Up in the Air: Life and Relationships in My Ever-Expanding World

Hi Readers,

Hope you had an auspicious start to the new decade. Prepare yourselves, please, for another blog binge, as that seems to be the only way I know how to put down my thoughts. It's as if my thoughts remain fragmented until there is a critical mass of them gathered, and then suddenly they crystallize into a relatively coherent form which I then share with you. Anyway, if you are reading, thanks; it's good to know you're there.

The last few weeks have moved at cut-time, giving me little time for reflection, but much to appreciate. Since my last post, I spent approximately 30 hours in the air, and about 3 1/2 full days in transit (in airports, train stations, subways, etc.). Why all of this? Well, first a trip home to my family for Christmas. It was the first Christmas back since my younger brother and I both flew the coop, and between some health issues for my Grandma, stressful academic schedule changes for my brother, and an erratic travel schedule on my part, it was a strange, unfulfilling reunion, unfortunately.

But why was my travel schedule so erratic? Well, because about 4 months ago I met a guy from Hungary, Jozsef, in Isla Mujeres, and about 2 months ago I bought a ticket to visit him in Budapest. It had been a coincidental but significant meeting for both of us, and he insisted that I should come to visit around New Year's. I laughed it off at first, but after a steady stream of electronic communication for months, I decided I would always regret it if I didn't go. After all, isn't the saying that "you only regret the things you didn't do?" My marvelous parents took my surprise request to go to Budapest in stride, my Dad even cracking a pun as his first response ("Is he a Buda or a Pest?" groan), so I bought tickets for two days after Christmas, and spent a little under two weeks visiting Hungary!

My first response to my trips, both to home and to Hungary, was sensory: "Holy *&^#! It's freezing here!" I hadn't experienced truly cold weather since last winter, and probably not really since last year's Presidential Inauguration, during which I stood out with the mob cheering for days. Though the weather has become "winter" weather here in Isla Mujeres, that means mid-60s, not below zero! (On that note, my invitations to visit stand open, come! come!) And one of the things I truly hate most in life is being cold. It makes me primitive, as the only thought and directive I can hold is to find warm shelter.

The cold definitely colored much of my time away from my island in the sun. It spared me, however, from the hordes of tourists that descend on Budapest during the spring and summer. Cheap flights and trains from other European cities, and Central/Eastern Europe tours which plow through Prague, Budapest, Vienna, etc. overwhelm the most famous sites of the city. Even in the winter, I was surprised at how many tour buses I saw and how many tourists there still were--I shudder to think at the summer (must be like the National Mall around school-trip-time).

Aside from the cold, however, how was Hungary? It was a good experience. Not necessarily all fun, but important--and still mostly fun. The majority of my time was spent in Budapest. Jozsef and I did some traveling to the countryside, for about 4 days after New Year's. I did a lot of sightseeing in Budapest, but much of it on my own as Jozsef still had to work some of the days I visited. It worked out well that way, as he didn't have to take too many vacation days, and he didn't have to do all of the touristy stuff that locals typically abhor doing in their own cities.

Budapest is beautiful. It's situated on both banks of the Danube River, composed of two former cities (Buda, the hilly Western side of the city, and Pest, the flat Eastern side). The characters of the two former cities are still distinct from one another. Buda is characteristically the quieter, ritzier/snobbier and more residential side, while Pest is more chaotic and commercially-driven. If you have the money for it, Budapest offers a host of good restaurants, cultural events, and opportunities. Even on more modest means (such as those of an ESL teacher or a Hungarian public servant), there is still a lot to do and see and eat in the city.

Rest assured that, like always, I took a lot of pictures. I'll start with some obvious ones:


Probably the most classic image of Budapest, the Chain Bridge and the Hungarian Parliament as seen from Buda Castle.


Perhaps Monet-inspired, I found myself attempting to capture the Chain Bridge in a variety of lighting and condition. One attempt just after the lights had sparkled on.


In the fog.


Part of the outside of the elaborate and snowy Parliament building.


Inside the golden dome of the Parliament. This building was built while Hungary was still a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (so it had the money for this sort of extravagance), and was built in honor of the Hungarian Millennium celebration in 1896. In 896 AD, the Magyars (as Hungarians call themselves) first reached the Carpathian basin region where they live today. The dome is 96 meters high in reference to this event.


