German Political Parties, According to Erik

Here's who's got posters up in Berlin for the Sep 22 elections:

Christian Democrat Union (essentially American Democrats, incumbents): "Let's keep bailing out Europe so they can buy our stuff."

Free Democratic Party (essentially American Libertarians, junior member of ruling coalition with CDU): "Market freedom wasn't the poison."

Socialist Party of Deutschland (largest opposition): "Market freedom was the poison."

Green Party of Deutschland: "Socialists aren't left-wing enough."

The Left: "Greens aren't left-wing enough."

Kommunist Party of Deutschland: "The Left isn't left-wing enough."

Marxist-Leninist Party of Deutschland: "Communists aren't left-wing enough. Also, it worked really well last time!"

Pirate Party (radical social libertarians, against the concept of intellectual property): "Programmers should work for free and have side-jobs like being waiters."

Stazis and Nazis

Well, Germany's had a dark past. This we knew. But like other matters merely of fact, there is very little emotional resonance, and experiencing part of it is much more vivid and the fact evolves into something that happened to real people.
I've now been to most of (I think) the major museums that outline the terror of the past:
-German National History Museum: incredibly thorough history of the country and a place where I learned a ton, even about WWI and WWII. The most memorable part, for me, was a small "architectural" sculpture that showed the Birkenau mass-execution building, with people waiting unbeknownst on one side of a wall and on another, masses of naked people packed together, screaming and writhing in agony as they were killed--most often by vehicle exhaust fumes, which took some 20-30 minutes. Other "able" inmates were forced to run the crematoria.

-The Wall: Y'know.

-Topography of Terror: Layout was more like a book hung up on placards--there was naught but text and pictures. It was built on the site of the old SS building, and everyone more-or-less decided it would be too awful to put anyone there, so they just had a museum about how evil these guys were. There were many quotes from leadership that can be summed up as: "We have an explicit policy to wholesale murder people in as horrible and evil a way as we can imagine. I know it is expensive and we're covered in debt but we have lots of people left to murder." Some SS members would even murder concentration camp victims as the last thing they did before fleeing allied advances because murdering people was the single most important thing on their minds. Just baffling.

This was near the site of Hitler's bunker in Berlin, where he killed himself (after marrying Eva Braun a day earlier) at the end of the war. The Soviets tried to eliminate it entirely with explosives, but being a bomb bunker this was pretty hard. Now it's an unmarked parking lot.

As Eddie Izzard described the scene:
Hitler: "Shall we get married, my darling?"
Braun: "Oh yes, mein furher! What shall our honeymoon be?"
Hitler: "Oh, you know: in a ditch, covered in petrol, on fire."
Bruan: "How romantic!"

-Holocaust Memorial & Museum: The memorial is abstract but quite moving. The museum itself mostly follows individuals and families throughout the entire holocaust process, from persecution to destruction. There were bits of poetry or diaries that do an amazingly terrifying job of describing what victims were thinking and feeling. It was also very important for this museum to make very clear how explicit the policies of genocide were, I think in order to eliminate any question about "whether it happened" or "was a Jewish conspiracy." Similar to the SS museum, a good part of it is dedicated to official documents and quotes from SS high-ups that make the "question" quite simple.

-Stazi Prison: (For those that don't know, the Stazi was the secret police of East Germany.) This one was the "sleeper" museum. In its own terrifying way, it was _awesome_. The (German) tours are led by old victims of the Stazi that actually suffered _in_ that prison. Our English guide was a clunky/awkward, but very passionate, young kid. The big takeaway for me from much of this and the other stuff I am hearing and reading about East Germany was that the Soviets/DDR just get way too big a break. I think they're entirely comparable to the Nazis in every bad way except obsession with racial genocide. But in our history I think we think of the Soviets as "enemies" and the Nazis as "an unacceptable, existential evil that had to be wiped off the face of the earth as soon as possible," when the Stalinist version probably fell more into the latter camp. (NB: the Soviets got a lot less horribly evil after Stalin's death, but seem to have remained quite evil.)

