Budapest Design

After studying and working within the fields of art and design during my stays in Budapest, I developed a love affair with this aspect of the city's culture and tried to immerse myself in it as much as possible. This task was made quite easy for me as the city is in constant bloom with new and interesting treats for the eye and it is something I don't think I'll ever be able to stop tuning into, regardless of where I am in the world.

Not to long ago a friend sent me a link to an article about design in Budapest that was featured in the New York Times under their "Journeys" section, which I have also placed a link to under my interest column. I think this article really captures the present emergence of creativity and style that is coming out of the city right now, however I feel as though it is a vague introduction at best.

Therefore I have decided that I'm going to do a small series of posts centred around Budapest's design since it is one of my favourite aspects of the city, but also to give those who have yet to visit a more quenching description. So please, if you're at all like me and easily tempted by the more visual pleasure of the world, read the New York Times article and hear me out over the next week.

Central Market: Getting Your Daily Dose of Gossip, Politics, Rugged Men From the Countryside...oh and Fresh Produce.

Central Market Hall, just off of Vaci utca is one of the best places to spend your time if you're looking for a truly all Hungarian experience. My love affair with the Budapest market began as soon as I arrived at the end of last summer. Nevermind all the amazing food to be found, what I couldn't resist was all the hustle and bustle of so many different characters and the rough country butchers, bakers and vegetable vendors yelling at you from behind their stands in words I at first couldn't understand.

As anyone might expect, the market is packed full with all of Budapest's favourite things: salami, paprika, bread and dessert of course. But in between the excess of these favoured goods, you'll also find an eye catching array of some of the nicest fresh produce you've seen. The displays of lettuce in full bloom look like floral bouquets, the obscure selection of mushrooms is almost fantastical in appearance, and the red cabbage is the absolute fanciest of purples.

Tastes aside, the physical structure of the market itself is also something quite spectacular. My former 'History of Hungarian Architecture' professor shared with me and my classmates that it was built during the establishment of Pest and similar to many of the other structures on that side of the Danube, was constructed according to a German neo-classical design. The population of Pest was growing so quickly that the small neighbourhood market's couldn't sustain the city, thus the establishment of market hall that still feeds hundreds of city dwellers daily.

As Budapest quickly fills up with big corporate grocers such as Auchan, Kaisers, and Tesco, it's refreshing to take a step back into historic Budapest and receive your sales according to a much more sensible model that is based on how much the vendors like you as opposed to the flyer's weekly special that everyone else gets. Also, last time I cruised my cart around Tesco, I don't recall hearing the latest political scoop from the cliques of seniors complaining in the aisles or smelling the fresh strudel baking in a dozen varieties. Perhaps you'll pay a slightly higher price for your produce at central market, which has been greatly influenced by the rise of tourist traffic, but being amongst the colourful crowd is worth the extra penny.

I'm Just No Good At Goodbye

This past spring when I packed my bags once again to leave for Budapest everybody wished me well, assuring me that I should enjoy my time abroad because nothing exciting ever happens at home and it will always be the same whenever I come back. However I can now say through my own lived experience that this statement is completely false. Home keeps changing when you leave and sometimes the reality that you come back to is almost completely unrecognizable.

As far as I know, French is the only language that has a term for this feeling called “depaysement”, which in simple terms means that home just isn’t quite home anymore. Scholars will try to tell you this feeling is brought about due to personal change and growth, but now I know that is really only part of the equation and that infact the actual place changes too. As exciting as the liminal state is, it’s also proving to be quite the bitch.

It has now been a month since my last post and somewhere between now and then my life has taken some crazy turns. My internship came to an end, and although I planned to spend the rest of the summer living in my favourite city and visiting friends in other far off places, responsibility knocked and sent me home to Canada. I in no way regret my decision to return home as it was the necessary choice I had to make, however everyday that I am home I can’t stop my mind from daydreaming back to the hot days and warm nights of Budapest, wondering what I may have been doing at this very moment if I were still there.

There were so many more delicious details and savoury experiences of Budapest that I still wanted to write about this summer, and this torn relationship with my baby of a blog has just been too much to bear. Therefore in response to my growing desire to continue writing and to finish what I started, I’ve decided to say all the things about Budapest that I didn’t have the chance to.

Perhaps these posts will be more insightful as I’ve had a chance to reflect on my experiences, or maybe they will simply turn into public therapy in order to cure me of the bad case of post-Budapest syndrome I’ve come down with. Either way, I think they’ll be entertaining.

Finom!

A friend who reads the blog mentioned to me the other day that she was shocked that I hadn't made a post about the food in Budapest yet, because as anyone who has ever been here knows, there is not shortage of fantastic food. Overall it is quite fatty and starchy and the portions are massive, but it tastes great, especially when it comes to their baking. I think Hungarians are probably the best bakers in the world.

