From the travel journal:

Some Euros seem to have this conceit stuck in their head that Hungary is the gateway to the East, although admittedly not as bad as the 'Wogs begin at Calais' sort. I imagine if I was heading south from Denmark, through Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia into Hungary I might agree. But I'm not. I'm heading north, towards the North European plain and this city is nothing like an Asian or Eastern city. Budapest has much more in common with Trieste, Vienna and Prague than it does with Bucharest, Sophia, Moscow or Athens for that matter. This terra icognita is Mitteleuropa for me.

Met Joao, a young man from Portugal studying in Bucharest with the Erasmus program, on the Bucharest-Budapest train. He talked about the girls in Romania, the nightlife and economics. Needless to say, we had lots in common, economics, that is. He was a nice kid, handsome in the bug-eyed, Latin kind of way.

Budapest photos can be found here.

Don't have much to write the last few days. Haven't been in the best of moods. I miss the East. I miss Istanbul most of all. My muse.

Budapest is an architect's city. Walk one block and you are assaulted by five different schools of art: the Parisian belle epoque, High Austrian fin de siecle, Art Deco, some Gothic, a little neo-Renaissance, Baroque and Hungary's very own Sezessionistil--facades full of allegorical friezes, arcades of caryatids and Zsolnay tiles, which is a kind of Magyar faience. It is quite lovely.

Claudio Magris, in his book Danube, writes of "the kitsch of Budapest." (An odd, dense travel book, in that it is really more a long mediation and survey of Central European lit-crit than anything else.) From where I sit he is correct, in an architectural sense. One building has the sleek lines of the Floretine Renaissance another is a glassy, modern shopping arcade. Across the street is a rounded Art Deco building graced with a series of twelve caryatids, half are Atlases, holding so many globes above their heads. There is a belle epoque apartment house not 50 meters away that wouldn't be out of place in Paris or Vienna. A statue sits in the middle of the square dedicated to I know not whom: I can't tease out any meaning from the inscription. Magris says Budapest is the "imitation of an imitation" meaning it imitates Vienna, which imitates Paris. He's right. It may be a place of architectural kitsch, but it works. Normally, as I wrote about a mosque in Turkey, a blend of styles doesn't work, but somehow Budapest charms. I wish I had more time here.

Castle Hill is a Prague-esque tumbledown of architectural styles too. It's gorgeous, rising up over the bend of the Danube, on the Buda side of Buda-Pest. (My hotel is on the Pest side, as is my train station.) The views north and south down the river are impressive. More so than in Prague, but I imagine that is a function of the size of the Danube here. It's wider than the Vltava River in Prague. But what Budapest lacks that Prague has is a compact city-center full of cafes, life, culture. Budapest has all that. It is an artists city, as well as an opera and theatre fan's town. But it's spread out, if not quite sprawling.

 The Hungarians are much more European than the Romanians. There is also a lot more obesity here, in men and women, than I've seen since Thailand. Must be that sausage and beer diet. It's the only thing on the menus. I miss the salads of the Levant. Atilla the Hun is huge here. The Hungarians claim descent from the Huns. Of course, there is a 400 year gap in the historical record, from the time the Huns arrived in the area to that of the Magyars arrival on the Great Plain. No matter. We all create our own histories in this post-modern age, don't we?

I'd heard about the beauty of Hungarian women. But I'm not constantly rubber-necking like I was in Bucharest. Probably a good thing. I pay more attention to the art and architecture that way. Budapest isn't nearly as 'poor' as Bucharest, but it wears its poverty differently. The gap between those who have and those who do not is wide. If you are well dressed then you are reasonably fit. If you aren't then you are heavy, pot-bellied. And probably drinking a beer. There are a lot more street people here than I've seen since India. Turkey just didn't have them. Of course, there were gypsies in Bucharest, but not so many.

The energy here is very European, industrious, even if the Magyars are Catholic by tradition. The sexes mix. Nice change from the East, if you ask me. The cafes aren't full of underemployed men sipping tea. Laughter, feminine and masculine fill them. Ladies join their boyfriends for a beer. As it should be.

It's the first place I arrived with a huge backpack strapped on where I wasn't immediately stared at. No one paid me any notice. I found this anonymity disconcerting. I could hide here and never be noticed. Is that element of serendipity gone? I hope not.