In the center of the dome rests an important symbol: the Holy Crown of Hungary. Nobody really knows much about its origins, and no one is able to explain why the cross is crooked (much to my curiosity's chagrin). It showed up around the 13th century, and it became an imperative to a king's reign that he be coronated with this crown, so more than 50 Hungarian kings were. Somehow the crown survived the years of Ottoman and Austrian occupation through until World War II, when some American G.I.s found it in Austria. They brought it back to the US and kept it in Fort Knox until 1978 when it was returned to the Hungarian people.


A view from one of Budapest's seven bridges toward Gellert Hill. It is named after St. Gellert, sent to Hungary from Rome to preach to the pagans. They had a revolution, and they ended up sending him down this hill in a barrel filled with nails. Atop the hill is a citadel, built during the Austro-Hungarian Empire by the Austrians. The Hungarians had revolted, and the Austrians felt they could easily shell Buda and Pest from this location. History has been cruel to Hungary, which I'll describe a bit more further down. Also atop the hill and visible in the photo is a large "Liberty Statue," erected by the Soviets when they "liberated" the city (also discussed below). It's a woman holding a palm frond between her hands, and seen at the right angle, Jozsef told me everyone thinks it looks like a giant bottle opener. Everytime I saw the statue after that, I could think of nothing but bottle openers.


Another statue atop Gellert Hill, this one representing the battle between good and evil. I just liked that the dramatic falling snow made it look like the battle was live-action.


As the citadel might suggest, there are fantastic views of Budapest from atop the hill. Here you can see Buda Castle on the left, Chain Bridge, and the Parliament.


The lanterns on one of the seven bridges.


As I visited immediately after Christmas, there were still many Christmas decorations and some Christmas events happening in Budapest. This was inside St. Stephen's Basilica in Pest. Each of the churches I visited had a nativity scene set up, flanked by real pine trees brought in from the countryside. The fresh trees were beautiful and smelled heavenly. Pine trees definitely aren't a smell we have here in Isla Mujeres.


Ah tourism and Christmas fairs! This is, of course, famous Hungarian paprika. They often sell it like this, dried on long strings (oftentimes coupled with garlic). Naturally, I ate paprika in Hungary. There are two very common dried powered types: sweet and hot. Hot is truly hot, but nothing that a habanero-lover like me can't handle...


On the topic of eating in Hungary, I wrote Jozsef prior to coming to remind him that I was vegetarian. I said I hoped it wouldn't prove a problem. He wrote back and said we would take care of it, but warned that Hungarians "eat meat with a side of meat." Indeed, sausages such as those being fried in the picture above were very popular. Jozsef sweetly bought me some stuff at the grocery store before coming "so I wouldn't starve," but it turned out all right obviously. I will say that I did try a couple of meats while there, in the goulash (which is much like American chili) and in a popular venison dish. It was the first time I had ever tried venison, and I thought it tasted just like beef (vegetarianism probably not serving me best for appreciating any subtle differences). Aside from the meat, Hungarians make really good bread, light and fluffy and in many varieties. There is one braided variety (which looks a lot like challah bread) called kalacs ("ko-lach"). I put some in the toaster one morning, mainly because I was cold, and buttered the toasted piece when it came out. When Jozsef saw it, he was aghast that this bread would have been toasted--I guess Hungarians don't have the reliance on the toaster that I personally seem to. Oh well, tasted just as good to me either way! Last comment-worthy Hungarian food I tried: kurtoskalacs (kurt-toosh-ka-lach). A kurtoskalacs is basically a big strip of dough rolled around a giant wooden skewer and baked over a flame. Once it is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, it is rolled in cinnamon sugar mixture (or coconut or chocolate, etc.), and taken off the skewer. Mmmmm...


A tram, the one I took everyday, running along the Danube. Budapest has a host of public transport options, including Continental Europe's oldest metro. Interestingly, there is no check when you enter the transportation to see if you have a ticket to ride. I've been told if you get caught riding without a ticket, however, there is a serious fine and verbal lashing. I didn't wish to ride without a ticket, but the problem was that you had to buy a ticket within a central square in the city, where several metro or tramlines intersected. Each morning when I got on the tram, I wasn't in one of these centers and couldn't buy a ticket. I rode the whole first 3 days in trepidation (because I always forgot to buy a ticket while I was in a central square). I tried to look discontented and bored, like a proper local, so that no one would single me out to ask about a ticket (they say that the ticket-checkers are sometimes plainclothes, like undercover cops). As the time went on, however, and I never got checked, I got a lot bolder. I bought a ticket one day, and never used it. I always planned to pull it out of my pocket if anyone were to bother me. By the way, I seem to rarely travel places where I can blend in like a local--it's nice!