Anyway: the prison (one of 17, but the biggest) itself was used for political prisoners. The Stazi (remember, East Germany only) had 90,000 official agents and 180,000 "unofficial assistants" at its peak, compared to the Gestapo's peak of 7,000. The Stazi would round up some-but-not-all cases of dissent, although it probably knew most of what was going on (at its heyday it read almos tall mail, bugged most homes, could bug any call, etc). These dissenters (which included people like their own foreign and financial ministers) were usually sent to this prison. Pre-1961 they were stuffed into tiny cells with 10-15 people, a wooden bed, a bucket for a toilet. Even though the original cells could only hold a few hundred at a time, "thousands" (not sure of the exact count) died from malnutrition, horrible hygenic conditions (buckets were cleaned once per day but they never showered, never changed clothes), or abuse from guards. They weren't allowed to talk and had to simply stand in their cell (no sleeping) during the day. People went crazy from no sunlight, and if they started shouting or became agitated, guards would come to beat them.

 

This would house 10-15 people.

The prison was used to extract confessions. They'd suddenly grab someone off the street (sometimes even in West Berlin!), stuff them in a truck with some fake company name, drive them around for hours to disorient them, and then throw them in the prison (prisoners never knew where they were). The Stazi already knew what was happening, but by getting confessions out of people, they could "legitimize" their rounding-up, as well as other behavior (they used extracted false confessions from this prison to justify building the Wall). They used torture methods like Chinese water torture, a "wet cell" (a small cell with ankle-high cold water), and just good ol' beating.

 

 

In 1961 that part of the prison shut down as East Germany tried to gain international recognition and pretended it was not an evil evil dictatorship. A new "white torture" facility was built, with more humane conditions. Each prisoner had his own cell with glass "bricks" (allowing one to get light but not see anything), a shower once a week, food three times a day. One was not allowed to see other prisoners and never did (even in the halls--they coordinated to prevent this). This isolation, constant surveillance, etc, was used to "wear down" the prisoner until they would confess in the (nonviolent but still twisted) interrogation rooms. After "confessing" to disloyalty to the party, then it was off to the gulag for 20 years or so, unless they were purchased by the West (political prisoners became a major export for the bankrupt DDR by the 70's).

The craziest part for me was that occasionally former Stazi sneak into the tours, harass the tour guides (who were former prisoners!) and claim that these stories were fabricated! Apparently they have every legal right to do this but the tour guides can make them leave if they're sufficiently disruptive to the tour. Imagine, being an old, tortured victim, and some jerkwad Stazi runs around calling you a liar.

Part of the "deal" of the reunification of Germany was that the only crimes that could be prosectuted from the East were related to murder directly. Former Stazi and other state-sponsored criminals apparently live all over the place; some of them are apparently lawyers & judges. I'm not sure how many of them are "converted" and ashamed, and how many are still defensive of the old regime... but it sends chills down one's spine. I think it's another example where Nazis & Soviets are treated differently. You can't even legally deny most Nazi war crimes (mostly the Holocaust, I think), but you can run around and harrass ols prisoners if you're a Stazi guy.

So it was very much worth going to all these. I felt sad or angry or horrified at different points. But it's important that we never do it again. I think, for the modern age, we must be very careful of governments, policies, or majoritarian trends where alternative thought or belief is considered dangerous. These collectivist/statist states like Fascism and Soviet-ism depended, for their system to work, on a suppression of alternative opinions, values, thoughts, politics, etc; they needed scapegoats when their broken systems didn't work... and so these horrors of super-surveillance and political prison came about. Beware, my friends, curtailing our privacy, and beware participating in a cultural suppression of alternative thought.

A bit more on cooking

Here are a few pictures from previously-described epic dinner, including me describing our meal and showing off a heck of a beer-chin.

More on Dinner

Turns out we had 14 people (total, ourselves included) for dinner last night. Chicken Paprika turned out a bit on the chewy side but everyone politely pretended they liked it. As chef, I got a bit of applause and, sadly, found that flattery still makes me blush. I am *sigh* weak-willed.

As the Americans in the room with Germans, Brazilians, Poles, Portuguese, and Turks (and as the only new friends to this friend circle), everyone was quite curious about us and what we were up to. Oleg (from Poland) commented, "it's like you guys are from Mars."

