The Hungary Family Plan

When I asked my mother what she most wanted to see while she was in eastern Europe, she said "Budapest!" So I booked a weekend for the family in Hungary's capital.

family on the hill

As witnessed in this blog, I've been to Budapest several times before. I love the city - there's just something about it that really appeals to me! I was happy to share the experience with my family, though it was trying at times to get through, since none of us knows Hungarian.

Mom's favorite quotable moment was on the bus. We were trying to find the guest house apartment I had booked for us, and accidentally took the right bus the wrong way. In an unfamiliar part of town, we are speaking English (loudly) and attempting not to start a fight on the bus (at least I am) when my mom asks a middle-aged man how to get from where we are to the apartment.

"You are English?" he asks.
"No, American."
"Oh. America is very big country."
"Yes," agrees Mom.
"You like Budapest?"
"Very much so far."
"Budapest is nice city."
"The weather is nice."
"You like Budapest. Budapest is nice city."
"Yes."
"Budapest is nice city. You like?"

At that point, it was apparent to me the man had exhausted his English vocabulary. However, he was light years friendlier than anyone my parents had met in Austria! It was charming of him to try, in any case.

We made it to the apartment all right and in one piece. Our delightful host Tibor mentioned this-and-that monument, restaurant, museum, pub. The apartment was adorable and spotless, and these greeted us from across the street:

famous Hungarians?

 After we settled in, we wandered around to the banks of the Danube, across the bridge from Pest to Buda, and  walked through the park, up the Buda Hills to the Liberty monument and back down. Some pictures from that excursion:

For dinner, we went to this restaurant that played "Gypsy music." I had always wanted to go to one of those shows, and convinced the family to do it. Unfortunately, as Dad put it, "They put the 'gyp' in Gypsy," charging a ridiculously high "cover charge" to hear the musicians and tasted the "complimentary" wine that turned out to complement very little. Thus is the woe of the naive traveler!

The next day, we went to the baths - the Szechenyi spa - and had a lovely time lounging around, though the weather was in the 70s, and a bit cooler than what we could have hoped for for the outdoor pool.

On the way home, we saw a hubbub in the park - it was a wine festival! I just had to see what was up! We bought glasses of different kind of wines to taste. The festival seemed like an annual thing. Mom and I enjoyed it, but Dad and Sam are just not wine drinkers! Perhaps I will have the chance to do it again...

We also went to St. Stephen's cathedral, the Fisherman's Bastion, and other Budapest sights. There were two weddings taking place at the Fisherman's Bastion (it is wedding season, after all!) but we did not take pictures. In my opinion, it's a little (or a lot) weird to take a picture of a stranger's wedding.



On the way home, we ran into a school group of graduating high school seniors on their way to one of their teacher's houses to say goodbye and wish her well in song. It is a tradition called "serenade" in Hungary (I heard the explanation eavesdropping on a couple sitting at an outdoor cafe) and the graduating class goes to every teacher's house the day before their ceremony. Their voices were beautiful, lifting through the trees: poetic, romantic, tragic; soothing and lyrical, yet sad.

It made me wonder what teaching in Hungary would be like - better or worse than in Austria? How different? How similar? Would my lack of Hungarian pose a problem? One semester of the language (as a student in Berlin) has allowed me to introduce myself, list off the colors, and get into trouble with men named Attlia. (That's a story I will not share on the internet)...

Although I have friends who have braved teaching in a foreign culture without first learning the language, I am not so brave. I'd rather stick to living in a country where I can at least converse in the language before I agree to move there. Perhaps this is unremarkable, but I always know I can discipline the kids myself if they get bad enough (and they'll know exactly what I mean).

I think everybody enjoyed themselves, but with Sam and Dad, it's sort of hard to tell sometimes. The weather's been nice, and no one has been complaining outright and constantly, all very good signs! I joke, but only slightly...

parliament building 

chain bridge

The next leg of our journey is to Prague. More on that later!

Wonder Years Never Cease...

Vienna is full of American ex-pats, and they all seem to love it here. The city has been a melting pot for generations, and there is more diversity in this city than any other central European capital, I'd wager - even Berlin. This is good and bad.

