The Statue of Liberty of "Bottle Opener"; Heroes Square; Music/Arts Hall; salami portrait; big food market

Palinka Meanderings

I must make full disclosure before you read this. I have had two shots of palinka, the very very very strong Hungarian stuff, before I wrote this so I may not be at my most articulate or accurate. But that won’t stop me.

Where did I leave off? Oh, yeah. Courtney and I went to the Big Market, a fantastic indoor food market where fruits and vegetables compete with wine and paprika and salamis and baked goods. It is a large hall with so many food stuffs for sale that it makes me swoon. The second floor has tourist crap and the basement has weird stuff that is marinated, and while I contemplated buying some of the tourist crap, ultimately I yielded to a retesh (RA-tesh) pastry and a salami stick. Ishtenem (ohmigod).

Our foreign exchange student ‘s dad Ishtvan (every man here is either Ishtvan, Gabor, or Zsolt) picked us at the Big Market and sped off toward the Budapest Music and Art Hall, this incredible new facility of stone and wood on the Danube and gave us a tour of the magnificent building from the outside and inside. Next door was an equally impressive new facility, the National Theatre, which also had some very cool statues and design features.

We were whisked away to Ishtvan’s lovely home where we were greeted happily by Dory, her sister Bori, and her mother Gabi. Gabi and Ishtvan’s garden is a thing of beauty with an herb garden, flowers, and a koi pond. A vine-covered trellis served as the shelter for our outdoor meal—something with chicken and sour cream and noodles that was to die for. (Yes, I know Courtney doesn’t do sour cream, but he ate this dish—even had two helpings—without any gustatory repercussions.)

Dory’s sister entertained us with a medley of classical music and Metallica on the piano—she’s quite good on the piano and speaks English that she learned from Facebook.

After a long dinner, Ishtvan took Courtney, me, Bori and Dory to his modern office for a brief tour and then we headed to Heroes Square. There are numerous monuments to the country leaders and founders on this plaza, and Ishtvan stopped briefly at each one and gave thumbnail sketch of the contribution of each. It was like Hungarian History 101 in 15 minutes.

Then we headed up to Gellert Hill, the highest point in Budapest, way up on the Buda side. It was close to midnight which meant that when we got to the top, we were in for the most stunning view of Budapest at night—the bridges spanning the Danube were aglow as were the main temples and churches in the city.

Dory gave us her political interpretation of the Statue of Liberty at the top of the hill. It’s called “The Bottle Opener” by the locals (see the picture for an explanation), but it was built by the Hungarians after the war in gratitude to the Russians for liberating the city. Little did they know, Dory said, that the Russians would become their oppressors and that the statue would become ironic in its place over the city.

We were up way past our bedtime, but it was worth it. What a view of my father’s city! If he ever came up here before the war, he must have known what he lost after it.

Ishtvan said that his plan for the evening was a simple one, but it was a special highlight of the trip.