This, combined with me being incapable of shutting up, meant we talked about America for about half the night, spanning all sorts of topics: the Pacific Theatre in WWII, the use of nukes, the Cold War, the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, what people in the US think about guns, socialized medicine, terrorism, Europe, the environment, obesity and health, spying on ourselves and our European allies, and all sorts of other stuff. It was a tough hot-seat. Government policy in the US is not an easy thing to defend, but 2 great things came out of it:
1) I think I gave some really clear explanations--some biased and some nobly objective--to our European friends that gave them some appreciation of the complexities and context of the US and why we're not the same as the Continent, and why some of what we do is either understandable or entirely legitimate even though it's different from how they do things.
2) I clarified my own positions on a lot of issues by explaining them to people who didn't already have strong and informed opinions about them.

And coming out of it, I'm both more troubled at our current state and hopeful about the long-term than I was before. But I continue a trend where my identity with my country is increasingly separated from trying to defend my government. I'm also following a trend where I'm realizing there is such a range of culture and society across the States that it's very hard to say one thinks like an "American" in many spheres, except in those few that we separate from the Europeans entirely.

For an example of the Euros' current feelings about our government (but not our people, as while they are baffled by us at times, they know there is a difference), this magazine title says, "The False Friend:"

Beer Garden & Kreuzberg

Well, I think I finally feel like I'm living somewhere, with new friends coming out of the woodwork and going with them to "hang out" at new places, rather than "be a tourist" at new places.

I feel like we're temporary housemates with Florian and Kristine, rather than "guests." This is a huge departure from before, and exactly what I was looking for. We chat with them after work over a beer; tonight we're cooking more Chicken Paprikas together, hosting a whopping 7 other people. I've been appointed "chefkoch," or just "chef."

Last weekend we also went out to an awesome beer festival: a line along Karl-Marx-Allee that stretches for a whopping 4 subway stops, hosting probably every beer worth its salt in Germany, as well as many from Belgium, England, and then other countries. A bit expensive (compared to most German beer), but pretty awesome nonetheless. Also included great foods such as pretzels, roasted/sweetened nuts, mini donuts and mini crepes, bratwurst, cured sausages, currywurst, and a yummy meat-and-cheese-cooked-into-bread concoction (we ate this over 2 nights, because we decided to go twice).

Neat and foreboding clouds over Karl-Marx-Allee.

More Beer Festival.

We linked up with Florian and Kristine once more, this time with some 8 other friends that were touring around the different stalls (these two are pretty popular!). We hung out with them from 9 'till midnight, talking at large part about what we loved and hated about our individual countries, to much laughter and some debate (the Germans, like other continentals, are both quite blunt and quite insistent that there is really no way the United States has any good beer). It was all, of course, in very good fun.

The brave (led by Florian and Stephan) decided to move on after all the beer stalls closed--tragically--at 12pm. It was Saturday night and apparently for most of the hardcore this means that they had just finished pre-gaming. For myself, I was getting small servings of each beer to try more, but was feeling quite sober. So I joined the brave.

We went down to Kreuzberg, which is allegedly the grittiest, dirtiest, most punk, metal, left-wing, tattoo-and-piercings-laden, ethnically diverse, etc etc etc part of Berlin (and also VERY SAFE, MOM). It's in West Berlin but was surrounded by the Wall on 3 sides, making it very undesirable and thus quite cheap. It was quite run-down for some time and began to be inhabited only by poorer immigrants. Because West Berlin was the only part of West Germany where there was no conscription, those who wanted no part of it would often find Kreuzberg a cheap place to quickly jump to. This, of course, meant that there was a disproportionately high number of left-wingers and other anti-institutional thinkers. Thus the metal, the punk, etc. (Note I'm NOT saying that anti-draft people are all that way. I have a strong opposition to any draft, myself.)

Anyway: our first stop was "Trinkteufel," or "Drink-Devil." As you can see from the outside (the inside did not disappoint), it was the single most Metal place I have ever, ever been. It was swelteringly hot, full of smoke, and served cheap beer from a few Metal bartenders to their Metal patrons. We stuck out like sore thumbs but unlike the horrible anti-fantasies playing through my mind, nobody got up and decided to make a thing of it. (There is a biker bar near our house and we are just plain not going to go in there at any point, despite this experience.)

