To combat the lackluster feeling of last year, spending Christmas alone in Romania, Marta and I decided to venture west to Hungary. We had heard great things about Budapest and were excited to visit the city for the holidays. I hoped snow and lights and shoppers and that special Christmas feeling.
What I learned was threefold. One, Budapest is FREEZING in December, whether there is snow or not. Two, travelling at Christmas allows you to meet other tourists travelling at Christmas while you all bemoan nothing being open on the actual Day. Finally, three, that special Christmas feeling cannot be concocted by anything other than being with family, no matter what Macy’s, Apple and Times Square want you to believe.
Although it doesn’t feel like I had a Christmas, I did have a splendid time in a new exciting place with a wonderful friend and travel buddy. To begin, we channeled Betty and Judy of White Christmas and booked a sleeping car on a night train to Budapest. Let me tell you, American trains in the 1950s may have been more comfortable than Romanian trains in 2011. It was certainly an experience; one I don’t really wish to repeat.
Arriving on the morning of the 23rd, we checked in and ventured out into the freezing cold fog. Every inch of me was thankful for the long underwear my Dad gifted me with last year. We perused the Great Hall Market for trinkets, passing up the fresh produce and deli cuts, tried and failed to pronounce anything in Hungarian, and enjoyed a light lunch by splitting a gravy-filled baked potato. Our hotel was right off the main shopping road, so we followed it down to the Christmas market at Vörösmarty Square. Little booths with handicrafts ringed trees decorated with lights and pavilions selling traditional Hungarian food and, of course purchased some mulled wine in a commemorative festival mug. My favorite sighting was a Hungarian Church choir performing Joyful, Joyful with a large middle-aged man taking the Lauryn Hill lead.
We decided to spend Christmas Eve partaking in one of Budapest’s famous past-times. Equipped with a voucher from our hotel, we spent the morning and early afternoon popping in and out of various thermal pools at the Szechenyi Bath House. A hundred year old building in the middle of the city park holds three outdoor pools, my favorite, and fifteen indoor ones, ranging from lukewarm pools to extremely hot saunas. After pruning for a few hours and feeling thoroughly refreshed we ventured through the park, stopping at Vajdahunyad Castle and Hero’s Square before dinner and an early return to our hotel to get ready for a Christmas Eve church service.
Marta discovered a magazine article about an English-speaking Scottish Presbyterian Church in Budapest with an interesting history and a timely 11:30 p.m. service we could attend. After spotting the street St. Columba’s was on earlier that day, we were confident that we could walk there, giving ourselves an hour for any complications. Needless to say, it was difficult to find. Communism had stripped many religious buildings of any indication that they were, in deed, churches, so we walked by it a few times before Marta found the small plaque indicating it was what we were looking for.
Since we were a few minutes late, we decided to just sneak in and sit in the back. This is the part in the movie where the doors, all three of them, squeak really loudly when you open them. Then you open the last door to the actual sanctuary and instead of a congregation of 90 families as the article had stated; there are ten people sitting in a semi-circle around the altar table. And, of course, everyone turns to stare at the two sniffling American women as they try to take off their gloves and hats without too much commotion and make their way up the aisle to the chairs the minister rushed to add dead-center to the circle.
Luckily, after our abrupt entrance, we jumped right into the most awkward rendition of O Come O Come Emmanuel I have ever participated in and a children’s sermon, complete with puppet, for the one child in attendance. The highlight of the service was when the minister stopped and restarted Still the Night, the British version of Silent Night, because even he flubbed the alternative lyrics.
Christmas Day was our only clear day, which made it perfect for crossing the many bridges of the Danube over to the Buda side of the city. Buda Castle and Palace are high on a hill that overlooks the river and Pest beyond. My favorite was the Gothic Matthias Church with its intricate carvings and amazing tiled roof. Build into the hill below is the Fisherman’s Bastion which afforded us some great views across the Hungary’s Parliament building.
We spent another day and a half wandering the streets of Pest, enjoying the Christmas markets and relaxing. It was a great way to detox from the semester and enjoy a different culture for a few days.
