I visited Budapest briefly in 2005 while working on the Creekside Residence. Ben McDonald and I were in Austria to review the glass and custom doors for the project, while in Vienna we skipped over to Budapest for a few days to check out the city. I loved it then... and was looking forward to going back.

It was a long day getting there, as Banska Striavnica is pretty remote, and I was heading to another country. The trip involved two buses through remote industrial towns of southern Slovakia (Zarnovica and Leviche), which I surprisingly enjoyed, and then two trains into Budapest. At the last transfer, I am not sure if it was in Slovakia or Hungary, I enjoyed a Fernet and a hot dog with the locals before boarding the last leg. Pulling into Keleti station again I remembered why I loved this city. Hungary is just so culturally different from all of its neighbors.

Buda and Pest, used to exist as two separate cities divided by the Danube. The hilly Buda side having the castle and the views, while the Pest side was more of the working class side. The Buda folks are quick to remind the Pesters to this day of their more noble standing.

Prior to my arrival I contacted the Center for Contemporary Architecture and arranged a modern architecture tour of the city. I was met by Melinda and then later by her friend Judit, two recently graduated architects in the city. We walked the downtown area around Pest, over to the Buda hills and then finished with a chilly but beautiful boat ride up the Danube. By both of the architect’s admission, Budapest has a long way to go with the acceptance of modern architecture. While there were a few decent buildings, there wasn’t anything high profile... but it was really encouraging to see the enthusiasm of the younger generation.

Friday was a fantastic and rather unremarkable day. I went for a long run in the morning, across the Danube and up the Buda side to the Margit-sziget Island, did a loop around the island and then back by way of the Parliament Building. I probably did about 12km... way longer than I set out to do... but the great thing about Budapest, there are plenty of hot springs to choose from to ease the sore muscles... So i walked up the handsome Andrassy utca and went to the open air Szechenyi baths. What a great scene... all walks of people coming together and enjoying a good soak. When I got back to the hostel, the managers had just put in Star Wars, so I got under a blanket and just relaxed as Hans Solo took out countless stormtroopers... perfect day.

Some random thoughts/ observations. The language seems to most closely resemble the Finnish language than any others I could identify. I am not sure if I am way off on this, but it is just so different than the languages of all the surrounding countries. Hungary is also known as Magyar, a fierce tribe that brought the pay to large parts of Europe back in the day, led by Atilla the Hun, Hungary’s namesake. Hungarians put paprika in everything! It is the national spice.... ok, that’s all... still trying to get caught up.

(If you are bored and curious about the relationships between the Hungarian and Finnish languages, you can read more here: http://www.histdoc.net/sounds/ hungary.html)