 We ended up staying out in the bars until after 3am, and finally decided to turn in. On our way back, we had really great shwarma (recommended by Florian and Stephan). My favorite moment of the night, though, was this: Florian went to a 24/7 outdoor produce stall (I know, I don't get it either) and bought some 5 avocados and a few other things for 2 Euro. At our marvel, Stephan turns to us and, for the 4th time of the night, declares with the flair of a showman: "Welcome to Kreuzberg!" Not as funny written down, but maybe I'm just writing it here so 60-year-old Erik will remember and get a giggle.

It was a maddeningly long subway + walk back, and we got to bed at 0430. The below is a picture of the middle of Berlin from the north--this walk-bridge crosses train tracks and then you have a pretty straight shot to downtown where the wall used to be, so it's still sufficiently under-built that you can see quite a bit.

On an unrelated note entirely: I went to the German National History museum and, of course, focused mostly on Nazis and Soviets. This was my favorite part: a single brave soul, crossing his arms in defiance during a parade, instead of doing the Furher salute. Who knows what happened to him, but other people that acted like this got visits from the SS. Just a sign that no matter how mad things get, someone's got to stand up for what's right.

The Wall and some Jazz

Last night on the way to see jazz we biked past 1.3km of the (outer) Berlin Wall that still stands.

It was chilling. It was long enough to feel that one might be trapped inside it; on the East side (assume we're always on the East side as it's where all the interesting stuff is), there is still a large "gap" between civilization and the wall itself (if one is not in the middle of the city)--this use to be the death strip and the "no-go" zone before it. So one feels one is on the outskirts of the city, in a totally different place, than when one is just 100 meters further into East Berlin.

On the West side of this strip, the original graffiti remains. On the east side, there is new graffiti that isn't as exciting, but as we rode past it all, it still felt both surreal and magical. For myself, I finally felt some of this history, as I had never felt it before. In such a mood I later looked up at the moon and marveled, deep in my heart, as I never had before, that a whole 45 years ago we put people on it.

It is difficult to imagine the Berlin wall, I think. It surrounded West Berlin, but it was the people on the outside that were trapped--has a wall like that ever been built before?

Can you imagine how despicable a society you've created that you have to kill people to keep them from escaping it--and people still tried by the thousands? (600 were killed trying to escape, some 5000 or so succeeded.)

Can you imagine the depths of self-delusion, of dissociation from reality, necessary for a leadership to continue to persist in policies that have turned their entire society into a prison? They called the Wall the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart," as if it was designed to keep outsiders from getting in. But from day one (in 1961), the guns were turned to the East. Can you imagine being at the party meeting in which this name was chosen? Did anyone in the room think a single human would believe it?

Was this the entire history of the Soviet Union--a giant farce that nobody at all believed but kept running around repeating in the hopes it may someday come true? Were the lines from the Party simply smoke for the populace: "as long as you say this and nothing else the Stazi won't drag you from your beds?"

Maybe the leadership really thought this was the path to prosperity? That someday Socialism would be achieved, that people would be happy, and they'd look back and be grateful force and terror was used to keep their capitalist temptations at bay?

The Soviet puppet government announced on Nov 9, 1989 that East Berliners would be permitted "to travel" to Western Germany. The original intent was that it would be an extremely limited group, only with the right papers. This would be a token concession to unrest (largely by brave kids in Stuttgart) in East Germany (after the East Germans saw the Hungarian and Polish people thrust off the Soviets after the army withdrew)... but the party head had missed the meeting and was under-equipped for the press conference, unsure of what his Soviet masters has decided. With much nervousness, he tried to shuffle through his notes when he was pressed on the details of travel (for those mit gut Deutsch, the video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB2E2T7KzAM). Under pressure and stumbling, he announced that travel was permitted throughout Germany, and immediately.