I couldn't resist a photo of this subway ad for Burger King. They have a Mexican-inspired burger, which they are promoting with an image of a lucha libre fighter! I'm always amazed how, even in the smallest of ways, so many parts of the world are connected to one another.


I know I already whined about the cold, and most of you are probably dealing with the cold now, but look at this flagpole and understand my complaint.


On New Year's day, Jozsef took me to see a concert at Budapest's relatively new Palace of Arts, whose concert hall supposedly has the best acoustics in Europe. Due to some foul-ups in online ticketing, the seating we ended up with was a bit unusual but made the experience all the better. We were high up on the side above the front of the stage, and so had a bird's eye view of the performance and the audience. A very good way to start the new year.


We left the next morning following the concert for our trip to the countryside. We went to a small city about 2 hours from Budapest called Eger. It is a quaint little city in that "European" way: cobblestone streets, crooked roofs, old stone and wooden buildings: charming all in all. It is famous throughout Hungary for its learning center, the Lyceum, and for a famous military siege. In the 1500s, the Ottomans were advancing on all of Europe, and had taken every last castle in Hungary save one, the one in Eger. It was defended by a force of about 2,000 Hungarians. The Ottomans advanced on this castle with more than 20,000 soldiers. Remarkably, the Hungarians were able to fend the Ottomans off (until the Ottomans came back about 60 years later), and in so doing saved a bit of Hungary and potentially a lot of Europe from further Ottoman conquest. One of the famous legends coming out of this battle was that the Hungarian soldiers drank red wine fortified with bull's blood to give them the strength to fight the Ottomans. This legend spawned the popular wine from the region today, "Egri Bikaver," or "Bull's Blood."


A vineyard through the car windows. Much to my surprise, when I began my extensive trip research prior visiting (reiterating I am a dork), I found out that Hungary has 22 wine regions. The most famous Hungarian wine is called Tokaji (pronounced like To-kai), which is white and sweet.


These funny looking little buildings are wine cellars built into the hillsides in the Hungarian countryside.


Relatedly, this may look like a cup of coffee, but it's actually mulled wine. I'd never had it before, but it's really popular here, and is basically steaming hot sangria.


Following our time in Eger, we entered a national park near the city called the Bükk National Park. It snowed heavily, and so we spent awhile trying to figure out the safest route to drive. Jozsef got out the road map, and I was ostensibly helping navigate. The issue was that, while I could read the map and the names of the towns as they looked to me, I had no idea how they are actually pronounced in Hungarian. A 'sz' is just an 's' sound, but 's' alone makes the sound 'sh.' 'Cs' makes 'ch' and they have a merciless number of vowels covered in umlauts, accents, and other markings. Worse still, many of the towns started with the same letter, f, and were equally long syllable-wise. So Jozsef would ask, are we going to Fblah-blah-blah or Fblah-blah-blah? I never was quite sure which place he was talking about! Eventually we decided to slowly work our way through on the main road of the park, and we had a beautiful drive with scenery such as that above. We stopped for the night in another charming little town, Lillafüred, this one nestled in the mountains with a little lake and a castle!


After our trip to the countryside, we returned to Budapest, and I did a bit more exploring to learn about Hungary's history. The photo above shows the outside of Budapest's Great Synagogue, the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world following one in New York City. It was built in the mid-1800s when Budapest had a large and successful Jewish community. Of course, as with the rest of Europe, the Jews in Hungary were tragically affected by the Holocaust. Perhaps even more tragically, they were comparatively safe until 1944, as Hungary was allied with Germany. As an ally, Germany did not invade Hungary and attack the Jewish population. Nearing the end of the war, however, Germany demanded more compliance from Hungary and when it didn't comply, Germany punished the country by invading and installing the Arrow Cross party, Hungary's Nazi party, in power. Arrow Cross soon after set up a ghetto in Budapest, completely sealed from the rest of the city, bordered in part by this synagogue.


When Germany invaded, they actually had the audacity to set up an office of the Gestapo in the second story women's balconies of the Great Synagogue.


The Arrow Cross brought Jews to the edge of the Danube, forced them to remove their shoes, and shot them into the Danube River. This memorial is in memory of the estimated 10,000 to 15,000 who died in this way.


Though the Hungarian Jewish population was not heavily targeted until 1944, they still suffered unimaginable losses. Thousands were shipped to concentration camps, and it is estimated that about one-third of those who died in Auschwitz were Hungarian. Notably, Elie Wiesel is Hungarian. The photo above shows a memorial located outside of the Great Synagogue. It is a weeping willow, yet it is also meant to invoke an inverted menorah. On the leaves names of victims are engraved. It is not known how large the Jewish population in Hungary is today, as it is now illegal to officially question a person's religion, but Budapest does have a thriving Jewish community.


Germany's occupation of Hungary only ended when the city was "liberated" by the Soviet Union. I say this with sarcasm because immediately after "liberating" the country, it was trapped into their Communist Bloc. Many Soviet practices were not much different than the Nazis, they even chose the very same building in which to conduct tortures, and sometimes murders, of political dissidents. That building today has become the House of Terror, a museum which is unfortunately highly politicized itself. The picture above is not the house of terror but the side of a government building directly across from Parliament. In 1956, when Hungarians staged a revolution (and sawed down a Stalin statue at the ankles), this was the site of Soviet counterattacks to quell the rebellion. The bulletholes in the walls have been memorialized.


Speaking of memorials, the Hungarians, unlike their Communist Bloc neighbors, did not chop to bits every communist statue in their country following 1989. Instead, they chose to create "Memento Park: Remains of Communist Dictatorship." They collected together remaining communist artwork from across the country and moved it to this park on the far outskirts of the city. As aforementioned, there is no Stalin statue since they chopped him down in 1956, but they have a host of other figures such the cubist statue of Marx and Engels above. I particularly like the snow mutton chops on Marx--it was miserably cold walking around the park, of course, but I had really wanted to see it.


A famous Trabant, the car of East Germany. It was partially made from recycled materials (to save on steel imports), and was shipped all over the former Communist bloc. I found one on the street one day, and couldn't resist snapping a photo. As for communist relics in the city, there didn't seem to be so very many obvious ones. They were mainly on the outskirts of the city, huge soulless apartment blocks, dozens and dozens that must hold thousands of families. The most eerie, however, are the ones in old industrial cities like one we passed through on our way back to Budapest from the countryside. All of the factories have shut down and I can't imagine that those enormous boxes are full--big, empty communist apartment blocks...creepy. Yet, as frequent flying experience has caused me to observe, there's something decidedly creepy about the layout and ubiquity of American suburbs as well. How is it possible that they look exactly identical no matter where you go?


Continuing along the theme of things-that-have-sucked-in-Hungary's-history, I found this map online (thank you Hungarian Society of Cleveland). It shows "Greater Hungary," the extent of Hungary's territory prior to the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. This treaty was a part of the series of overly-crushing treaties inflicted on the losers after World War I (the most famous of course being the Treaty of Versailles with Germany). Hungary ended up losing 73% of its total area, 5 of its 10 most populous cities, and over 3 million ethnic Hungarians suddenly no longer lived in Hungary (there were only about 10 million ethnic Hungarians at the time). And Hungarians are still pissed about it today. Most of the neighboring countries seem to have a different official name in Hungary (hint: it's the name of the country preceded by a word beginning with F). Map dork that I am, I can't help but notice how similar Romania would have looked to today's Croatia if Hungary had held on to Transylvania.


A map showing modern-day Hungary, one which I think would make a great postcard.

All told, Hungary's not had an easy millennium. Occupation, genocide, secret police and terror, and some serious land loss. Does this show in the Hungarian people? I think so. Perhaps I am reading too much into it, as the winter makes everyone seem a bit more glum, but Hungary did not seem like a happy place. I mean, the United States is, compared with the rest of the world, an excessively happy place. Much of this excessive happiness is a front, or an overly optimistic (to the point of naivete) attitude. Hungary, however, seemed a particularly bleak place, as if pessimism was something to be proud of. I suppose taking the pessimistic view would have gotten you further in bets on Hungary's history. Still, however, the fatalism of the Hungarian society struck me as completely different than the fatalism of, say, Mexico. Mexico likes to dress up its fatalism in jokes and good-natured-ness, like the skeletons dressed in wedding gowns. The sense of humor in Hungary is perhaps a bit drier. "You can never satisfy Europeans," I was sagely advised by a Russian couple in security with me in St. Louis, "You will always be too happy or something, so just let them be as they are and be yourself." This couple has been living in California for years, so they seemed good judges of the cultural differences between Eastern Europeans and Americans. Regardless, I felt that I was able to experience a much more authentic version of Hungary than if I had visited as a tourist. I am always appreciative of an experience that doesn't seem varnished over, perhaps because so much here in Isla Mujeres always does.