This fact makes Budapest a very dangerous place for me to live because I have a particular love for pastries, fancy little sweet somethings and baked goods in general and it seems as though they're being sold on every little corner. The chain "Princess" is probably the easiest one to give into because they are strategically located at EVERY metro stop and are incredibly cheap.
Whether you're running late in the morning and didn't have time to have breakfast, or you're on your way home from a long day at work and it won't be another couple hours till you have dinner, or those Saturday mornings when you just need some starch in your stomach to soak of last night's liquid fun - Princess is always there and tasting so fine. They sell a combination of sweet and savory pastries but my favourites would have to be the cheese and pumpkin seed pogacsa and the nut and cocoa mini croissant. But whatever you choose from Princess, it will no doubt be delicious, or "finom" as they say in Hungarian.

Festivals: Budapest's Favourite Pastime

I was just waiting for it to begin, full of anticipation, spare change in hand and a brand new pair of sneakers just waiting to be broken in. Then finally last weekend it started and I couldn’t have been more excited for the first festival of the summer. Budapest is a city that loves a festival like no other and due to it’s fondness of these happy and exciting events, they occur almost weekly and are pretty top drawer on the festival scale if you ask me.

Any small little holiday, event, food and drink, object ext that you could possibly throw a festival for, Budapest has done it. Wine festivals, Sausage festivals (take that literally, its wholesome family fun), Christmas festivals, music festivals, book festivals, you name it.

Although they are thrown for a variety of reasons, there are however a few key characteristics that you can always expect at every Budapest festival:
1) A LOT of really fatty meat and fried food (potatoes and onions in particular)
2) Roma families selling the crazy Gypsy candy that is incredibly delicious and made out of mostly natural ingredients (picture below)

3) Mostly families. Even if the event is alcohol centred and lasting into the wee hours of the night, children are always along.
4) Busking. Lot’s of good music and interesting characters to entertain you.
5) Random activities that have nothing to do with the topic of the festival and that you can’t quite understand (i.e. the motorcycle parade that occurred at the book festival today).

Maybe they can get a little repetitive and how many deep fried potato pancakes can one really eat? Regardless, they are always a great time and when you think about it a festival is basically just a huge public party that everyone is invited to.

"Ballet - no translation needed"

This past weekend Budapest saw nothing but rain, and a friend and I thought this would be a good chance to check out a new movie as we were itching to get out of our flats but not wanting to spend much time outside either. There is no shortage of massive corporate cinemas or quainter independent movie theatres in Budapest, however to find a movie that peeks your interest and that hasn't been dubbed into Hungarian can sometimes be a little challenging. Therefore since we both live quite close to the National Opera House we opted to watch that evening Ballet performance instead and not only was it much more enjoyable than the latest Zac Effron blockbuster, but it was also half the price!

A balcony seat, which only costs about 400 forints, is perhaps not the hottest seat in the house, but a seat nonetheless with a perfect view of the stage. It's not just watching the ballet though that makes the evening such a treat, but it's rather the whole experience of the evening. Almost everyone still goes in formal attire and at the intersession you can go to the lounge and enjoy a glass of wine on the antique red-velvet chairs.

That evening the ballet was "Sylvia" and as usual it was very lovely and entertaining. For this production the choreographer put a modern twist on the classic ballet, using the technique of "play-within-a-play", that not only told the story of Sylvia but that of the dancers at a studio as well. The love story in Sylvia was juxtaposed with a love triangle amongst the dancers making it a refreshing performance - probably much unlike Zac Effron's performance in his latest film that we could have saw instead.

My Summer Home

When I first arrived back in Budapest I was quite anxious to find an apartment and get settled, and as a result I took the first place that I looked at. When I was signing my rental contract I was thinking I should have maybe looked around a little more, but the location, flatmates, size of the room and price were all right making me confident in my choice.

Now that I've been here for a month my slightly run-down neo-classical flat has really grown on me and when I look out my window into the courtyard I can't help but admire the architecture and the way the sun shines into the courtyard garden. I'm sure it was probably far more beautiful at the turn of the century when it was built and before it lived through wars, revolution, and communism, but the fact that those events have tarnished the building slightly is part of what makes me admire it so much, similar to the way in which I admire the city.

I've even become quite fond of the other tenants in the building. I really like the old man who lives in the flat below me,who always has paint on his clothes and says a little "Halo" when I come up the stairwell, and the various old ladies in the flats beside me who make a profession out of gossiping on the terrace. But my favourite is the Roma family that lives on the ground floor, who practically live in the courtyard with their door always wide open. You can always smell what the mother is cooking for her family and the random characters who will be over for dinner each night, which judging by the volume of the conversation, always seems like such a party. It's my goal to get an invite at some point over the summer.

Good Wine And Even Better Ideas

This past Thursday I found a used English bookstore and café just a short walk away from my apartment in a really cozy area of the city, and not only did I find a really great book, but I also stumbled across a flyer for an event called 'Ignite Budapest’ that was happening there that evening. The expat event featured about a dozen individuals from various creative backgrounds, who each had about 5 minutes to give a mini lecture on their topic par excellence. The owner of the bookstore assure me that it was going to be great and the evening turned out to be nothing short of what he promised.