Stunned, were the Berliners. From both sides they flocked to the checkpoints. The Easterners were tens of thousands, pressing upon the checkpoints and demanding to be let through. The guards, unsure of what to do (and not being told otherwise), abdicated and threw the gates open. And lo, the end began. West Berliners met their kinsmen with (literally, apparently) all the champagne in the city, and bananas (which were hard to get in East Berlin). Strangers hugged, kissed, and cried together. The guards themselves, standing aside, wept as well.

The Soviets never managed to, at least with East Berlin, fool them into thinking they were marching towards paradise; it was only terror and death.

And, 24 years later, the city is tough, gritty, edgy, and incredibly forward-looking. It keeps none (or little) of the ghosts of Soviet rule in its heart that Budapest has, and it is not nostalgic of its longer past like Czech. Berlin, having been through so much in a century, is somehow incredibly free.

And so after biking along this wall, we turned to find "some great Jazz" that our tourguide earlier that day recommended. Let's just say that we got a bit lost getting there and ran into some very sketchy dudes doing drugs and trying to be "friendly."

But after that, we figured out where we were going. We were in the hipster frontier of Berlin, dotted with bars strung with lanterns and lights; drunk-munchies junk food joints run by Turks; bike rental shops and apartments with plants bursting out the windows.

The Jazz club was an island in the dark park, glowing a deep and fuzzy gold from its lights. The Jazz was upstairs, in a room hot and muggy and oppressive even in the cool night. It had a thick haze of smoke (of various kinds) perhaps reminiscent of bars before such smoking-inside became illegal nearly everywhere. Almost everyone there was young, which I deeply did not expect.

But the music was the gripping surprise of the night. We learned later that this simply mind-blowing jazz was all jamming by folks that don't regularly play together. Volunteers (I guess it was "amateur hour?") swapped occasionally on the drums or guitar or piano. I've never before been able to truly wrap my head around improv... but how can you sync up with a group you don't practice with? And how so well?

I do wish I had words for the performance. It would have been a faux pas to record it and, indeed, would have certainly done little justice. Heather (a jazz buff far beyond myself) and I both agreed it had to be the most gripping and exciting live performance we'd ever seen. These guys lit up when they got into a groove and were absolutely daring in their playing, making musically dangerous and hugely expressive, hard, fast decisions that seemed to require mind-melded syncing. The bassist had his eyes closed and ears twitching, biting his lip and making the bass sing; the guitarist mouthed the "ba-dee-boo-ba" of his playing as he kept his shoulders tight and eyes fixed intently on the other players; the drummer anchored the group and nodded at them with cues and provided his own bombastic, loud, broad-brushstroke (but fast! so fast!) solos. Bongo drummers (who always worry me... luckily nobody smelled of patchouli) joined him and, much to my surprise and delight, ripped the song apart with the drummer and brought the humming crowd to a standstill, brought the other players to stunned silence as they stood aside to let this magic happen.

These guys were sweat-soaked and all grins when each song ended.

We'd never seen anything like it before. We'll be back next Tuesday night; we'll make our ride along the Wall, hop the hip bars, and get there much, much earlier.

Berlin's Expressiveness

I ain't never seen so many tattoos, mohawks, nor left-wing street arts in all me life.

Not complaining

That is all.

Prague, Cut a Bit Short

So: as warned, Prague was cut a bit short due to my crippling gastro-intestinal un-adventure. So a few quick notes about the place and then a story-by-pictures.

1) Food. We'd heard from both locals and visitors that Czech food is nothing to write home about. WELL GUESS WHAT?! I'M WRITING HOME ABOUT IT! Despite all the grumbling I was quite excited by good meats of all variety (sausages and other cured stuff, rabbit, duck, beef, venison, boar, etc--not quite Iceland but impressive nonetheless), potato dumplings (and potato pancakes, oi vey), dark bread, sauerkraut or other cabbage-y things. Goulash was also pretty good. Generally it was very hearty and washed down well with beer, and one cannot complain... but I have never been one for subtlety and will typically choose a very finely-prepared burger over a French soup, so there you have it. I liked it. Would have liked it even more if it were winter, and I can see how folks would get somewhat tired of it.

