This weekend there was a national holiday in Hungary: The 1956 Revolution got 54 years old. There would have been a tour, and people on the streets, and music, and the prime minister. But I missed all of that. I had my own revolution going on: my stomach was revolting. All weekend long. So here I sat, unable to really do anything, and with only three more months to run around Budapest. Three months, of which two will be presumably too cold to run around. Good thing the wardrobes are cheap or free in most places. Thanks to my revolting belly, I went on a doctor hunt this morning and, after calling about six different places, coincidentally ended up with the right kind of specialist. The man works for the Semmelweis University Hospital AND Danone AND still had time for me today. And he laughed. But that was okay. The cab-driver was caught taking a red traffic light on the way home, he explained to me that the fine was 100 000 forint. Which is a lot of money. He laughed. I guess that was also okay. 

Walking through Budapest turns out to be not only very scenic, but often also a lot faster than public transport. True, I can blame that on the small bubble of downtown that we’re moving in most of the time, but it’s a good bubble inside the boundaries of tram 4 and 6.

This evening Senia and I took this tram to get to the next metro station, hopped on M3, missed a stop and walked from Deak Ferenc Ter to our destination: A Jurassic Park movie night. Needless to say, after the first two of the stunning series we were sort of over it and decided to go home, considering there are midterms coming up and all sorts of other excuses. So for our way home, we were quite easy off: night busses leave Astoria every ten minutes or so, and they’d shove us almost to our front door. But we decided to walk, burning off a few of the calories we just planted with peanuts, chips, pizza and whatnot.

Walking through Budapest is great. Although, at night, a little boring. In any case, we passed by a sleeping street person, and I turned my head, noticing something stuck out of the trash bin a bit behind him. It was a leg. A leg in cast, well, without the leg, I hope, but just the cast. I hope. I turned my head further and noticed a figure in the shadow of the corner. I assume, and this is just my interpretation of the situation, that he has something to do with the leg. I was about to say that he did not have a leg. This was also what I thought first. But now it doesn’t make sense to have plaster without a leg. Reel back. Jurassic Park. The leg. Figure in the dark. Creepy.

The rest of the walk was admittedly unspectacular. The homeless guy who lives in front of the supermarket in our street was sleeping where he usually sits and for the rest it was remarkably quiet for a Wednesday night. A leg. Seriously. 

(by the way, Mum: we were five people, so there's absolutely nothing to worry about)

By now, undoubtedly, it is fall. Meteorological, seasonal, visible. We saw the first traces when we found chestnuts on Margit Sziget, and soon thereafter, leaves started to cover the pavements. Leaves from trees we hadn’t even noticed yet because they were hidden behind fences and walls, away from the street, so as not to ruin the urban outlook of Budapest. When my brother visited last weekend, autumn showed his colder shoulder, with bright sunshine, making it impossible to dress right. We spent these days sightseeing. Freezing in the aisles of Ecseri Fleamarket on the city’s outskirts, and enjoying the sun outside, where the stands were empty because it was Friday. Ecseri is probably best and most impressive on the weekends, but the glimpses we saw, the old clothing, street signs, military relicts, toys, lamps, furniture, post cards, cameras, watches, were impressive to ravel through. Not to forget the 20-minute bus ride. It’s hard to believe that you’re still in Budapest when you see the small houses, the fields and factories.

We saw more of the Soviet memory in the House of Terror – where first the Nazis took camp and were executed a few years later when the Soviets arrived and took over the mansion. Right there in Andrassy Utca where I found a paperclip, this beautiful wide road.  It gives me shivers to believe how many people died in the basement of this house. It gives me shivers to think about the city in ruins after the war and during the 1956 revolution.

When we were bathing at Szechenyi afterwards, all this seemed so unreal. A people that spend their time reminiscing and playing chess in a body-tempered pool surrounded by cheerful yellow and white squiggles, how did they get through this? How did they bring up the anger to revolt?

What I like about autumn is its smell. The air smells chilly, and fresh, and just somewhat different from September. It’s not downright cold, just chilly, and although it’s only October, I had a lot of forralt bor – hot wine – already. Yesterday the sky was grey, anticipating the rain I woke up to this morning, but it was nice out. It wasn’t too cold and I walked to Astoria. Oddly enough, the circle in which I move around the city appears to become smaller, but I blame it on the shortcuts I find through the mess of streets downtown.  Later, Denis and Tim took me to the Corvinus Campus in Buda, to a flower exhibition. Under the sturdy clouded skies, the discolored trees in the arboretum seemed almost to be fluorescent, and the leaves glowed in the most beautiful shades from dark green over yellow to bright pink and red. Gellért hill is not a green spot on the other side of the river anymore. It’s bursting with color. It’s fall. 

Chloe organized a D.I.Y. pub crawl tonight, and with about 25 people we saw two great bars/restaurants within three hours. I'm continuously surprised by the size of the bars here that look so tiny from outside. The first, I forgot the name, was close to Blaha Lujza Ter, and turned out to be big enough for all of us if not cozy because we had to sit on the uncool side of the bar. The cool side of the bar looked amazing, the menu looked amazing and we decided to go with a smaller group sometime to have dinner there. 
Our longish quest for Most!-bar was absolutely worth it. The wallpaper is pictures of cassettes and bookshelves, the service was good and in general, it was a comfortable despite large place. Also, it's close to Instant and Piaf, which is a pretty good precondition to start with!

On Thursday, it was extremely cold. Schekeb and I had just left an Iranian kebabshop and were on our way home, when I found a paperclip. I found it and stopped, tangled in in-ear headphones and cables and picking it up from the cold ground. It was in Lónyay Utca, in the street where I live, pretty close to the new University building. After meeting the English Club at the Trapez and eating something there, we were still hungry and searching for a kind of fries-stand on Raday Utca that one of the English teachers at Trapez recommended. By the time we found it, they had closed their kitchen. So we ended up at the Iranian place, whose owner smoked a water pipe while we were eating our falafel and kebab surrounded by paintings of Arabian and Persian beauties and unibrowed belly dancers. When we finally walked home, Schekeb put on Beethoven’s Für Elise on his Ipod. It was odd and somehow magical, to walk down this dark, dirty and dusty cold street with the sound of piano in my head. Usually, there are construction noises, cars, people shouting, sirens. Now it was dark, and the silence was only crossed out by Beethoven’s song. And right that moment, I found the paperclip. We weren’t too far from the University and the dormitories, so it was no surprise to find one there. I smiled, Schekeb didn’t understand my excitement about the piece of metal and we walked home to drink a cup of tea. When I walked down Lónyay again yesterday, I heard the song again, playing in my mind. It suits this street oddly well.