After listening to some really interesting thoughts and ideas, everyone was given the chance to talk to the speakers as the venue opened up its bar, and I took every advantage of this opportunity to pick the brains of my three favourite:

Tibor Kocsis - really cool Central European documentary film director. Right now he's working on a film called "The New Eldorado" about how the Canadian (shame) gold corporation is planning on destroying a huge mountain range in Romania to create one of the biggest gold mines in Europe. Over 5 000 people live in this area of Romania and will be "re-located" if all the plans go through.

Patrick Judson - DJ from New York and I can't even think of how I should describe him. His masters thesis was on DJ culture and postmodernism, and his discussion was all about how electronic music and the space where people collectively dance to it has like a shamanistic power that connects and brings us closer to each other and the technology that actually disconnected us in the first place? ....it was intense.

David Erickson - freelance photographer. His photos were absolutely amazing and in only 5 minutes he shared some of the best advice I've ever heard about how even someone with absolutely no experience can take beautiful pictures.

The Real "Boho Chic"

On the first day of my internship the other two interns and myself were given the grand tour of the museum and its current exhibitions by our one boss Janos, who's the guy who keeps us on track because our real boss is far too busy (he's much more like our big brother who has to keep us on track, fix our mistakes and pretty much take care of us in every sense). Buy anyway, we were shown the exhibition on Mucha called "In Praise of Women", which was obviously great, when our real boss walked in a told us that we were supposed to attend the party to commemorate the exhibition on the coming Saturday. The party/fundraiser was called "Bohemian Ball" and she said that just like the exhibition, it was really going to be a celebration of women.

I really had to idea what to expect out of this event but for some reason I feared the worse. When I think of these types of evenings in Canada that often 'celebrate' or 'honour' women, they are usually so disappointing. Most of them are centered around this campy (Vagina Monologues) and hippie mush, or worse, they're filled with this uptight and conservative career mom (Sarah Palin) discourse that I find as equally unappealing. Aware that I might be tainted by these too common past experiences I reminded myself that after all, this was the "Bohemian Ball", but then I realized that in Eastern Europe this could take a derogatory turn for the worse.

I was however proved wrong on all accounts and the night ended up being quite lovely. There was really great Czech food, a station of hairstylists who were giving the willing women bohemian dos and many people even came in costume! Just like Mucha's own vision, the evening celebrated all the fine and sensual elements of femininity with grace and class. I also couldn't help but note the diverse and inclusive definition of female beauty that was presented during the evening and felt like for once, the "Praise of Women" was finally being sung on the right note.

Beauty and the Beasts

Working in the castle district is one of the best things about my internship this summer. It takes almost 45 minutes for me to walk to work from my apartment, but it's one of my favourite parts of the day because as soon as I cross Chain Bridge and enter Buda, the scenery is so beautiful.

The weather has been perfect almost everyday since I arrived, and the way that the sun was shining onto the narrow cobblestone streets early this morning made me want to just sit on the terraces of all the little cafes instead of going to work.

I managed to escape the indoors at lunch for about 40 minutes, but the neighbourhood had lost much of it's early morning charm as giant tour buses crowded the little streets, pouring out more tourists than I've seen in ages. As I walked down the street I heard a guy in a baseball t-shirt try to barter with this old women selling hand-stitched tablecloths that she was already asking too little for, and when I went to buy a sandwich at a cafe I had to wait behind this woman who kept shouting her request at the barista to have a non-fat cappuccino instead of a regular.

What is wrong with people?! Pay the asking price, and I mean how much fat could one little cappuccino contain? Maybe I'm being a little judgemental, and I know I'm a tourist to this city in many ways as well, but let's get real.

Welcome to Budapest

Just over a week ago I was heading to the city from the Budapest airport after a long international flight from Toronto when a holy **** feeling collapsed upon my shoulders. All of my luggage had made it across the ocean with me, the weather was beautiful, and I was returning to a city that I loved to take part in a dream internship at the National Museum of Fine Arts, but all I could do was think that I had just possibly made the biggest mistake of life.

It’s not like I have never travelled in a foreign country, or lived away from my family, friends and home before, so why was I spending my first day of this exciting adventure cooped up in a phone booth teary-eyed and panicked with my now incredibly concerned parents on the line?

Surprisingly, my undergraduate education helped me answer this question upon reflection in the past days, and I’ve realized that this confused, overwhelmed and somewhat scared disposition came about because I’ve entered a defining liminal state in my life.

According to philosophy’s favourite uncle, Pierre Bourdieu, liminality is “a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed…and ones sense of identity disolves to some extent bringing about disorientation”. Within the past few weeks I’ve graduated from university, started to plan my career, have seen many friends move away from home and now myself have moved (temporarily) half-way across the world. Am I in a liminal state? I think so.

Bourdieu’s buzzword roots in a Latin term that translates into “a threshold”, and he tells us that this transitory time leaves us open to numerous possibilities, leading to new perspectives and discoveries about ourselves and the world around us. So all being said, and now feeling settled and much better about…life, I’m excited about the months to come and the experiences, adventures and unplanned shenanigans I’m in for.