2) Language: by the end of the week (har) my Czech had gotten back up to snuff that I was having "conversations" in all Czech where I was using 20% content and 80% context to figure myself out. This worked both in a little tavern we ate at (where the proprietor didn't speak any English--go me!) and also on the bus to Berlin, where the attendant (that served coffee, gave out newspapers, and other delights--the bus is the new train, everyone!) spoke to me in all Czech even though she spoke perfectly good English, and I thus knew I had tricked her into believing that I knew Czech, which means my Czech was not awful.

Now slowly trying to learn Deutsch while in Germany, which I intend to try to hold on to through some future practice. 

Prague is a gorgeous, sight-dense city due to its awesome and well-preserved architecture, so let's not waste any time. And now, a story through pictures:

Below, a statue of something. Not entirely sure what, but it's quite high-gothic, no?

The Charles Bridge, from the south. You'll see some great pictures of this later. We're on the east side of the river here in Old Town, lookout out at the Castle Quarter (that's the castle, beyond the bridge). This was the first permanent bridge ever built in Prague by Charles IV, and indeed was on the Royal Route (for processions) for quite some time.

An opera house, with famous composers of Europe along the top, unlabeled. The story goes that during the Nazi Occupation, they wanted to get rid of the very famous Jewish composer on there (I don't know my composers, so sue me). The guys sent didn't know their composers either, so they triumphantly knocked over the composer with the biggest nose. Unfortunately, this was Wagner (Hitler's favorite), and they were probably brutally executed, or so we hope (seeing as they were Nazis).

A very cool old Synagogue. This is in the "Jewish Quarter," which was--like in the rest of Europe--a place of apartheid for the Jews of Prague. And, as usual, they picked the worst (at the time) part of the city, in part because it flooded all the time.

The neo-Gothic belltower in Old Town Square. You'll see the famous Astronomical Clock later...

Another church from Old Town Square. This moved between being Hussite (pre-Protestant) to Catholic (Hapsburg) to Russian Orthodox. It was in Old Town Square where Hus made his first declaration and general revolution.

There's our man Hus in this true masterpiece of a sculpture. To his right, Czechs rising up. To his left, they lay having been beaten down by the Hapsburgs.

Powder Tower below, where the militia kept its powder high and dry (literally).

To the right of Powder Gate is the art-nuveau Municipal House, where various changes of government were declared, including the fall of Communism, the Velvet Divorce, etc.

Another awesome opera house. Neo-classical, of course.

Below, the National Museum. Closed for a few years for renovations, but maybe the prettiest city in this very pretty city (the architecture is just awesome, as you're seeing). In the 1968 uprising, a good number of people were killed in front of this. The Commies ordered that the bullet holes be plastered over... the Czechs used off-color plaster to make sure they never forgot.

More Hare Krishna dudes! We saw three times. Running around and dancing is clearly their outreach program.

Wescensclas (Vaslavske) Square, just south of the National Museum, and site of the uprising.

Here's our guy, Good King Wescenclas (I have no idea how to spell the Anglification of this guy's name).

Same thing, but picturesque.

The famous Hotelu Evropa! Really the defining piece of Art Nouveau.

Looking down at the river bank. The river had lots of great bar/restaurant boats and kids hanging out along the banks eating/drinking. Even better than Paris, the banks also had little stands selling beer! Doing this was planned and canceled due to Erik's illness. Booo.

Heather enjoying absolutely delicious meat-on-a-potato-pancake. How is that not awesome?

Below is a monument (with real bullet holes) to the defense of Prague by the airborne units of the Czech army against the Nazi invasion in 1940.

Looking across the river, towards the Palace, at night. Just awesome.

One end of the Charles Bridge, at night. Both had very cool towers.

Monument to Franz Kafka. A direct pull out of one of his short stories. Apparently he wrote in German and was only recently translated into Czech!

A colorful sunset, ahhh.

More sunset.

We went to a very cool Jazz club and saw a gypsy klezmer band, who had the place quite rockin'.

Also the national museum, at night.

Prague, looking south from the belltower in Old Town Square.

Looking west. See the castle on the right?

Looking north, at that church-that-changed-hands-many-times.

