Walk the LIne

About two weeks ago, we set out for a casual walk into a springish Saturday morning. Which reminds me, isn’t it great how weekend days don’t wash into each other anymore, as you damn well know which one is the Saturday, because the stores are open? Well no, it isn’t, actually,  the jolliness lasts up until the second you realize you’re out of butter on a Sunday morning, and start on a journey far more impressive than the one I’ll be writing about here.

For so it happened that our casual walk, which was intended as a yearly pilgrimage to the strategically placed early blooming tree that makes for ridiculously scenic shots with Freedom bridge, became an outright odyssey that took us full circle across the hills of Buda, through Tabán and all the way to Margit island.

One of the first things we learned on the way, and pretty much of capital importance, is that the waffle place near Ferenciek square opens at 11. So, should you set out on a jolly and ridiculously early morning walk and suddenly feel a devastating urge to eat waffles (trust me, the struggle is real) , you must settle for the considerably more expensive ones on Váci street. The only way I can explain the steep difference in price is that they are Belgian- a trick which works splendidly with chocolate and beer as well, just add Belgian and sell it at triple the price and no one bats an eye.

The waffle detour did however take us through the Astoria underground passage, where some people were, quite naturally, playing Bach. Later on during the day, after having successfully summited and then descended from Gellért hill, we ventured into one of those restaurants I keep ogling at through the window, say they’re nice, then move on. Turns out it was a real shame we’d never been to Lánchíd Söröző before: their beer is Czech, the food is tasty and affordable, and also totally naturally, they have Bono’s autograph in a frame.

The final stretch took us to Margit Island, which was still in a rather incipient state of bloom at the time-much progress has been made since in that direction. And to end the entry with factual and possibly useful information, we counted the length of our journey, and came to the conclusion it was a whopping 15 kilometres, on the Oktogon- Deák square- Ferenciek square- Freedom bridge- Gellért hill- Batthyány square- Margit Island- Nyugati square- Oktogon route.

Empty Spaces

So this post’s pretty overdue, since it was early March that we went out into a moderately sunny day and basically shot the two epic tourist magnets of Budapest, the Parliament, and the castle, with the ridiculously eye candy combination of them both.

The Parliament itself is marginally on my daily route, so I do get to walk by it and see it pretty often, and yes, I also see the outer walls of the castle as well from across the Danube, but it dawned on me that I hadn’t actually been within the castle walls in a long time. So I went. And I assumed, since it was off season and there was a chilly wind,  that it might tend towards those degrees of desertion I had witnessed it in back in my early days as a Budapester, when I regularly brought friends over to see it on their first visit to the city.

For some reason the first thing that came into my mind was the Latin ’sic transit gloria mundi’ (The perks of an older-school Romanian education, you’ll be able to throw in some wise old Latin saying for basically anything that happens to you. Either that, or a quote from Seinfeld, but those are more the perks of a wide ranging network of cable television.)

Of course, one can argue that now that there’s a basically non stop flow of people in every nook and cranny of the castle, it’s more popular, better known- these are the glory days, then. It may well be, but I still long for the time when we could walk up to the castle, bring a book and a soda, and sit right next to the Fisherman’s Bastion reading. Living in the space, not just passing through it fleetingly.

It was the thing that struck me most about the shots once I’d collected them- bar for the couple taking a selfie, who then trudged on to the next photo opp, they are empty.  The couple themselves pissed me off a good deal for they were not so skilled with their phone- or she wasn’t so happy with how she looked in any of the pictures- and spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to reach absolutes of city brake scenic-ness.

I therefore assume that I tried, albeit unconsciously, to recapture something of that older Budapest I knew, the one where spaces could be just yours for a while, and yours alone. It wasn’t easy, most pictures had plenty of ruined sisters, with someone scuttling unexpectedly into the frame, and of course it is more than likely that such a Budapest never really existed, it just became such in the way I remember it. And every so often those are the places we’d most want to go back to.

The Budapest Saint Patrick's Day Parade 2016

Going to the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade year after year pretty much means you’ll sooner or later run out of subjects to write about- there’s more people every year- check, the weather is always a tad better than predicted, under the auspices of the proverbial Irish luck- check, it’s amazing how many people turn out to an Irish parade without being necessarily Irish- check,  random people are always taken aback and try to guess what this is all about- check.

The one innovation of the year seemed to be the Guinness selfie stick, which could be chosen as a gift instead of the traditional silly hat- though which one of the items would make you actually look sillier when worn/used is open to debate. While the one innovation that is still missing is a food stand- there’s plenty of stout and whiskey to be had, but a hot dog stand or two would help ensure that people don’t get overly illuminated by the time the crowd reaches Saint Stephen’s. This seems to be the pain point where a lot of people wander off Irish rover style into the wilderness, with the rest marching on towards Instant.

I confess to having passed on the Instant part this year- the plan is always to have some pints of Guinness somewhere else, which somewhere else fittingly happens to be the Irish pub Becketts just around the corner, and then maybe come back later to check out the concerts. The concerts are an interesting bit actually, because some of them are not necessarily Irish, but a sort of often pleasant yet slightly eerie Celtic-Medieval fusion, but I am pretty confident I can revel in them next year as well.

Another commitment for next year (one of those things whiskey is pretty good at making your forget) is to be more colour coordinated. Well, better said, since it's always a tad chilly-windy during the parade, I should get a green coat, as I'm not sure I'm bold enough for an orange one, though my absolutely favourite outfit of this year's parade, which can be admired below, was coordinated around a splendid peach coloured item.