There are several wonderful influences from the eastern European cultures and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Palatschinken is one - despite its name, the dish is vegetarian friendly (they're basically pancakes. The name is derived from Latin): 

Palatschinken

Other culinary delicacies, not unique to the Wiener Küche, have come to symbolize Austria - grace à empirical conquest (Schnitzel, for example, has Venetian origins) - and for those who insist all things Austrian are indeed Austrian, I suggest taking a look at contemporary Austria's charming yet less well-to-do neighbors. They most certainly would have a different story to tell.

Herein lies the problem: though Austria has been a melting pot since Habsburg times, it seems that, after a generation or two, no Serbian or Slovakian wishes to remember they had ever been anything other than Austrian. This reinforces the unfortunate aspects of of a closed society that still permeate the Austrian mentality: Austrian, good; Other, bad. This is oversimplification for effect, but I don't seen anything wrong with that.

The coolest thing about Austria is not its culture, which is not all that unique when considering the German-speaking world as a whole, but its topography and climate: the Alps. It's a well-known criticism that mountain people are a little kooky, with the reputation of being hicks, but, still, lovable - how else can you explain my 15-year-old students' love for John Denver? (Outside of Vienna, what part of Austria isn't  "Country Roads"?)

This brings me to an Austro-American comparison: we North Americans, too, have a melting pot - many would say the USA is the original melting pot...I don't know about that. (May I, for instance, bring up Ancient Rome?) We, too, seem to promote integration or segregation  - or did, up until the 1960s and the Civil Rights movements. 

In many ways, the United States lives in a fantasy world of past glories and triumphs, i.e. the end of World War II, the 1950s, when we helped Europe rebuild, we gained the reputation of being the world's policemen, and America was - in one way or another - the greatest country on Earth. Despite blatant evidence to the contrary, I'm afraid plenty of Americans still feel this way.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like it's a lot of hype over nothing to remember the glory days of yore. I would rather live in the present. What's past is past, and now more than ever, the world is changing at a fantastically rapid pace, practically from day to day. For the sake of each nation's collective psychic well-being, I hope my host country and home country both come to their senses, and stop playing the "Remember When?" game, like a couple of nursing home dandies.

Famous Austrians XII: Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke was born in Prague in 1875 (while it was still part of Austria-Hungary) and grew up there with an unsuccessful father and a terribly unhappy mother who, mourning the death of Rilke's baby sister, dressed him in girl's clothing as a child, the start of his depressive, repressive and Freudian outlook on life.

In fact, in 1897, he met and fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salome, who had studied psychoanalysis with Freud, and the two of them shared an intellectual bond and traveled together extensively, most importantly to Russia in 1899, where Rilke met Leo Tolstoy. Unfortunately, Lou was already married, so Rilke had to settle for Clara Westhoff, a sculptor he met on an artist's retreat in 1900.

In 1902, he moved to Paris to work with Rodin, and ended up meeting Cezanne, continuing to work with both artists. He was quite prolific in Paris, writing in French as well as German, and stayed there until 1910 when he decided to travel again, to Spain, Trieste, and then to Germany. in 1914, World War I broke out and Rilke was stuck. He lived in Munich until he was called up in 1916 and attended basic training in Vienna. He used his connections in high places to skip out later that year.

Rilke moved to Switzerland in 1919 and finished his lyrical poems. He fell ill in 1923, and was diagnosed with leukemia shortly before his death in 1926. For some reason, roses and mythology have often played large parts in Rilke's work.

Here (in German) and here (in English) you can read the Dunio Elegien, one of his most famous works.

On to Italy: Trieste

After Ljubljana, we took the bus to Trieste (you can only get there by bus from Slovenia) to see more of the Adriatic coast. Interestingly, it was also in some ways a history lesson, considering Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg empire, having been "collected" in 1382 by Leopold III.

Though once part of ancient Illyria, and more Slavic than Italian (the city was only annexed in 1918), Trieste is today a part of Italy for mostly political rather than cultural reasons. An important port during the Renaissance and the crossroads between Venice and Vienna, Trieste became Maria Theresia's favorite way to keep the Slovenians and Croatians under her thumb, by promising trade and wealth and baroque buildings painted yellow. French troops occupied the city during the Napoleonic Wars, though the city retained relative autonomy because for some reason (unlike the other large Habsburg cities) German-speaking Austrians could not be persuaded to move there. For example: only 5% of the population in Trieste spoke German at its peak (most spoke Slovenian) compared to 51% in Prague, and roughly 60% in Budapest.