Finally: Prague had the best street performers I've seen yet, from swordplay to fire-spinning to these dudes with bottles banging out pop tunes like the Friends theme and YMCA. Everyone actually looked like they were enjoying themselves, which is quite different from what we saw in Italy and Hungary. Behind were fake-old-looking stalls that still sold a mean, cheap sausage-on-a-bun. Would recommend if you're in the area and hungry.

Anyway, that's all--off to Berlin for one more crazy month.

Some Expectation Management on Prague

Loyal Readers,

Just to let you know: didn't see nearly as much of Prague as I would have liked due to being dreadfully sick for almost a week. I am getting over it and Heather has been extremely patient / generous with me, for which I thank her, but I just want everyone to know well ahead of time not to expect too much in the way of adventures.

Just got to Berlin yesterday so I'll be compiling all the Prague stuff soonly.

--Erik

Languages

So some of you probably know that Erik studied Hungarian and Czech to be able to get around in Budapest and Prague. Some have asked how that's going! I'll keep it short.

First, how I studied:
-April/May: Daily 30-minute Pimsleur audio course for Czech. I recommend it; make sure you're somewhere nobody is going to mind you repeating "Where is the bathroom?" in a foreign language.
-May/June: Same thing, for Hungarian

See a problem here? Maybe not yet.

Problem was that my Czech got completely overwrritten by the Hungarian. Same phrases, vocabulary, etc throughout the course meant that there were serious namespace collisions and the only thing my brain could really do was a full over-write.

This was probably the best move as in Budapest I ran into many people that spoke no English and I was, generally, able to operate quite competently!

Turns out Hungarian is unrelated in any way to other Indo-European languages and this makes it "one of the more difficult" out there to learn. Due in part to this, those in Budapest that _did_ speak English were totally thrilled that I spoke Hungarian. They constantly asked why, and were grateful for the grand effort (despite mediocre results). But I remember particularly delighting the old lady from whom we ordered "Reetesh," doing it all in bad Hungarian. She was smiles the whole time.

In Czech, slightly different story. I desperately tried to re-learn Czech on the long (but pleasant) bus ride to Prague. It was not so successful. I am sometimes answering in Hungarian, much to everyone's incredible dismay.

Unlike the Hungarians and Chinese (who are always thrilled when outsiders speak their language), the Czechs seem at best indifferent and at worst quite annoyed with my Czech. Again, it is not as good, but I guess the Czech operate a bit more like the French on this matter.

But at the end of the day, English is pretty much ubiquitous in Prague, so resorting to it for more difficult conversations is just not a problem. If I had to choose being better at one language for the visit, Hungarian would definitely be it.

--Erik

Through the Iron Curtain: Budapest

Now I know everyone thought that the trip we're on just couldn't get any cooler (except Clint).

You were wrong. No hard feelings, though!

I'd been to the wrong side of the Iron Curtain once before (to Moscow and St. Pete). Where Moscow seems to be either embracing or at least wallowing in its Soviet past, Budapest is struggling against it (St. Petersburg, a more Western European city since its founding, seems to have bridged some sort of middle between Russia and the West but I never really got its full vibe).

Hungary is currently dominated (2/3 of its seats) by a right-wing party (Fidesz) that embraces the more radical elements of the US' GOP (and its #3 party is currently Neo-Nazis). It's a country that's fairly angry, sometimes xenophobic, and economically reeling from the 2008 recession (and is currently in a double-dip, like most of the rest of Europe). GDP/capita is stuck at $20k (where, say, Czech Republic's is $27k).

Budapest has few signs of its Soviet occupation--dreary concrete buildings, for example--but it does have some. Most of them seem to be tongue-in-cheek reminders of Communist oppression, including "MTV" (the Hungarian National Television), next to a "Liberation" monument erected by the Soviets in Liberty Square. Remember that this is a country that in 1956 staged a bloody uprising against the Soviets that left thousands killed--they never forgot it and are still (in their way) proud of it. To the north lie a few Soviet monuments that we didn't go see, but many of the rest were just plain torn down. Bullet holes can be found every now and then, though whether from WWII or 1956, I can't be sure.

(PICZ HERE)

With all that said, Budapest was very cool. Sadly, I think we took far too few pictures.

