Crossing the border, and back again

Thoughts on Vienna:

1. What a difference the Cold War makes. Vienna and Budapest are so similar in so many ways, but so very very different. Both boomed in the mid-1800s, so the Hapsburg architecture with its grand overly stylized cake-decoration style dominated both cities. Both entered WWI as shiny, cosmopolitan capitals, with much pomp, circumstance, and a shit load of statues and monuments. WWI and WWII found both Hungary and Austria on the losing side (awkward….), so these cities suffered bombings, tank invasions and even street-to-street fighting. But after the world split in two, and Budapest landed on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain (depending on who you talk to…), the city on the Danube just... decayed. Before I left for the weekend, a friend told me “Vienna is just a cleaner Budapest.” With Communists’ little respect for the Hapsburg legacy (Russia’s historic enemy, and the Soviet Union’s twice-defeated enemy in both world wars), and lack of private funds, or simply time to keep up turn of the century buildings, Budapest descended into a state of disrepair. Parts of the city look like a ghost town--peeling paint, crumbling facade. And Vienna gleams, shimmers even, 50 extra years of the attention, love, and most importantly, funds, that Budapest simply never received. The legacy of Communism, the stark divide of the Iron Curtain still remains.

2. I understood a lot more German than I thought I would. By that I mean I recognized about 20 words, as opposed to the 15 I’ve memorized in Hungary. Props to zaydie and day school education for teaching me words like “zisse” and “tisch.” The rhythm of the language feels more similar to me than Hungarian (see below, re: baby talk), and I actually understood when someone was asking me a question! I didn’t actually understand what the question was, but still.

3. Austria is Germany’s Canada.

4. Gustav Klimt rocks my socks. So does Franz Joseph’s sweet ‘stache.

5. Even though I know fahrt is a real word in German, it’s still so so silly.

6. Now with the EU, the only way I could tell that I left Hungary and entered Austria was that my phone went into roam.

7. More on the EU-it sucks. I know that this political unit is absolutely revolutionary, and heralds a new era of true peace and European camaraderie, and the movement of people and ideas has never been freer and blah blah blahhh, but I just want a freaking stamp on my passport. I know, I probably wouldn’t be asking for one if I knew what the lines were like back in the day, but I am a chavaya-er. I just want proof that I went somewhere, something that I can wave in my friends face, a testament to my awesomeness. And the EU so cruelly takes that away from me.

8. Budapest feels like home. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and such, but the relief I felt, the sense of comfort when I stepped out into the dirty, teeming bus station in Budapest was real. After all these weeks with them, I guess these crazy Magyars feel a little bit like family.

However, lets not get carried away. I think I have learned to be comfortable with the discomfort that Budapest brings. I have learned to not understand Hungarian, to familiarize myself with the wholly indiscernible language that just sounds like baby talk no matter what anyone else tells me.

I return with two days left in Budapest. Two more days of Magyarorszag and me.