nEUrosis

A guide to Budapest

May 30th, 2007 by Viktor Dimitrov

Budapest, “the pearl on the Danube”, is famous for its great architecture, the bridges, gulyas soup, the royal palace and many other things which make Japanese tourists anxiously reach for their cameras. As an insider here, I offer an alternative view of the specifics of the city. Who knows, you might even find this place interesting.

1. Tourists - there are lots of them, predominantly German, American and Japanese. Their favourite pastime is to spend hours stuck in traffic on a sightseeing bus and to walk around town with a map, completely disoriented and clueless. Their life is made difficult by the multitude of Hungarian coins in circulation; the smallest denomination, given the current exchange rate, is equal to 0.0000001 eurocents. Most of the pubs and cafes have a mission to take advantage of the gullible foreigners (Beckett’s, a mock Irish pub is a prime example of this tendency).

2. Vaci utca - the central pedestrian area of Budapest where women look like the characters in the articles of Laura Citron, our correspondent in Moscow. I have to confess that I was a bit mislead in the beginning - these ladies were so open and friendly to me, despite my obvious physical shortcomings. Then these kind and benevolent ladies turned their attention to a greasy, fat, Greek ship-owner with a thick moustache. This hurt me so much that my only choice to escape was to deepen my passion for alcohol.

3. Football - once Budapest was the venue of great football games, including Hungary’s famous 7:1 thumping of England. Budapest is still mad about football - Champs League, World Cup, England, Italy…but today Hungarian football is the country’s best-kept secret. Even football-stats geeks find it difficult to name the reigning champion or cup holder. It is like an underground movement which goes public only on special occasions - like Vaduz (Lichtenstein) beating Ujpest FC (Budapest) 4:0 in the UEFA cup, or yet another defeat of the national team at mighty Malta.

Overall, Budapest is a fun place to be. Just avoid looking like a silly tourist and don’t take anything for granted, especially when women are friendly to you without any particular reason. Last but not least, don’t ask questions about the big football rivalry between Ferencvaros and Ujpest. Don’t ask why - you don’t need to know.

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