I just finished a history of the Habsburgs borrowed from the library - can you tell?

Here are several photos of Piazza Unita d'Italia:

Anyway, on to the present, with just another dip into the past! Since ancient Illyria was invaded by the Romans, there are plenty of delightful ruins left by Cesarean occupants, like this lovely amphitheater:

And the most delightful experience: around the amphitheater there are lots of stray cats (as pictured below) and a little boy with his grandparents came up to the railing and started saying, "Meow!" He reached out to pet one of the cats, when his grandmother said, "Non toccare il gato!" (Don't pet the cat). The cat ran away and the the little boy waved, saying, "Ciao, meow!"

And, of course, there is a castello in Trieste. We went and took pictures. There was also a museum, which houses Roman artifacts, but none of my pictures really turned out.

Another Roman arch

We also took a trip out to Miramare, built in 1856, which was the summer home of Archduke Maximillian (brother of Franz Josef) - the one who inherited the title Emperor of Mexico from the Spanish side of the Habsburgs, and upon arrival in Mexico was executed. It's not easy being emperor of a country you've got no emotional ties to...

We took a tour of the castle, and the gardens, and had a picnic. The weather held for most of the day, and we were rained out at night, when we had to duck into a bar to get out of a downpour. Yes, unfortunately, it was not the Italian weather most of us anticipate, but it is April. And you know what they say about April showers...!

a break in the gardens

All in all, Trieste was a bit of a disappointment after Ljubljana, mostly because it rained more, but also because the vibes of the two cities are so incredibly different. To me, Trieste seemed very static, stuck in the past, a sort of shy younger sister to Venice, whereas Ljubljana had a much younger, more resourceful and less staid atmosphere. Even as an outsider who had never before been, I could tell: things are changing in the former Yugoslavia. Tourists? Stability? A capitalist economy? It's on the verge of something.

On the Last Legs of Austria-Hungary: Ljubljana

For my Easter break, I ended up going to two cities that once compromised the southern edges of Austria-Hungary: Ljubljana and Trieste.

I was highly impressed by Ljubljana. Slovenia's landscape is a lot like Austria's, with sloping hills rolling into mountains, green fields, and the like. The climate is much like Italy, and the architecture is of the same Habsburgerish Vienna/Budapest/Prague feel in some spots, with other influences mixed in.

 The city (I'll be honest, there really is only one city in Slovenia) is incredibly clean - definitely cleaner than Vienna - due to a concentrated effort by the government to encourage and improve access to recycling and proper sanitation.

The river of Ljubljana cuts through the city. The area where we stayed was in the student district, which gave me a distinct nostalgia for my Lawrence days...though this area's definitely cooler than College Ave. We also took a tip from the guidebook and went to the old Austrian military barracks, which have been since turned into bars and artist communes for people who cannot otherwise afford rent. Very alternative - and pretty damn cool.

Ljubljana Castle is one of the more famous sites the city has to offer:

Either as adopted patronage from St. George or some earlier myth or legend of the Slovenian people, there are TONS of dragons all around the city. The castle has dragon emblems all over the place, and they sell dragon key chains, dragon gummy candies and dragon key chains in the gift shop. One of the most famous dragons is the dragon bridge, which is done in the Jugendstil (art nouveau) style. Ljubljana is also famous of being the smallest city with the largest amount of Jugenstil architecture (move over, Vienna!) in the former Austria-Hungary.

dragon step

dragon bridge

We went to the Serbian Orthodox church as well - problem was, it was Holy Monday, so everyone was in there praying. Actually, there weren't a lot of church-goers, possibly because, as the deacon (or whatever he's called, this guy who let us take pictures when the service was over) said, Slovenia was communist as part of Yugoslavia, and there are not a lot of people living there anymore who are religious for that reason. In fact, he said (after discovering we were Americans) that the largest population of Serbians - and Serbian Orthodox Christians - live in Chicago. Imagine that!

And here are some random pictures: