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Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Budapest

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I recently had the opportunity to travel to Budapest for work, an opportunity I relished not only as a chance to learn something new, but also as a chance to spend some time in a new place. As it turned out, I learned far more than I had hoped at the training, though it got in the way of my exploring. There is a lot to see in Budapest, which is already two cities rather than one, and my glance across the surface left me with a longer list than I had when I arrived.

After deciding I liked Budapest upon first seeing one of its many street bookstalls, I stood in front of Europe’s largest synagogue, completed in 1859. It surprised me that Dohány Street Synagogue is located in a country that is 99% Christian, according to my tour guide, in a city with restaurants serving food from all over the world, and that’s something I love about visiting new places.

I was staying on the Pest side of the Danube and that’s where I took a walking tour the afternoon of my arrival, always my favourite way to see a city and learn its history. We saw the landmarks Budapest is known for, such as Europe’s largest Parliament . . .

. . . the Hungarian State Opera . . .

 . . . St. Stephen’s Basilica . . .

. . . the Danube River and Széchenyi Chain Bridge (unfortunately closed to pedestrians due to construction) . . .

. . . and walked through a few of the parks that are an important part of local life.

It was on the walking tour that I learned about the monument that went up overnight in 2014, an attempt to change the narrative of Hungary’s role in World War II. The counter-monument placed by the people of Budapest aimed to rewrite that wrong.

It came as a surprise that history was being rewritten in a city with a memorial called Shoes on the Danube Bank, commemorating the 3,500 people told to remove their shoes before being executed and their bodies thrown into the river during the Arrow Cross terror of 1944-1945. 

This memorial is on the Pest side of the Danube and, with eyes towards Buda on the other side, I headed over to do what I always try to do in a new place: Find the highest point and look down. In Budapest, this meant crossing the bridge to Buda and walking up to the Citadel.

Once in Buda, I walked along the Danube, marvelling at the force of the wind that cooled the air that had been steamy and humid when I arrived the day before. I went up to Buda Castle and looked down again.

I left by bus when it began to get dark. There was so much more to see.

With the time I had outside of the training, other wandering was an exploration of ornate doors . . .

. . . murals . . .

. . . and buildings that I liked for their appearance, a mix of architecture from before the wars, the Soviet period, and the time since.

I walked along Andrássy Avenue to its end at Heroes’ Square . . . 

. . . and came upon Vajdahunyad Castle, build in 1896 to mark the millennium of Hungary’s beginning as a modern state; it’s an art museum today, one of many in Budapest.

Making mental lists of what I still wanted to discover, it was time to go. I left Budapest having tried new foods, made plans for a new role at school, and learned to greet, thank, and bid farewell in Hungarian. As always when travelling, I left with more than I had when I arrived, and I left grateful for the opportunity to be there.

On My Mind

On Resilience

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For quite some time now, I’ve been rather taken by a bit of what is either street art or graffiti that I walk by relatively often. I like it because it’s relatable and because it starts a story in the middle, which is really where most stories start.

An admission of what we want to do but can’t do is a necessary step to learning. We are often best at learning when we want to, which is unfortunately not always when we need to. “I wish I could say beautiful words” means that I want to say those words. “But I can’t” reinforces the struggle. And here comes a choice. Such a claim can either remain aspirational, or such a claim can be a call to do something differently, which is what it means to learn.

A friend of mine often says, “There are two choices: Either accept it or change it.” Sometimes acceptance is of the self and sometimes of the situation, but both are a choice. I can either wish for those words, knowing many wishes remain so, or I can recognize that right now I don’t have those words, but I can do the work of finding them.

In fairytales where wishes are expressed and granted, characters are relatively passive until someone comes along with the power to grant the wish. This is the active agent in the story. To grant a wish means to make something happen that was previously impossible. There is indeed a time and a place for this in our world, but the growth and satisfaction that come from doing something for oneself cannot be overstated. I can wish for beautiful words, I can dream about them, I can lament that I don’t have them . . . or I can work for them. And if I do so, I will likely find many other words on the way.

Of course, we do not always get what we work for. Sometimes, gracefully or not, we fail. That hard work leads only to success is a myth in the realm of fairytales and children’s stories, and there is a place for this in our world, too. But there is also the reality of failure. It is true that we can work hard, that we can accept something or change it, that we can dedicate months and years to a pursuit and still fall short. The task is then in standing up after this experience, recognizing how far we’ve come, and understanding that we worked because it mattered. We may have failed, but we tried, and that’s part of being human. To be human means that there are things that matter to us.

