have been the weather as well, a hot but cloudy summer’s day intensively pondering a storm which never came, but the park was borderline deserted- bar a weird couple sipping cheap beer on a bench, two homeless people drying their clothes and one person walking a dog (which, by Budapest standards is technically a negative number), the first living beings we came across were a whopping six squirrels frolicking quite audaciously in spite of the two mad humanoids chasing them with cameras. 

We also encountered a number of mind boggling memorials- the Polish soldier surrounded by flower beds was yet another wink to bygone times, joined by monuments dedicated to the gravestone makers and quarry men of Kőbánya- this latter piece of intel provided one of those epiphanies of the weak minded when I realized that of course the place must have been named Kőbánya because there were stone quarries there. 

The accidental finding of a Fradi training facility provided further random flashbacks, this time to a book on terrace culture I’d read, by the charming name of ‘Shit Ground No Fans’. I do hope not to give offence to any Fradi fans reading this, the new stadium, looming large on the other side of the park, is actually quite modern, but for Pete’s sake, what’s the point in that when you lose in the first round of Champions League pre-qualifiers to the team whom Albania sent when their title holder got kicked out for match fixing. Also, please explain the bird. Please.

To add insult injury, the only facilities we found which could provide us with beer were two ramshackle kiosks at the entry point closest to the stadium (we unwisely chose to ignore them at this stage) and two filling stations at the other end. Also, the only beer which was actually beer, like by German purity law standards ( I know I am horrible about this and will not even attempt to deny it), was DAB. So that is how I ended up sipping a totally random beer on a tropical Sunday afternoon, chasing squirrels. Which, if not yet described as one of life’s essential pleasures, damn well should be. Thank you Népliget for being a simple green something two stone’s throws away from where I live and sorry for having shunned you for your sisters with better beers- sometimes quirky is just nicer than nice. 

PS: We also accidentally wandered into Tisztviselőtelep, which, among other things hosts a ridiculously mis-shaped church and the hotel I stayed in the first time I laid eyes on the fair city of Budapest. About them, possibly, in an another exploratory chapter. 

Bridge over Untroubled Waters

Complaining about the Hungarian railway company is a hobby I like to indulge in every now and then, well, basically almost each time I happen to board one of their trains, which is pretty often. The list of their vile endeavours, from trains going suspiciously missing in the countryside to double selling tickets and half sparking international diplomatic conflicts is diverse and entertaining, particularly when none of them happen to you or when you reminisce about them over a pint of chilled beer to the boundless amusement of the audience.

The lengthy introduction above is there to basically set the base line- if there are reasons to complain, I very well will. Nevertheless, opposed to many of Budapest’s inhabitants, I am quite fond of the local transportation company, BKK. It is of course not perfect, nothing human made ever is, and some buses are old -and will occasionally catch fire, some drivers are rude, winter always takes them by surprise and sometimes the bus just doesn’t come at all.

But even this last incident is very rare compared to other places I’ve been to- I remember clearly how positively shocked I was when, in my first weeks in Budapest I discovered that when trams break down, there are replacement buses, and you’re not simply kept waiting for an elusive vehicle which might never come. The network of overground lines is comprehensive and well connected, and it is pretty easy to efficiently navigate the city, be it day, or night.

In retrospect, I was nothing but a spoiled brat when, about two weeks ago, I spent five minutes waiting for replacement bus 48 and cataloging how the refurbishment work done on the tram line is making my life a living hell. It isn’t- once you get used to the frequency of the buses you don’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes and as a splendid bonus, Freedom bridge is closed to traffic.

As soon as cars and trams were sent into temporary exile, Freedom bridge became a promenade and an urban picnic spot. And as such- it looked pretty garbage infested in the first days. But that changed too- there came the online campaigns, and most people understood that having the bridge as our summer playground does not mean we should use it as a trash can too.  

There’s something exhilarating too about climbing the metal structure- previously mostly forbidden (people sitting on the central bit were a part of the city landscape every summer), now you can explore most of it, to the extent your fear of heights allows it. It’s also reassuring to see that people can be reasonable even if allowed to trespass some regulations- very few venture over their comfort zone, and when someone shrieks out after having done so, there’s someone there to help them back safely. Mostly though, it’s all about having a chat and drinks perched on the lower parts of the bridge- radlers and ciders are apparently the go to flavour for Budapest’s summer. (And yes, there’s selfie action too. Often with radlers and ciders in hand.)

So these days if you stroll to the bridge, particularly in the evening, as Freedom bridge was always best suited for spectacular sunsets, you are going to meet a city enjoying itself  in a carefree way that is very similar to the familiar summer festival feeling- a city which has it’s own island of freedom, now has it’s very real bridge of freedom too.