The food was super-yummy. The beer remained awful (sigh... but Prague is next!), and while the wine was quite hyped-up we never found anything we really fell in love with... certainly not in comparison to, say, French or Californian wines. But let's focus on the positives here. Food: if you love onions, meat, paprika, potatoes, and lard (and who besides vegetarians doesn't?), then you're going to love Hungarian food. Heather and I have decided our primary pleasure in tourism is food, and so we've picked some very good places to go; Hungary is no exception.

Heather enjoying "Reetesh"

Erik cooking Chicken Paprikash = Yum

At a Wine Tasting

Hungarians apparently do not eat Hungarian food at restaurants much--not because it is not delicious, but apparently because everyone's Grandmother is individually the best cook in Hungary, so why eat out? We certainly found that this was the case with our wonderful hosts, Kamilla and Gabor. We don't have any pictures with them (why!?!!?) but let me tell you a bit about them:
1) Gabor's grandfather does indeed make the best Palinka (plum brandy, more or less) in all of Hungary, and they shared much of it with us at their house one night.
2) We got to go out with them two more times (three of seven nights; they are that cool), discussing all matter of topics from Hungarian & American politics (to which we were all in very close agreement, at least on the topics chosen), history, personal dreams, and etc.

In addition to homemade Palinka, we went to a bar that had some good (not great) craft brews from the Carpathian Basin (the area around Hungary). It was clear that the Craft Brew scene in Hungary is just starting up, but they're getting daring and the place we went was a pleasant epicenter of it.

The greatest nightlife we went to was the "Ruin Pubs." In fact, these are far and away the coolest pubs/clubs we have ever been to, without competition. The best was Szimpla (link goes to a Google Image search). These Ruin Pubs were built in the literal ruins of the Jewish Quarter (gutted by the Holocaust and abandoned by the Jews as quickly as possible--Hungary remains fairly anti-Semetic to this day) in only the last decade. This area is springing back up again with Budapest's own form of hipsters that are bringing incredible amounts of color, creativity, and charm to the area... and the Ruin Pubs are the pinnacle.

The Jewish Quarter at Night

Entering a Ruin Pub

Panorama of a Szimpla

One section of the massive Szimpla

Another section of the massive Szimpla

Wine bar of Szimpla

Walking around Budapest we saw and heard some pretty marvelous street performers, focused primarily around violins and Roma music (surprised? I'm not). Below, a video of one of a few amazing groups:

Much of the rest of Budapest's charm was in its architecture, layout, and monuments. Descriptions with pictures below.

Neo-Classical Church

Just a street--see the variations in architecture on the way down.

An old train station

Old baroque-ish period housing

A crazy old church, now a museum, near Corvin. Note the awesome rooftops, which are typical of Hungarian design.

Another church (neo-gothic?) near Corvin

The National Opera, at night. Quite gorgeous.

Hero's Square and the Millennium Monument. In the middle: the heroes. To the right and left: museums.

The founders of Hungary, a bunch of Central Asians (the "Margyar" tribe), in 896

 Castle, built in 1896 on the park

Panorama from inside the castle

More inside the castle

More inside the castle

The reconstructed Buda palace, at night

Liberty Bridge, at night

Another awesome bridge, at night

The Chain Bridge

Note the actual chain links

Pest, from the top of Buda

Neat sculpture in the palace

Saint Istvan, first Christian king of Hungary

A truly unique church (not the colors & patterns) dedicated to St Matthias

St Matthias Church, on the outside

And, of course, Parliament. It's as gigantic as it looks and currently the actual parliament only uses 1/8th of it (remember it was built for the Imperial age)

Second-last of note: we saw a buncha bats at night, well-illuminated by the light below, swarming around what we must assume were bugs, and feeding. Was quite awesome and had us entranced for some time:

Finally: we found these crazy dudes here, in Milan, and even in Prague. I couldn't get their brochure they were handing out (which I decided to get only once I saw them in Prague and my curiosity proved overwhelming), but I'm wondering if someone knows who the heck these guys are. They all dress in pastel oranges and pinks and such, and walk around with a drum and they sing/dance and look like they're trying very hard to look happy. It's quite creepy: