In Budapest
No rush. People stop at the red lights waiting for it to turn green before crossing the street. People stand on the escalator going up and down to and nobody tries to push you to the side to get down to the arriving train. At first it drove me crazy to just stand there while I heard the train coming but then I realized that most of the time, the next train arrives within 5 minutes. For those 5 minutes, I can watch the news on the screens on the walls of some of the metro stations.
In New York
No Confrontation. In New York people will do anything to avoid direct confrontation. Sometimes I feel that everyone lives in a bubble and moves through life protecting that bubble at any cost. As soon as someone as much as grazes that bubble, they move over just enough to feel protected again. A few months ago, I was on the 6 train going downtown and there was a man sitting next to me who was trying all of his ringtones on his new phone. Very loudly. It was super frustrating. I saw several people glaring at him angrily, shaking their heads, but nobody said a thing. I kept imagining that I would come up with something witty to say to him and then he would suddenly feel really bad about what he was doing and everyone else on the train would be very thankful to me.
In Budapest
Confrontation. Earlier this week I was on the 6 tram (the only piece of public transportation that has air conditioning) when someone's phone rang. An older man next to me answered the phone and started talking rather loudly. He probably had a hard time hearing. It was pretty annoying, no doubt, but I didn't expect people to get aggressive. They did all right. Two younger man practically started screaming at the man on the phone; soon it turned into a shouting match, not a few profanities included. It went on for two whole stops. I moved to the back of the tram, then got off.
Maybe connected to this is the observation that people here - and in Europe in general I think - are warmer, easier to become friends with. Even though on average and I spend about 2 or 3 weeks a year in Budapest, in the past few years, I have made a number of new friends here. Some of them I met through friends while visiting, some I met while they were visiting in New York, but either case, I have always found it easier to make friends here. Most recently, a friend of a friend was in New York for work and the three of us met for dinner one night and had a great time. At the end of the night, the friend mentioned that we should get in touch when I am in Budapest and should go running together. When this kind of thing happens with an American, my first assumption always is that they didn't really mean that; it's sort of a curtesy, a nice (but often superficial) thing to say you want to hang out with a person again even if you have no intention of ever doing so. Not the case in Hungary. If someone doesn't like you, NO WAY they will ever tell you to let's hang out. No games. It's more simple. So, we didn't end u going running because it's been way too hot lately but we did get coffee one day and have plans to have a beer this week.
Less work, more play. In my old (weird to say that) lab, I often tried to get people to go get some drinks after work, relax, chat, eat a bite together before heading home for the night. On the rare occasion that this succeeded it always took hours to get people together to be able to leave. People work hard, I understand, but I wish that people were a little more spontaneous and social. In Budapest, there are hundreds if not more outdoor cases and pubs, scattered all over the city. On any given evening, weekday or not, people are sitting, drinking, talking, enjoying themselves. Even in this heat wave. I wish there were more places like those in New York.
PDA (public display of affection). Monday night around 9pm, at the center of the city, tram stop. A woman dressed in a very short dress with a man in a suit. Both in their 30s most likely. Not teenagers. I was standing there writing a text, not paying attention to what's going on around me. I looked up and suddenly realized that they were practically having sex right next to me. I must have stared for a while, but they didn't seem to care one bit, so I just moved a little further from them. When the tram arrived I got on and sat down. Right across from me, a young couple, teenagers this time. Girl sitting on boy's lap, I can see her panties. Mostly because his hand is practically in her panties. Nobody payes them any attention. In my youth, I remembered, I was guilty of similar displays of affection. Not something you often see in the US. I like the expression "get a room!".
AC. America is crazy about air conditioning. They cannot imagine living without it. When I first moved to Kansas 12 years ago, I probably hadn't ever experienced AC before. And we had hot summers all right. Hot summers with fencing camp. Hot summers dressed head to toe and wearing a mask. I never thought it was that bad. Then I arrived in Kansas. During my first week there it was near 100F (~40C) and we were going camping near the Ozarks in Missouri. Nearly everyone there was dying of the heat. I was all right. Everyone commented on it. I was simply used to it. Now, I am not. In NYC, and everywhere else in the US, you absolutely have to carry a sweater with you even in the biggest heat waves. Black-outs are not uncommon because people turn up their ACs so high that the electric grid can't handle it anymore. When you step into a subway car from the boiling heat of the NYC subway platforms, the temperature drops nearly 30F! That's insane! The EU actually has laws regarding how much a difference is allowed between outside and inside temperatures. It's bad for your health to go from 100F to 70F and then back to 100F within a few minutes. And it's a huge waste of energy. With that said, right now, I am craving for a freezing subway car! However, the few places in Budapest that have AC are actually at a normal temperature. You walk in in a short summer dress and suddenly, you are comfortable. Not freezing. It took me a week to remember to leave my sweater home when going out. I like this. I think it's way healthier too. Today though, I checked whether the restaurant we are going to for lunch has AC before deciding it was a go. Even with that, I am leaving my sweater home.
As cities go, there are some really great things about both New York and Budapest. If there was a way to combine all the good things and make a great New Budapest, I would move there in a heartbeat! For now, New York and Budapest will do. And lots of other cities too, some of which I am about to visit in the coming weeks. Here I come, Hamburg, London and Prague!
Some pictorial evidence:
A little bit of Moscow in Budapest - aka Die Hard 5 set
NOT politically correct
Barnes & Noble has much to learn - Budapest bookstore cafe
Small country, BIG government
Hunglish
You can sail in waist-deep water too
Evening chilling
1 comment:
sounds like your trip home is off to a great start!
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