Cruisin' for Critical Mass!

Today I took to the streets of Budapest with my new yellow cruiser bike and rode in Critical Mass. This biannual event is a demonstration that raises awareness about the benefits of biking, alternative transportation and asserts bikers' right to share the road. It started in San Francisco in 1992, and now the event is held all over the world. Clearly I am not the only person who thinks making this city more biker-friendly is a good idea - there were thousands upon thousands of people who came. The numbers aren't in for this year, but last spring there were 80,000 riders! The route we took looped us all around the beautiful monuments of Budapest and ended at City Park. After everyone arrives, all the participants victoriously raise their bikes above their heads, as pictured above.


My cycling mate, Máté, raising his bike high.


Cruisin' over the Elizabeth bridge. And while the photo may look like I am going the wrong direction, I was already on my way back on the loop and miraculously found a little space.


Just a small fraction of the crowd waiting to take off.


Mike and I at the start of the event.

Easter Adventures

Happy Easter Monday! Today is a holiday that the Hungarians take very seriously. The city shuts down its consumer venues while local men spritz women with perfume and/or water, and the women in return give men Palinka or painted eggs (as I explained in my previous blog). My friend Mate was very sweet and gentlemanly, and he recited a poem for me and sprinkled me with perfume. Mike, on the other hand, went the hooligan route and doused me with a cup of water instead – but I should expect this mischievous behavior from him by now. I am not entirely sure what Easter Monday commemorates since Easter Sunday is enough for American Christians, but I am not complaining about an extra holiday. Fortunately, since we live in an intersection of the Jewish District and the tourist district of Hungary, there are still some stores and shops open, including the Jewish coffee shop where I am currently writing this blog.

Although I missed my family, I did have a lovely holiday. On Good Friday, I visited my neighborhood church, called the Teréz Church, which chimes bells each hour. It was about time I went inside to pray, and even though I can’t understand the Hungarian mass, I find the ritualistic nature of many religions, especially Catholicism, comforting because regardless of what language the service is in, I can still connect to it. On Saturday, I tapped into my domestic side, and I baked homemade cookies and two quiches for the Easter brunch we were hosting. Normally I could make these dishes fairly easily with the help of American grocery stores, but since Hungarian shops don’t sell already made pie crusts or cookie dough, I made it all from scratch using our diminutive oven. The labor intensive meals were worth it though, as we had a lovely brunch and Michael got to eat meat again, which he gives up each year for Lent. Six of our friends – including two Americans, our Cypriote roommate, a Swede and a Hungarian – all came to our apartment and we feasted on scores of deviled eggs – the traditional American kind and the Swedish kind which has salmon or anchovies in it - Greek salad, lasagna, langos (a Hungarian bread) and my quiche. I was amused that the blend of cultures at our dinner table was reflected perfectly by what was served on our table. After eating, we spent the afternoon playing Frisbee on Margaret Island and soaking up the divine sunshine.

Here are some of our delectable dishes:

Starting from the back left corner, this is Tom from New Jersey, me, Aubrey from Boston, Ioannis from Cyprus, and Balasz from Budapest.


In another entertaining gathering this weekend, our friend Zsofia invited us over to her flat to meet her family and some of her friends. Zsofia is Hungarian, but her father’s job is to promote tourism to Hungary in Nordic countries, so he and his wife live in Sweden and that is where Zsofia grew up and where her friends were from (this also meant that at the gathering we were the only people who didn’t speak Hungarian, Swedish and English). I was incredibly happy to learn that our friend’s father is working to make Hungary more tourist friendly by fighting the Hungarian transportation controllers and the thermal bath employees. Encounters with these two groups of workers - who never became more efficient or friendlier after Communism – are some of the most stressful, unpleasant situations visitors can face. I hope they are slowly weeded out.

This weekend Michael and I had high hopes of renting bicycles to use for the summer, but the shop didn’t have them ready. We should get some this week, just in time for Critical Mass next Sunday, which is an enormous bike ride where people come together to promote alternative modes of transportation and celebrate Earth Day. Last year Michael rode in the sea of bicycles along with 80,000 other people! For the rest of the week, I’ll be writing away, apartment hunting and fighting the ants that have taken over our apartment. I have gotten bit no less than 20 times this week, so I have a vendetta against the “little animals” as our French roommate used to call them.

City Mice

As the temperature rises, so does my appreciation of Budapest. Springtime marks the advent of festival season - starting with the spring festival, a Fringe Festival this weekend, and an ongoing film festival. At a press conference I attended last week I learned that there are nearly 3,000 annual festivals in Hungary. (Mike's response to this gem of a statistic was - It's a wonder how they get anything done here . . .) I've taken advantage of the Titanic Film Festival, which brings a rich selection of international films to the Magyar silver screen. On Saturday I went with friends to a horrifically scarring, dark Korean thriller, but luckily the Chinese documentary I saw last night about the Yangtze river was more redemptive.

I'm trying to be outside as much as I can. I dismissed my yuppie Gold's Gym a couple days this week and ran instead on Margaret island - a small island between Pest and Buda with a circumference that creates a perfect 5km running track. Also, I just love enjoying our cultural neighborhood in Pest's VI district. We live right near "the Broadway of Budapest," so we border the theater district and opera house, and our actual block is the design headquarters of Budapest with many beautiful furniture stores and interior decorating shops, as well as museums and galleries. When I round the corner from our flat, walking towards the renaissance-style Hungarian State Opera House, I pass a tango school where I can watch the dancers through the illuminated window and hear the music that leaks into the street. Or walking in the other direction, I head towards the Liszt Ferenc music school, which always has loitering students juggling huge instruments and dressed up concert-goers flocking to the school's theater. So, even though things aren't always easy here, like when the men's choir that practices on the floor above my flat sings until the wee hours of the morning, I have to remember how exceptional my life is here, and that I may never get the opportunity to live in such a vibrant and artistic place again. Now if I could just get Michael out of the office more often, he would love it more too: )

In other news, our roommate Ioannis is moving back to Cyprus at the end of the month, which means we either need to find a new roommate or move. We may have some prospects in sight, which sound much more appealing than moving. We have a great Irish landlord here, and I'd hate to have a non-English speaker again.

Here are some fun Hungarian facts I have learned this week:
- Bangs are called "fru-fru" as my hairdresser told me. In Britan, they are called Fringe - so the Budapest Fringe Festival has a fru-fru stage.
- Easter is almost here, and the Hungarians celebrate Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. On this day, men spritz women with perfume, and they give the men a shot of palinka in return. In older times, men would throw buckets of water over women's heads, so I'm glad we've modernized.