i keep a diary

February 09, 2005

Baltic Vacation Part Eight: Exploring Budapest

Wednesday, February 9th

The next morning, Grant, Jake and I decided to hop on a bus and headed 20km out of town to check out Szobor Park (Statue Park). Rather than destroy all the huge monuments in Budapest that were erected by the then-ruling Soviet Communist Dictatorship, in 1993 Budapest decided to remove them put them in all one giant field miles outside of the city. That way, they could be kept as a reminder of the past without them continuing to mar Budapest's public spaces. You can read more on the Statue Park's web site.
We got there and were immediately overwhelmed by both the size of the monuments and the number of them.
Soviet workers...
...ENJOY RUNNING! These distance shots don't really do all the statues justice. How about we throw some people in front of them for scale?
There you go! Crazy, right?
Lenin lifts the sun!
I can't find the brochure that gives info on what all the pieces are supposed to represent so I'll just leave you to marvel at the pics.
Marvel away!
They also had an East German Trabbi (aka - "Paper Car") on display. The body of this Communist Bloc vehicle are actually made out a mixture of wool and paper that's been coated with resin and painted!
From a web site about the Trabant: "Conceived in the mid-1950s as a people's car, the Trabbi was to have brought practical, affordable transport to the proletarian masses.

In East Germany, they used to joke that it took two people to build a Trabbi: one to fold and one to paste. This cardboard-plastic body was set on a steel chassis and mounted with a two-stroke 497cc engine. Two-strokes were almost universally used in the West as power for scooters like Vespas and Lambrettas.

Noisy and noxious, Trabant engines put out the kind of pollution normally associated with sulphur mines in Upper Silesia.

