Dora and I woke up in our new apartment the other morning (it’s fantastic, you have to come visit so we can show off in a shameless and despicable manner). We made smoothies because we’re trying to be healthy without denying ourselves too much. We got ready for the day, and we went down to the car. Before opening the diver’s side door, Dora recoiled and said, “Blood.”
Sure enough, in a splatter pattern familiar to many CSI viewers, several small drops of blood had been left to harden on our car window and door.
Perhaps this would be a good time to describe the neighborhood we live in. Akácfa utca (which translates to Acacia Tree Street) is located in the very center of downtown Budapest. I mean, we are really in the thick of it here. Up above is a photo taken on my street during the 56 Revolution. That's a statue of Stalin being torn down.
Sure enough, in a splatter pattern familiar to many CSI viewers, several small drops of blood had been left to harden on our car window and door.
Perhaps this would be a good time to describe the neighborhood we live in. Akácfa utca (which translates to Acacia Tree Street) is located in the very center of downtown Budapest. I mean, we are really in the thick of it here. Up above is a photo taken on my street during the 56 Revolution. That's a statue of Stalin being torn down.
And picking a place in the middle of everything was no accident. With the option of going out to the family house in Leanyfalu, there was no reason to search for an escape from city life. Anyway, being in the center of the city comes with its ups and downs. And those ups and downs are particularly pronounced on our little street.
The first thing people notice is that our building’s basement houses one of the more popular pubs in the city, Old Man’s Music Pub. While we don’t hear the noise from the bar itself, we do feel the effect of being close to such a hot spot. There are the occasional bursts of noise out in the street, but the bouncers (who are huge) consider keeping the crowd quiet one of their main tasks. And of course there are the bottles and glass which are cleaned from the sidewalk each morning by a little old lady with bad posture, who I believe has some kind of mental disability. She is kind, but seems to be a bit detached from the ah… well, everything really. She wears a vacant expression that is both harmless and creepy.
The next attribute of note is the presence of homeless drunks. Quite a few of them find a place to sleep somewhere on our street, mostly in the doorways of stores that have closed for the evening. Many of them are the piss-soaked incoherent men that make one wonder how a person can fall so far, but there is one gentleman reminiscent of the much-romanticized American hobo. He plays a bad harmonica and talks to every passerby with a half-drunk smile. The good news is that these men are harmless. They knock down the quality of life meter, but they don’t want to cause trouble.
If there ever is any trouble, it starts in the wee hours of the night. And that is probably when the blood found its way onto our car. Downtown Budapest is a lively place, and lively often translates into drunk. And for so many, drunk often translates into fighty.
I don’t want to posit any definite guesses as to how the blood ended up where it did, but its presence gave me a reason to describe some of the more unique aspects of my neighborhood.
It may even help to explain my previous post.
But don’t take any of this as a complaint. I do feel safe where I live, and I feel excited to be in a part of the city that is changing for the better. After all, if the entire world was clean, law-abiding, and void of gruesome street fights, what kind of drama would we seek to get our blood flowing?
The first thing people notice is that our building’s basement houses one of the more popular pubs in the city, Old Man’s Music Pub. While we don’t hear the noise from the bar itself, we do feel the effect of being close to such a hot spot. There are the occasional bursts of noise out in the street, but the bouncers (who are huge) consider keeping the crowd quiet one of their main tasks. And of course there are the bottles and glass which are cleaned from the sidewalk each morning by a little old lady with bad posture, who I believe has some kind of mental disability. She is kind, but seems to be a bit detached from the ah… well, everything really. She wears a vacant expression that is both harmless and creepy.
The next attribute of note is the presence of homeless drunks. Quite a few of them find a place to sleep somewhere on our street, mostly in the doorways of stores that have closed for the evening. Many of them are the piss-soaked incoherent men that make one wonder how a person can fall so far, but there is one gentleman reminiscent of the much-romanticized American hobo. He plays a bad harmonica and talks to every passerby with a half-drunk smile. The good news is that these men are harmless. They knock down the quality of life meter, but they don’t want to cause trouble.
If there ever is any trouble, it starts in the wee hours of the night. And that is probably when the blood found its way onto our car. Downtown Budapest is a lively place, and lively often translates into drunk. And for so many, drunk often translates into fighty.
I don’t want to posit any definite guesses as to how the blood ended up where it did, but its presence gave me a reason to describe some of the more unique aspects of my neighborhood.
It may even help to explain my previous post.
But don’t take any of this as a complaint. I do feel safe where I live, and I feel excited to be in a part of the city that is changing for the better. After all, if the entire world was clean, law-abiding, and void of gruesome street fights, what kind of drama would we seek to get our blood flowing?
1 comment:
"And for so many, drunk often translates into fighty." i am dealing with a friend, a close friend here in austin, who is nearing a critical juncture in his drinking habits. the juncture that affords two outcomes. 1. stop drinking forever 2. continue drinking and watch your life via a weird third person perspective slowly become worse and worse as the alcoholism kills you. he's definitely the type of person that drinks, then at some point get's physically violent. sometimes it's just a hug that's too hard, or a shove. he did hit me in the face one night while we were wrestling, and then bear hugged me, which threw out my shoulder for almost 6 weeks. when i look him in the eyes sober, i see a wonderful friend, a incredible human being. but once a certain level of intoxication sets in, that friend start to disappear, and i begin to feel uneasy, spooked.
hogan i still need to know what airport to fly into / out of. oh and could dorah's folks or their company help me get a good deal on a plane ticket?
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