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Jun. 28th, 2018 06:31 pm
Back in Budapest
The driver comes to pick us up at 8 and takes us to the border. Crossing at the Ukrainian side is fairly simple, but then we have to pass through the Hungarian side, which takes about 2 1/2 hours. The signs say that this is because every car has to be checked for furs and other animal products and for plants, but this doesn’t seem enough to cause such a massive delay. Possibly they’re trying to slow the process down, to keep people from Ukraine out of Hungary. Hungary seems to be trying to build a wall around the entire country.
Back in Budapest we see St. Stephen’s Basilica
and then go to a restaurant in the Jewish Quarter called Ghetto Goulash. The Jewish Quarter, with very few Jews there now, has become strangely hip, and after dinner and coffee we go to a ruin bar -- a house that had nearly fallen apart and then been taken over by people who turned part of it into a bar, and then slowly, as the bar became popular, fixed up more and more of it. It’s the most cyberpunk thing I’ve ever seen, with mannequins, graffiti, old paintings, found objects, and loud music. Some rooms are lit by groups of old lamps, others by chains of blinking lights, and a large part of it, like the ceiling on the second floor, is unfinished and possibly dangerous. A sign at the front reminds you “People used to live here.” You could never do anything like this in the U.S. -- the permits alone would kill you.
Back in Budapest we see St. Stephen’s Basilica
and then go to a restaurant in the Jewish Quarter called Ghetto Goulash. The Jewish Quarter, with very few Jews there now, has become strangely hip, and after dinner and coffee we go to a ruin bar -- a house that had nearly fallen apart and then been taken over by people who turned part of it into a bar, and then slowly, as the bar became popular, fixed up more and more of it. It’s the most cyberpunk thing I’ve ever seen, with mannequins, graffiti, old paintings, found objects, and loud music. Some rooms are lit by groups of old lamps, others by chains of blinking lights, and a large part of it, like the ceiling on the second floor, is unfinished and possibly dangerous. A sign at the front reminds you “People used to live here.” You could never do anything like this in the U.S. -- the permits alone would kill you.