Top speed was a highly optimistic 66mph and zero to sixty times were measured with the use of a calendar. The exhaust gases were so polluted that it was illegal for West Germans to own a Trabant and when Car and Driver magazine brought one to the US for a test drive in the early 1990s -- the Environmental Protection Agency refused it permission to drive on city streets."
Another wall-relief. This one clearly depicting Hungarians making cars out of wool and glue.
At this particular point in the trip, I wasn't on speaking terms with either Grant or Jake so I spent my time wandering around the park with my headphones on taking Art School 101 photos of the statues like this one.
Lenin.
Lenin shaking hands with a worker?
Here's break-out-of-the-wall man, again.
When are people gonna learn? When you owe the Hutt, you gotta pay the Hutt. Otherwise, you get your ass encased in carbonite! Boo-ya!
Watch out for the giant robot hands behind you!
Gee Soviet Union, bent on world domination much?
So artsy it hurts!
"My hand is on fire!"
After the Statue Park, I went off on my own to check out some bookstores (I had read through all the books I'd brought and was in desperate need on some new books). After I scored a few books, I decided to check out the Museum of Terror which is in the building that formerly served as headquarters for both the Hungarian Nazi Party (The Arrowcross Nazis) and then immediately after, for the Communist-led Political Police. (Hungary had back-to-back occupation by two totalitarian dictatorships!)
I managed to sneak this picture (no cameras were allowing in the museum) of a tank in the lobby, but then my camera died. The museum is pretty heavy - it documents both regimes in Hungary and the basement of the building where thousands of people were interrogated and tortured has been kept pretty much unchanged from when evil stuff was happening there.
After the museum, I took a (much needed) nap and then met up with Jake and Akosh and Akosh gave us all...
...BP t-shirts that he made! (BP for BudaPest). Before heading out for the night, Akosh also provided us with...
...some much needed relief from the residual horrors still kicking around my brain from visiting the Museum of Terror!
After getting thoroughly warmed up, Akosh took us down the street to a neighborhood bar called Vittula to visit a very special guest-bartender...
...this guy!
Jake, Akosh and Grant make their happy, shy, and sexy faces, respectively.
What Brandon lacked in bartending skills ("Hi, poured a beer before? Jesus!")....
...he made up with a willingness to sling free drinks with the quickness.
Holy shit! We're drunk already!
Apparently this is what I look like when I sing along to the jukebox. (Either that, or this was the point in the night where I was blowing the Invisible Hungarian Man).
Lots of drinks can help you...
...make friends with the locals! (Normally, I would've have written these three lovely ladies names down in my little travel journal so that I'd have them as I sit here writing these captions almost 18 months later...but for some reason, by this point in the trip I'd stopped keeping notes!)
Brandon and Adrian get camera happy
While we were there, Grant met a cute girl named Gabi. They got to chatting and when she found out he lived in NYC, she was like "That's great! I'm coming there soon! Maybe we could meet up and hang out...maybe I can even stay with you!" At the mention of the phrase "maybe I could stay with you," Grant turned up the charm ten-fold. (I mean look at that 1,000 watt smile he's got going. Have you ever seen him make that face before?)
Grant was being silly and flirty - doing things like taking cute pictures like this. As the conversation went on, Grant described his apartment to Gabi and assured her that it had amble room for her to stay. To which Gabi inquired "Think there's enough room for two people? I'm meeting up with my boyfriend while I'm there." Suddenly, Grant lost interest. Instead of taking cutsie pictures with Gabi, he suddenly started taking pictures with her...
...like this! Hahahahah. Que the tuba noise. WAH WAH!
Super sketchy Porno Jonathan (likely) lecturing some dude about the best way to coerse a camera-shy teen.
The four of us sauntered up to the bar to have a chat with Brandon and instead became the recipients (victims?) of four shots of a local Hungarian drink called...
...Unicum. Which is pretty much like nothing else I've ever tasted. But if you twisted my arm, I'd say that it tastes like Jaegermeister mixed with a gratuitous handful of moist earth. The experience can probably best be understood by viewing the faces of those that have recently experienced its "unique" flavor:
"Mmmmmm!"
"What a delightful Hungarian surprise!"
"May I have another?"
Even Ferdi winced as he got a whiff of it. (Keep in mind, this is a guy who grew up using a shit shelf platform toilet and is therefore accustomed to smelling his own feces).
Even Brandon, who's been drinking this stuff for years, still ends up looking like McCauley Culkin in Home Alone after belting one down.
He also still requires a mouth rinse.
Out of all of us who partook, it was Jake, who'd been drinking quite heavily, that had the most adverse reaction to Unicum. In fact, he ended up having...
...the most adverse reaction you can have. I was so preoccupied trying to document everyone's reaction to the drink that I totally missed Jake running outside to throw up. A lesser man would've pretended it didn't happen - so big ups to Jake for documenting his own vomit-puddle on the street. Hahaha.
And even bigger ups for coming right back inside and continuing to drink! And then I award him the biggest ups possible for...
...mocking others that didn't have the common sense to throw up before continuing to drink more.
More shots. Blech!
Somewhere around this point in the night, Grant turned down an offer to make out with the girl in the black tank top and instead opted to head back to the Hostel and go to sleep solo. Jake and I bid everyone at Vittula farewell...
...then bid Jake's now-frozen vomit farewell. And decided to wander our drunken way across the city looking for some "super club" that a bunch of locals told us was a fun time.
After several transportation mishaps, we eventually found it. What we didn't end up finding were Hungarian girls willing to dance with us. I'm guessing it had something to do with the Umicum on my breath (or maybe it was the vomit on Jake's). Anyway, we had fun dancing with ourselves and "making party" in the corner until the wee hours of the morning when the club closed down. We made our way back to the apartment, plotting the entire time about different ways we could fuck with sleeping Grant when we arrived.

At this time I'd like to point out that Grant's extremely lucky that at this time Jake didn't know about how Grant had put a booger in Jake's mouth. Otherwise, Grant might have been in for...
...the nastiest booger retribution attack of all time. (Ugh. Eighteen months later and looking at that thing on Jake's finger still makes me retch).
Sure enough, we got back to the hostel and found the Grizz sound asleep in the top bunk. Jake opted for the "ninja bedguest" technique...
...and was promptly reward with a one-two elbow combo to the nose...
...and forehead.
Hahahaha. The only thing funnier than the action shots of Jake getting elbowed in the face...
...are the pics of grumpy Grant looking like an angry hedgehog.
Let me sleep!

