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.