I remember when it was cool to behave as though you didn’t care about anything. And I remember how shallow that felt because if no one cared, what was the point of doing anything at all? The world we live in depends on people not only caring, but caring enough to act. This is how the world turns.

(The danger, however, is in what it is that we want and the work we are willing to do to get it. The satisfaction of desire can very quickly grow dark. (Or maybe I’ve been watching too many crime shows.) For now, let’s leave that out. That is a different discussion for a different day.)

Finding what we care about, working towards it, and continuing to work despite failure is resilience. Sometimes we are stuck in one stage (perhaps mourning failure) and sometimes in another (perhaps fixated on trying again and again). The point is that resilience is not an act, but rather a process. Sometimes just getting up and going to work is victory and resilience, even if it looks like failure and defeat from the outside. And it’s okay to stop. It’s okay to start over. It’s okay to decide that we just can’t be the way we want to be and so we’ll try something else instead. The process of wanting, trying, learning, and trying again remains.

“I wish I could say beautiful words but I can’t” might be an admission of defeat, but perhaps that is what is necessary to move forward. After all, we cannot continue doing exactly what we have been doing and expect different results. “I wish I could say beautiful words but I can’t” could also be a feeble attempt at an excuse – I can’t, so I will stop trying. And in this case, it could open a conversation for those brave enough to have it.

We can wear resilience like a badge, fling it as a weapon, or cloak ourselves in it as a shield. That we have cared enough to do so is what matters.

Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Leipzig

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Many years ago, so many that I don’t remember quite when it started, I fantasized about moving to Europe and travelling around by train. Each time I have had the opportunity to sit on a train with a book in my hands and watch the world go by, I have smiled at the hopes and dreams we have when we are young. And then, this time, it happened: I have moved to Europe and I was travelling by train.

Located in the state of Saxony, Leipzig was first known as a merchant town in the Middle Ages. It later became the centre of East German life after the Second World War, and is now a home for history and culture, telling a story a thousand years old. It’s an hour and twenty minutes from Weimar on the regional train (no changes) and slightly faster with the ICE train (but there’s a change in Erfurt). A city of 600,000 people, Leipzig made for a nice change of pace and far broader food choices.

I left early and arrived just after 9am, which gave me time to get a coffee and something to eat before joining the free walking tour (I have so many good things to say about this in so many cities). It’s always a pleasure to wander, but wandering becomes something different when you know what you’re seeing. I will not relay the history of Leipzig here, but I will say that much of the old town has been reconstructed because two-thirds of it was destroyed during the war.

Leipzig University is a good example of the story architecture can tell. There was once a church here, the Paulinerkirche, which was destroyed in 1968. The reconstruction pays homage to what was while honouring the different values university communities often hold today.

Another prominent church is Nikolaikirche, which I came across on my own before our tour guide explained Leipzig’s experience as part of the German Democratic Republic (former East Germany). It made my heart soar when I first saw it, and even more so when I learned that this church was the site of the peace marches that signaled the end of communism and the beginning of a new era of life and politics. I have a great appreciation for any religious community that stands for what it preaches – justice, peace, and a better world for us all.

This mural tells the story better than I can:

Through a discussion with the tour guide, I learned that Leipzig has the largest Jewish community in central Germany and that there is also a tour of Leipzig’s Jewish history. I will have to return for this because it’s only offered once a month, so in the meantime I walked over to the Holocaust memorial. Situated on the site of the old synagogue, this memorial brought to mind not masses, but individuals. The modern restaurants and apartment buildings surrounding it demonstrate what I continue to find the most fascinating aspect of humanity – the world turns and life goes on.

Later in the afternoon, I walked south into a neighbourhood called KarLi, nicknamed for its main street. It did not surprise me that this is where many students live. Students have a way of developing areas to suit them, or perhaps it is the neighbourhoods themselves that have called students there. I currently live in a student neighbourhood and while my annoyance at their penchant for late hours is a clear reminder that I have left that world behind, I am grateful for the positivity, energy, and spirit that comes from being young and imaginative. These are, after all, the people who make the world go round.

I saw many examples of activism throughout Leipzig and that was heartening. There’s a lot to be active about right now, and while I’m aware that actions speak far louder than words, most actions begin as words. Even a whisper is better than standing idly on the sidelines.

My time in Leipzig lasted just over 24 hours. I was glad to be around more people, hear more languages, and taste different food. I appreciated the time in a new place, the ease of travel, and the excitement of learning something new. Leipzig is just down the road and there’s a literary festival in March – I suspect I’ll be back.