Saturday
“I wonder why I don’t go to bed and go to sleep. But then it would be tomorrow, so I decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent I am, I can skip on hour more of sleep and live.”
Sylvia Plath
There is nothing enjoyable about a night flight.
The only consolation is the flight is five hours.
It only takes ten minutes to get through customs. Half an hour and we are at the hotel.
Shower. Bed. It is 3.30 am.
“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
I wake up with a hangover that is jet-lag.
Dispossessed of getting drunk, I feel entirely short changed.
I will rectify this injustice this evening. Effort for reward. Balance in life.
I have woken up with a nasty bruise on my lower back. An investigation into the bathroom reveals I sat on the bidet instead of the toilet last night.
Budapest is a different place in summer. It might be that it is the weekend, but the place is swarming with pensioners. There is a definite demographic to the crowds.
“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.”
Simone de Beauvoir
Out the window Szabadság tér is completely unrecognisable when we left three months ago.
Malaysia, Cambodia, and Dubai rob you of the sense of seasons. Budapest has not changed with crowds, the place itself is completely different in summer.
The last time we were here, the trees were bare and the gardens filled with colour. It was cold and windy, the sky was a different shade of blue casting the city in an entirely different hue.
MId Spring, with a foot in winter and the promise of warmth, entirely contrasts Budapest with its summer cousin.
“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits.”
Ernest Hemmingway
The weather today is warm, and the gardens are green. The sky is hot and reminds me of Australia.
We head to Zërgë Coffeeshop for coffee and a bagel.
There is a breeze keeping the temperature down, but the crowds are everywhere. With my jet-lag hangover, I begin to miss the early Spring peacefulness. It seemed like we had an entire city all to our selves.
“One never reaches home,’ she said. ‘But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time.”
Herman Hesse
The staff at Zërgë Coffeeshop remember us and our order.
And it feels like home.
If Budapest outside has changed seasons, Zërgë Coffeeshop has remained the same and there is comfort in this. Change is good for the soul, and keeps focus sharp, yet consistency has assaugment. Life can’t always be a roller coaster of change.
We head home before the weather gets too hot.
Shell has a few things to tie off for work.
Note: when I received this news on the way to the airport last night Shell witnessed a quality tantrum. Details were deliberately left out in the previous post.
Today, in this beautiful city nursing an alcohol free hangover, it seems perfectly reasonable.
“When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
David Whyte
I lay about reading and waiting for dinner.
We head down to the bar beneath our hotel for some pre dinner drinks.
The Flava bar and restaurant seems to be where popular people drink.
2021 Patricius Fumint (Tokaj, Hungary)
2022 St Andrea Mária Cuvee (Eger, Hungary)
2023 Figula Sóskút Olasżriżling (Balotonfürea, Hungary)
We head around the corner for some more pre-dinner drinks…
MyWine has a good feel that compensates for its pedestrian name.
Even better, it is serving a 2013 Fumint by the glass. Exceptional.
2013 Öreg Kiraly Dulo Mad Furmint (Tokaji, Hungary)
2023 Steigler Zöldveltelini (Eger, Hungary)
It is finally time for dinner.
I am slightly inebriated. I have lost my resilience to alcohol.
Dinner is at Remma’s Bistro. Famous for serving traditional Hungarian food. We tried to get a table last time we were here but it was fully booked. Strangely, despite the crowds, we have no problem today.
The food is delicious, and the wines well matched.
For starters, crispy pork cheek with beetroot and seared cauliflower.
For mains, oven baked duck leg with cabbage noodles and mustard seeds and knuckle of lamb with yellow pea, garlic and tomatoe.
We stroll home, drunk and full of delicious food.
There is a European Cup match on. Hundreds of fans watching the big screen cheering their teams on.
European summer, yes please.
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
John Keats