Pestilog

Dél-Budaval, and Underwater Gypsies

We went into the Buda hills today: Me, Stephen and Marko.


The whole anthro department was supposed to go, but the trip got postponed till next weekend. We discovered this when I called Agí to confirm directions. We had already left the house and it was a beautiful sunny day, so we went anyway.
We took the tram on the körút around to Moskva Tér, and then from there took another bus to the fogaskerekű vasút, or cog wheel train which went up a valley on the north end of the buda hills. There were tons of kids on mountain bikes waiting to go up the fogaslerekű, and even one moutain unicycler...the first I have seen since I left Oregon. I was hoping that the kids wre going to bomb down the hill (and there is even a zoo up there! Budapest zoo bomb!) but the vast series of trails at the top were hardly a disappointment.


The train pulled up a hill with a slope of about 15% in the residential XIIth district for quite a ways, and dropped us off at the top of Széchenyi Hegy (Setsenyi Hill). There was a woman making old fashioned cotton candy out front. She had a huge bowl in front of her and she was pouring in sugar straight from the grocery store, making gobs and gobs of this sticky white goodness. We paid 300,HUF for a huge bundle the size of a pony keg.

From there, we walked along a small road, past all the gorgeous restaurants and shops in buda, to Gyermekvasút (Children's Railway). This place was crazy.

Its a rail way that is run and operated entirely by children under 14. The kids who worked the cash desk, the conrollers, conductors, even the kid who stamped our ticket, all looked about 10.
It was like being in children of the corn, except they were excited about trains instead of killing Linda Hamilton. Also, it is entirely unclear where they get the kids to do this job. Are they from a school program? Some sort of tourist industries magnet? Is this volunteer? Compulsory? No one knows...


Ok, so maybe I'm over doing it. But it was totally weird, none the less. We took this train to the top of the hill, and were supposed to take a chair lift (did I mention that Budapest has a ski resort? hehe. yea) down the east side of the hills to see the city, but we got there late and were distracted by a huge frikin castle on the next hill over.


So, we read the sign out front. Our hungarian is getting better, so we were able to determine that Hungary's Queen Elizabeth (Erzsébet Királynő) was coronated here in, I believe, 1867. We hiked up this big hill, and climbed up to the top to get this awesome view of the whole city. It was not a clear day, and we could not see forever, but parliament was visible from where we were. You can kind of see the Danube behind Stephen, though the haze.


After we came back, we scarfed some dinner, and I headed out to meet Brigette, Asa, Gergő, Mariya, Stephan, Luc, and Drago at the Gödör Klub in Erzsébet Tér for the TransitFestival, a but international music event hosted by a slew of NGOs that were raising awareness for several causes in the area. The Gödör Klub is underground in one of the main squares downtown. Its a really gorgeous entrance, with these massive marble steps and fountains leading down to the glass doors. on the roof is a pond, that actually sits about a foot deep at ground level, but it is lined with panes of class, so from the dance floor, you can look up and see the water rippling over head. It's pretty fantastic. There are some really neat pictures on their website.

While there, we saw some fabulous music, including a Hungarian Roma band called Parno Graszt.

Even though I have the worst cold ever known in the history of ever, no one if the club, including me, could stop jumping up and down like mad for these guys. Click here to listen to a short mp3 on the band's website. They rule.

Labels: Budapest, clubs and bars, Marko, music, photography, procrastiation, Stephen

posted by Veruka2 @ 12:37 PM