I arrived home to Budapest after my trip to Spain and Portugal not feeling amazing.
Spending almost two weeks straight with a loved-one and then POOF they’re gone + a chest infection that prevents much activity and the medicine you take for it is strange and you wake up in the middle of the night feeling like your tongue is swelling up and that you will just die there all alone in your bed in a foreign city and no one would suspect for weeks = feelings of isolation
This is a different experience for me here. As an adult, I mostly, usually, have moved places where I am entering into some kind of established community (eg. university department or internship opportunities).
But here it is different. I arrived in this city with three suitcases and was picked up by a random driver to drive me to my random airbnb apartment and have expected myself to find myself some sort of community somehow so that maybe I can stay here forever.
After a few days of hacking up lung butter, steaming sinuses out, and feeling like the blood vessels in my brain were on the verge of bursting, the coughing began to clear up and I felt I needed desperately to be “in the world”. So I started strategising ways to get out there and meet some more folks (without using tinder). And somehow just by putting the intention out into the universe to be less isolated has done wonders within just a couple weeks. It’s…… THE SECRET! 😉
Anyways, also to really bolster my fresh, and more positive state of mind, this past week I had a visitor from Calgary, my friend Lisa who I met in Brazil at a conference this past year.
How wonderful to carefully think through all the kinds of things you can show someone, and simultaneously explore for the first time, in a super cool Euro city that is now my home (yeah I’m biased and I may not be singing this tune once summer hits and there is no ocean nearby…dammit Vancouver you set the bar high! #vangroovy#ruined4life).
After Lisa’s arrival celebration-lunch at my apartment, we walked to Hero’s Square, the site of some of the finest statues of Carpathian Basin barbarian kings:
Followed by a saunter down Andrássy út for a quick coffee at one of my favourite olden-timey day cafes, the Alexandra:
Finally, we finished off her first day with a long soak at Lukacs thermal bath, recently introduced to me by a Hungarian and it is quickly becoming my new fave regular bath joint.
The next day, after Lisa roamed free through the Hungarian parliament, we walked to the St Stephen’s Basilica x-mas market for a quick Gluhwein:
And after stopping for some Gulyas we headed up the hill on the Buda side to the Royal Palace in the funicular:
This particular day was by far the coldest day I have experienced not only in Budapest but even compared to my last few years in Vancouver. It was AT LEAST minus six degrees with an ice fog chill…legit winter.
We strolled around the Royal Palace, which is now a bunch of different museums, and the streets surrounding the palace, which house Saint Matthew’s church and the Fisherman’s Bastion:
It was great for me to finally explore the Royal Palace and surrounding area because the last time I tried was when my friend Sarah was here from Edmonton and our visit to this site was cut short by a bad breakfast sausage.
And finally, down the hill, and back home in time to change into our fancy clothes for the symphony at the Liszt Academy of Music:
After a quick stop at yet another x-mas market, we went home to rest up for a relaxing next day at the National Museum and homemade Gulyas and Gluhwein. Sightseeing is hard work people!
On Lisa’s second last day here, we awoke before sunrise and walked across the Freedom Bridge to the Buda side of the city to climb Gellert Hill. This Hill contains the Hungarian version of the Statue of Liberty as well as wonderful 360 degree views of the city:
We then made our way down to the Gellert Hotel, nestled in beside Gellert Hill, for an early, quiet Saturday morning soak in the famous Gellert Baths:
For the afternoon we hopped one of the Suburban rail lines to the quaint village of Szentendre, located on the banks of the Danube, proudly boasting not only a rad little x-mas market but also a high number of churches per capita:
We had planned to come back to Budapest and seek out some night life in a ruin pub except we realised we would both just be faking our energy level and youthfulness and instead drank tea at home and retired for the night. I believe I am entering a new phase of my life: the phase where not only do you KNOW that two to three pints of beer at night will send your next day into a dizzying lethargic spiral of netflix bingeing and pizza eating, forsaking all other responsibilities, but you also choose to ACT upon that knowledge…that sad, sad, sad knowledge that you’re just plain on the road to bodily degradation and death…. and so instead you spend the evening sipping chamomile tea, writing a blog about how exciting your life is, flossing, and getting a solid 7.5 hours of shut eye.
For Lisa’s final night, we checked out the ice rink at City Park for an overpriced glide beside the castle in our stylish overpriced rental skates:
After a lovely time with my friend here in Budapest…POOF! Gone again! But exploring my own new city had really taken it out of me and I was left recovering for the day yesterday (going from 15,000-20,000 steps per day when Lisa was here, according to my pedometer app, to 27 steps the day Lisa left).
((PS. Thank you to my pal Harmony for introducing me to the wonderful world of pedometer apps last month that has led to the creation of a new purpose in my life)).
Today was a fresh back-to-work day…and tomorrow I will hunker down to await the arrival of my next visitors from Vancouver on Thursday.
Isolation-shmysolation. Pfffft. A brief phase of discomfort. Just waves passing through the eternal ocean of consciousness, or something like that.
