After lots of cramming and sweating during the exam period,
I submitted my final paper on Albertus Magnus’ zoological writings and
immediately started packing. 4:30am the
next morning, I met Vinny and started on our now-familiar trek to take a train
to a bus to catch our dirt-cheap Ryan Air flight. Ryan Air: the low-cost, low-safety
airline! The flight was alright until
our very shaky landing (the plane turned nearly 180 degrees and suddenly
dropped straight down a few times). A
young girl was so shaken by the landing she had be rushed out as soon as we
touched ground (which luckily distracted everyone from my
own panic attack).
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| Pest at Sundown |
It felt good to be once again in a new
country. As soon as we got into
Budapest, we could feel how different it was to Western Europe. Most obviously: the Hungarian language, which
is very unique—the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in
Europe. We checked into our surprisingly
hipster hostel, drank some coffee, and darted right out again to check out
Budapest’s classical sights on the Buda side of the Danube: the Buda Castle
(the former palace of the kings of Hungary), Matthias Church, and the Fisherman’s
Bastion from which you can get an amazing view of the Pest side.
Aside from the classical sights, we spent much of the
remainder of our trip exploring Budapest’s more recent history: Communism. First, we toured through the Terror Haza (The House of Terror)—a museum
which details Budapest’s five month domination by fascism and forty year communist oppression. While the horrors
fascism were already well-known to Vinny and I, the brutality of the communists
was a bit more surprising to learn.
Indeed, they were just as bad, if not worse, than the fascists. One of
the most tragic things to learn of was the 1956 Hungarian Revolution where the
Hungarians enjoyed a few days of freedom before being quashed by Kruschev with more
tanks than Hitler used to invade Western Europe (so much for Kruschev’s image
as the gentle anti-Stalin).
The next day, we took a tour of Budapest’s major communist
sights guided by two Hungarians who shared a wealth of information and (most
interestingly) personal anecdotes. One
of our guides, Áron, recalled how his father had wanted to get him baptized,
yet the Party warned that several of his family members would be demoted or
fired (luckily for his soul, he was baptized as soon as the Curtain fell). Under
communism, you could not express dissent with the Party in public places (and
during the Stalin years, your private life was also heavily monitored). Class aliens (such as bankers or anyone the
Party disliked) would be sent off to re-education camps for several years (it
was death camps for them in the Stalin era).
All new residential buildings were dull, and identical, and had very
small kitchens (so small you cannot even put a table) to discourage private
talk (they preferred you eat at public cantinas). All youths were forced to join the Communist
Scouts, where they learned teamwork, as well as loyalty to the Party and were used
as free labor for public works projects.
Our other tour guide, Agnes, recalled how her family saved up, filed the
proper papers, and waited the required years to visit the West (Vienna) and how
shocked she was to see that they had so many bananas (which were only available
behind the Iron Curtain for a short time every year). The family brought several bunches back as souvenirs. Apparently, the one bright spot of the 4
decade oppression was the quality of their television programming—when it was
not propagandistic, it was largely educational and broadcast a lot of High
Culture (ironic for an ‘egalitarian’ ideology that believed High Culture to
merely be a by-product of an exploitative economic setup).
Overall, Budapest was very enjoyable—it had its own unique
flavor, lots of history, and (most importantly) prices were ridiculously
low. It also had a surprising amount of
bookshops and in every café and pub you can spot several Budapesters consumed
by a book. Unfortunately, it also had a
surprising amount of homeless people, so it felt nice to get back to the West. After three days, we boarded our bus for the
other capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
What could have easily been a 2 hour drive was stretched out over 3
hours because (for some reason) our bus had to take a 20 minute break every 45
minutes. I guess it’s because I’m from a
big country that 2 hours with no break sounds perfectly reasonable.
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| Belvedere One of the Hapsburg's more Spartan abodes |
After this painstaking journey, we finally
rolled up to the most pristine and elegant city I have yet seen. We spent most of our time in Vienna walking around
in awe of the Hapsburgs and sampling Austrian cuisine (schnitzel, bratwurst,
and strudel—Oh my!). At Belvedere, the sky was grey, crows were cawing, and the trees were bare--reminding me of my tenure as a Resident Evil champion (I kept looking over my shoulder for zombies). When not beholding
the Hapsburg’s modest accommodations, we let our friend Ike seek out for us
some interesting nightlife. Ike turned
out to be like a hipster version of Stefon. He found for us bars with trees inside,
bathtubs and dentist chairs, and a ‘future bar’ which looked like a vision of
the future from the 1970’s (probably also when it was last cleaned).
Getting home turned out to be an adventure in itself. We discovered the metro doesn’t run at 4am,
so we had to walk an hour (plus unplanned detours) to the train station where
my ticket refused to print out (luckily the train controller had a heart) to
get to Bratislava (since Ryan Air doesn’t fly out of Vienna). We caught a brief glimpse of Bratislava and I
don’t regret not staying longer. It
seems to capture everything you think of when you hear “post-communist.” By the grace of God, we made it to the
airport on time (and our flight was delayed an hour).
As of writing this,
I have just gotten back from a therapeutic long weekend in Italy and I am
packing for Paris. I also have to acquaint myself with a few
pages of Wittgenstein. So much to see
and so much to read, but such is the life of a philosophy grad student in
Europe!
