Hey magyar readers! ever wondering how expats see us? So read Amrit's articles, where she tells about her life in Budapest...I left the US in search of surer footing. Budapest may seem an odd choice. By all first impressions, given the unfamiliar language, the lack of my own social network, and the uncertainty of finding employment, it appears more like a place where I’d be unbalanced and flailing. But good things are happening, and I’m beginning to feel at home for the first time in far too long.
The month began with the ebbing of jetlag and my first birthday abroad, marked by a plentiful intake of wine and a night out for dinner with my husband. Nine days later we celebrated Tibor Papi’s 88th birthday with a morning trip to a Hungarian pastry shop, an evening at home sifting through archived black and white photos, and more stories of communism. Daniel’s granddad spent most of his young and middle-aged life in either the throws of war or communist rigidity; at his age, with little else on which to reflect, the memories seem to transport him away from the apartment where he now spends most of his time. He’s not particularly interested in the diversity of culture beyond Europe (shaking his head in distaste at wedding photos of my henna-ed hands), which might have fascinated him once upon a time had he been able to explore. For him, the world revolves around the old days, when getting a bigger, more comfortable bed smuggled across the border from Italy was paramount to an act of treason; when bombs slamming into Budapest regularly interrupted his college classes; when a girl’s long hair was enough of a reason for a soldier to yank it, a reprimand for being too loose and wanton; when parties at friend’s house’s celebrated one man’s success at having procured a bottle of Coke (to be passed around and shared with a group of twenty), a stick of gum (carefully sectioned for illicit chewing pleasure), or even an orange or banana, both of which don’t grow in Hungary. And all this while my young parents were gallivanting the earth, eloping in Thailand, eating bananas plucked from roadside trees, chilled bottles of Coke and a California King bed waiting for them at home, a pack of chewing gum, forgotten and smushed in dad’s coat pocket.
Birthdays aside, this April, Budapest honored 100-year-old houses. My father owns an apartment complex in San Francisco about that old, so I wondered how compelling such an event would be, particularly since many of the buildings in Budapest appear to be at least that old (or older). But I was glad we went. The one we were able to visit felt as though it was imbued with more concentrated history than buildings of the same age in the US. Women donned the garb of the early 1900s and arranged to have piano music drift peacefully down into the building’s center courtyard.
We closed out the month with a day-trip to the Hungarian village of Hollókő, relatively near the Slovakian border in the Cserhát Mountains, for the yearly Easter festival. We sampled a mix of various types of honey, ate local Hungarian food—my favorite the fried dough brushed thickly with garlic olive oil—and watched townsfolk decorate eggs. The town was primarily developed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A significant portion, consisting of 58 houses, a single stone-paved lane, and a small church, has been conserved, and in 1987 the village was included among the UNESCO World Heritage sites.A new month begins tomorrow. Thus far my novel has been progressing with gratifying leaps. I have begun putting my feelers out for teaching English, and have started to hold private lessons at coffee shops and local libraries with Daniel’s friends. It’s a job that is satisfying not only because of the people I have met, but also because I actually enjoy waking up in the morning to do it. And this coming week Daniel and I will prepare his apartment and finally move in. The last nine months of tiring transitions and exciting travels are finally coming to a close.
I’m ready for what May brings.
Thanks for the contribution to Amrit Chima, an American novelist living now in Budapest
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