Life Abroad: Week Ten

Sister, Sister

Casey and I traveled to Vienna and Budapest this week. The cities were a great duo because they were perfectly contrasting: Vienna is the smug older sister of hipster, grungy Budapest.

In Vienna, we walked the most I ever have in a day since coming to Europe (33,000 steps) but we also ate delicious food and pastries (schnitzel, spaetzel, apfelstrudel, sachertorte, Viennese coffee) so it was a healthy balance. The city was pretty silent despite it being a tourist destination, and really the only time I felt like a tourist was when the dressup Beethoven figures approached us on the street. Vienna is known as the birthplace of classical music as legends such as Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and and Strauss composed here. This was particularly exciting given my classical music background, but unfortuntately there were no classical concerts going on during the two days I was there. However, we went to the Opera House to see Salome, an opera derived from a very brief Biblical mention. It was nice because they had screens with English translations of the opera, so we were able to actually understand what we were hearing. We were fortunate because we bought the cheapest seats (14 euros, which meant they had limited visibility of the stage) but the couple sitting in front of us left early and gave us their seats.

This was the first time I’ve heard live classical music since COVID (the Trans Syberian Orchestra does not count). I presume my time away from it was a healthy distance, because I felt so in awe of the performance and the music. In times like these I’m most grateful for learning violin and understanding the intricacies that come with playing in a philharmonic orchestra. The energy of the musicians was palpable and the acoustics of the opera house only magnified the sound. Classical music is really so interesting, and it’s a shame that people classify it as boring. But, this is also how people feel about opera, or bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance), or really anything classical unless they have a solid understanding of what to look for. The opera singers were also fantastic, but I’m also not one that can differentiate between an average and great opera singer.

Overall, Vienna was a city of good art/music but not somewhere I’d want to spend more time in. I was able to see The Kiss, a painting by Gustav Klimt that I had a print of from Amazon in my room last year. We visited the National Library which is the most gorgeous library I’ve ever seen. But otherwise, I left the city feeling ready for more life, more roughness around the edges. According to our friend Nik (the one from the Lisbon Hostel who lives in Vienna), everyone feels that way about Vienna unless you go to the right spots. We weren’t able to meet up with him due to timing, but maybe my perspective would have changed if otherwise.

We took a train to Budapest which was ~3 hours long and Casey and I shared a train compartment which looked EXACTLY like the one in Harry Potter. Upon leaving the train the difference in cities was immediately apparent. Budapest is a city that everyone raves about so I was really looking forward to visiting. We got into our hostel really late on Thursday night and woke up Friday, ready to see the city. In the morning we had a tour of Parliament, an ornate and gorgeous government building. Casey and I accidentally signed up for different ones so I was in a tour with a group of Belgian high schoolers. We also visited the House of Terror museum which was moving and eye-opening. This museum had information about how Hungary was brutally affected when occupied by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which is something we never learned about in high school. Something interesting I learned: Kulaks were wealthy peasants and farmers that owned a certain minimum amount of land. Under Soviet occupation, kulaks were forced to give up their small, privately owned land in order to collectivize farming. The slogan was “Every Kulak is guilty of something” and they were demanded to paid higher taxes; the conditions they were under made it difficult to keep out of jail without losing their land. 1/3 of Hungarians today were affected by the House of Terror, the building where Hungarians were tortured and killed. Hungary has only been free from communism since 1991.

That night we went to Szimpla Kert, a ruin bar with our friend Hani from our hostel. Hani graduated from Rutgers in December and is solo-traveling around Europe this semester while her friends complete their senior year. She’s going to Drexel for grad school to become a physician’s assistant in the fall. A fun fact: she went to the same high school in New Jersey as Casey’s mom. Another fun fact: she has the same energy as Charanya, so it was a nice welcomed visit from a soul I miss dearly who is still in AA. So, ruin bars have a unique history: found in the Jewish quarter of Budapest, the buildings were abandoned and dilapidated following the deportation of Jews after World War 2, resulting in cheap rent. In the early 2000s, someone took a gamble and purchased the building of Szimpla Kert, a space meant for young creatives in Budapest. Now, ruin bars are a staple when visiting the Pest side of the city; it’s voted one of the best bars in the world. The bar is a labriynth of disco balls, plants, and colorful lights. It’s fun to explore the eclectic mismatch of each area: a bathtub, walls of graffiti, crumbling plaster, lampshades of all sizes. We went there twice and discovered an open-air area we had no idea existed on our second night. I discovered that I love the way people dance in Hungary (probably similar in other parts of Eastern Europe) because it didn’t feel like anyone was trying to look seductive or cool, they were just dancing. By themselves, or with friends, but just grooving and moving their body however they felt. Everyone looked like they were having fun and it was infectious.

We stood in line for an hour the next morning for brunch at Cirkusz, a top 25 brunch spot in the world that happened to be right by our hostel. I devoured Eggs Benedict and Casey got chocolate and fruit waffles. Then, we went to the Schenzyi baths which was slightly overrated because the pools weren’t as warm as we expected. We ended our visit to the baths in a sauna with three Italian guys where a Russian man entered and told us “my Grandmother is from Ukraine and I am from Russia but I have love for you all wherever you are from”. We walked across the bridge to the Buda side and looked across the river at Pest from Fisherman’s Bastion and the Buda castle, ending our day eating a hearty chicken paprikash and goulash that warmed our toes.

We talked with some of the volunteers running our hostel the morning we were leaving. There was a girl who had been volunteering at the hostel for almost 3 months from Slovenia. She came to Budapest because she needed a break from online school; she’s in her 3rd year studying Law. After staying a couple weeks, she ended up falling in love with both the city and a boy, and she’s been here ever since. We saw her as we were leaving for the airport. She was dressed up in tights and a wool dress, giddy with excitement: “I’m going on a date this afternoon, we’re going shopping at IKEA for some apartment decor”.

In Budapest, there were so many tourists- I heard more English than Hungarian throughout the weekend. It seems as if people come to Budapest for 1) a fun boozey holiday (there were so many bachelor/bachelorette/birthday groups I saw) or 2) a short trip to see the city, but end up staying for longer because they like it so much. Indeed, I wish I could’ve stayed longer because there was so much more to explore.

In general, because of all this traveling and non-stop movement, I feel a lot of gunk in my brain. My downtime is spent reading (good), blogging (good), scrolling on my phone (bad), and scraping by with barebone sleep (bad). Despite not having many obligations, my head feels swarmed with flies and I need to clear it up. I'm not entirely sure why this is- overstimulation from traveling, no proper rest, antsy from not having much work. Now that going home is more in sight (only 6 more weeks), I can’t seem to get the notion of it out of my head. What I really need is to breathe, delete social media, and meditate. And stop getting overstimulated from my stupid phone! Because otherwise, I fear that I may not truly enjoy these last couple of weeks. Also, you would think that because I’ve traveled so much recently, I would feel more creatively inspired in my writing. This is the opposite of true; honestly, I had to force myself to write this post and am not thrilled about it. There’s only so much your brain can process and take, and I think I’m reaching my limit right now. I am developing dark circles and I’m not pleased about it. My tea consumption has been through the roof recently…. I think it’s time for rest.

Thanks for reading and happy living (live my share too, while I rest).

With love,

Rachel