Thursday, February 10th

On Thursday morning, (our last day in Budapest!) we got up nice and early and walked all over the place looking for a Hungarian restaurant so we could finally at a hearty Hungarian breakfast! I got super excited when I saw this little orange cartoon meatball/dumpling man (what kind of exotic food could he possibly represent!?), but his restaurant (and every other Hungarian-owned restaurant) was ca-ca-closed! I'll give you one guess where we ended up....
......Mmmmmmmmmmmmm! Breakfast!
I don't want to hear anymore "I can't believe you guys ate at McDonalds!" crap. Seriously, do any of us looked at all psyched to be eating Big Mac's at 8:45am?
On a lighter note, FANNY Magazine! Hahahaha.
After eating, I went off on my own to wander around Budapest exploring. After walking the streets for hours and hours, I eventually decided to head across town and check out the Museum of Transportation!
Planes and Trains, wooooo! But by the time I got over there, they were just closing up!
Camouflage tree bark!
Later that night we all met up at Adrian's apartment so that Grant, Jake and I could take everyone out to a fancy dinner as our way of showing our gratitude to Ferdi and Adrian for putting us up in Berlin and Budapest and to Brandon for hooking the whole thing up and playing gracious host! Everyone wanted to have an tradional Hungarian meal so we ended up at a restaurant called...
...THIS! (Normally I'd type out the name of the restuarant, but I don't know how to make those letters with my keyboard!)
The menu was crazy-extensive (thankfully, they had a few English language menus).
Soup!
Appetizer 1!
Appetizer 2!
Eatin' time!
Here's my main dish. It was some kind of stewed meat with sour cream and Hungarian dumplings!
Someone else's dinner!
Jake's dinner. The food was amazing and the restaurant had a great atmosphere. One that left Jake and I feeling...
jake b, me
...a little romantic.
bromance ˆ gay ˆ jake b ˆ me
Ferdi and his girlfriend. (Sorry I forgot your name! Brandon, a lil' help?)
For any of you out there that think I might be exaggerating about Umicum's unique flavor, I'd like to point out that the advertisements for Umicum feature a drowning man WITH A MELTING FACE! Believe me now?
After dinner we all decided to head to a fun, divey bar that was located underground in a subway station callled...
...Cha-Cha-Cha!
Cha-cha-cha got both Jake and I feeling...
...amorous. Eventually, it grew to be too much and Jake had to...
...attack Grant. Hahah.
The bar was pretty mellow. We danced for a bit, but then pretty much ended up in the corner taking pictures of ourselves making stupide faces.
And smoking.
Then back to making stupid faces.
Yep, that was about it.
A few drinks later, Brandon, Grant, Jake and myself bid the group farewell, and set out to check a destination that Jake promised FHM he'd write about: A Hungarian Strip Club! Woooooo!
The Hungarian Strip club was a huge disappointment. The place was empty, scary and sketchy - and to top it all off, the girls weren't all that cute. The night seemed like it had been pretty much ruined, until magic-man Jake Bronstein upped the ante by telling us all that he'd decided he was going to buy a "shower" dance. The twist? Rather than getting a dance from the stripper, he told that girl that "I want to dance FOR YOU in the shower."
I risked life and limb (literally!) to bring you these sneaky no-flash cam shots of Jake getting flayed and scalded with hot water by a vindictive Hungarian stripper. If you look carefully you can see that he's screaming. Hahaha.
Underwear in the shower? You know what that means!
Soggy undies on the street!
The plan was to wring enough water out of them so they'd be wearable. But it was so cold out that it seemed unlikely they'd be comfortable and so the undies...
...were left in the street. It's Jake's way of saying "Hi, Hungary! I was here!"
Back in Brandon's neighborhood, we decided to say it was only appropriate to say goodbye the same way we'd gotten to know each other a few days earlier in Berlin....Over a Doner Kebab!
Mmmmmm....fixins!
Donertastic!
We got together for one more group shot! Thanks again for everything, Brandon! We had an amazing time. Now how about you give us one more attempt at a DLR kick before we fly back to Estonia in the morning?
Perfect, thanks Brandon!