I said goodbye to Jozsef and left Budapest early on a Friday morning. I had a flight booked through London and on to Newark, where I would catch a connecting flight back to St. Louis and then the next day a flight back to Cancun. The problem, however, was that London had been hit with a blizzard, and my flight was canceled. I ended up in line, of all things, with a few Mexicans, who faced a similar dilemma to mine. "We're supposed to be in Mexico on Monday. What the hell are we doing in Budapest on a Friday?!" Luckily we all got re-routed through Paris Charles de Gaulle. We were taxiing to leave Budapest when suddenly the plane turned around for the gate. The police said there was a security concern. We were all asked to get off the plane and then we waited around for another two hours, going through security again and just generally waiting. We finally got to re-board the plane, but I was going to miss my connection for Newark via CDG. When we got to CDG, it turned out that my flight to Newark was delayed, so I thought I stood a chance. I ran for the security gate, but something about my "boarding pass" being incorrectly printed meant that they sent me to the customer service line for Air France to get another boarding pass. Of course this line was enormous, so I thanked the guy at security for helping me miss my flight. I stood around in customer service, this time just praying to be let onto a flight later in the evening. When I got to the front of the line, literally another 2 hours later, they told me the only flight they could help me with was a stand-by going to JFK that night. It wasn't Newark, but it was easy enough to transfer, so I prayed there would be space on the flight. I waited around nervously after another round of stringent security (thanks to underwear bomber,they've started frisking for flights to the US). I was so incredibly relieved when they told me I had the last seat on the plane! Ah... So, uneventful flight back to the US, thankfully, and then a night spent in transfer from JFK to Newark. It wasn't too bad, just some AirTrain transfers, at least an hour in the NYC subway, and a few hours bumming around at Penn Station until I could catch an NJ Transit train to Newark. My flight back to St. Louis left around 7:30 am, and was uneventful as well.


Some of Newark's industrial cranes at sunrise. I thought there was something kind of beautiful about them in this light.

My 20 hours at home were a blur. I dropped off some gifts and slept and repacked. My flight to Cancun was out the next morning by 7:30 as well.


And now I'm home again to Mexico! That's the view of Punta Cancun and my little Isla Mujeres from up in the air.

Though my feet are solidly back on the ground again, and we're a week into classes, a lot in my life remains up in the air at this moment. My relationship with Jozsef necessarily is...or I guess it is technically underwater, carried along and carried out over thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables. How odd to think that so many of our connections today are precariously dependent on connections of thin little cables (including this connection, of course). And I don't know what I will do for the year ahead. I have some goals, and I have some ideas, but I don't have anything concrete. It's a funny sort of sensation, like when the cartoon Wil E. Coyote would run off the end of the cliff without realizing that there was nothing beneath him. I mean, I don't feel that I will plummet, like he inevitably does, but rather I feel that I don't have anything concrete beneath me and I am just realizing it. I've been running and running on the prescribed path, like many Americans do through college, and now my prescribed path has suddenly stopped. It's a shaky sort of feeling, but one that liberates as well. I'm getting the sense that this is what your 20s, or at least your early 20s if you're lucky, are supposed to be about. I am no longer tied to the weights of the college path, and I am not yet settled into any sort of other prescribed path like marriage or children or a long-term job. Instead, I'm sort of on my own and trailblazing my future. Certainly times like these offer the highest highs and lowest lows, and the best opportunities for self-discovery. If I may offer another terrible analogy, I often find myself when hiking spending most of my time watching my feet and the ground, ensuring that I don't trip. It's only here and there that I look up and realize the reason I've come to hike, the scenery. Now, it's all scenery and emotion and newness, as there's no path with nothing to trip over. Living in the moment at its finest.

A final note: my title was obviously inspired by a recent movie outing. You should go see the movie, it's good, but know that no matter how much airport experience you have, you are never going to make going through security look as graceful as George Clooney does!

Ciao, dearest readers, hasta la proxima vez!