Budapest

June 6, 2014

Train from Vienna, the ground gradually rising and breaking into disorderly hills as we near Budapest. It’s like two worlds divided by a magic river, flat modern Pest, Buda all ancient and spread across a hill on the other side. The Zoltan Kodaly Choir School is on the Buda side, so I will be crossing over the schone blaue Donau all but daily. Not only is it on the Buda side, but tucked away in the single most obscure address in Europe, so that after walking for an hour to get to the vicinity, I walked another, around and around, trying to find the actual building. You can’t get there at all unless someone tells you to mount some steps, for the street, as far as I went, does not seem to connect to a any other street, but only to a system of steep stairs up from other streets. It is also, of course, not on the tourist maps. The Belgium Embassy lies across the street, so there must be some traffic other than frustrated American pedestrians. The people I asked for directions were kind. It was wonderful to watch them find enough English to be helpful. Did treat myself coming homeward to wine beside the river, where I had a sight of the beautiful Parliament first at sunset and then begin to twinkle with lights. Happy streets, though my legs ached terribly by then. The youth on the streets made me think of a colossal Galway. When I arrived at the Promenade Hotel they gave me a quite horrible room on an inside atrium with no window (and no bathtub, but only a nozzle aimed at the bathroom floor). I complained, and they gave me, for 10 euros a day more, a splendid one right above the street, where light and air and noise come wonderfully through. The farther east one goes, the scammier the hotels get, pretending that things like windows and tubs are options which one adds by paying a higher price. Istanbul was scammier than this, though the Promenade is plenty scammy, and one must watch one’s step. I slept fitfully because of the din from the street, but I never mind that, and I think my dreams are affected by what is going on down there. One long dream involved a group of young girls discussing what they thought of the soul.

My heart leapt when I walked out onto the streets of Budapest as it did not on the streets of Vienna. There is no explaining these things.