Hungary, Overreactions, Religion

Posted by stephen on Wednesday, 12th April, 2006 @ 16:34

Since I've returned from Budapest I've done a little reading about the political situation there and the Fidesz (right-wing) party doesn't actually sound that crazy. As my good friend Matt recently pointed out in his comment below perhaps my reaction to it is coloured by the lack of interest in politics in this country. So much so that seeing so many people get so worked up about it is almost shocking.

I'm told that neither party has consistently won two elections since Hungary began having them in the early 90s. This strikes me as symptomatic of a country that's doing it's best to get it right and working out how to get there. If only such enthusiasm existed in this country. And unfortunately I can only sight myself as an example of the apathy that exists here. I'm not happy with the present government, or indeed any of the current potential alternatives, but I'm not really prepared to do anything about it. What should I do?

Keeping it serious for just one more paragraph, I've just read a rather interesting article entitled Religion: Blight upon humanity? that's nowhere near as incendiary as it sounds. It highlights an interesting study correlating societal health issues with religious belief in prosperous democracies. It's an interesting read and I shall reserve comment on it for now.

On to the more fun stuff, I came back from Budapest on Friday morning and have to say I had a fantastic time. Unusually for me I took zero pictures while I was there. Fortunately, Richard was busily snapping away at all kinds of questionable things so I'll have some photos to remember the trip by. And he'll do unspeakable nasty things to me if I don't say now that any pics you see on the site from Budapest were taken by him and you can visit his website at www.smashingbloke.co.uk.

I can't describe exactly why, but I really loved the city and hopefully will go back later in the year. This trip shall be remembered by me for quite a few things. Incredibly reasonable and incredibly excellent food, large amounts of alcohol, several personal firsts and massive floods.

Apparently most of Central Europe suffered pretty terrible flooding last week. I've never been to Budapest before and apparently the Danube is usually considerably lower than it was on my visit. What I found interesting was that it didn't cause a problem for any of the buildings or bridges as far as I could see. Whoever and whenever these things were constructed there was sufficient foresight about the potential water level. A little later on some roads and tramlines were built without the same foresight. Whoops.

I have three personal firsts from this visit, it's the first time I've gone to a restaurant and had dinner on my own (whilst Richard negotiated the roof of a very Soviet looking concrete tower block), which felt much more comfortable than I expected it to. It's the first time I've gone to a bar on my own without planning to meet anyone there etc, and it was even a gay bar, which makes it even more of a big deal for me. That went really well too, especially once I'd got a few drinks in me.

Richard later joined me and pointed out the next morning just how much money I'd spent on shots of Unicum Next, a local delicacy. Suffice to say it was more than I spent on any one single thing in my time there! The third first therefore being that I've actually found a gay place I like, it's just annoyingly far away. It's a pity there's nothing like it around here. I even picked up some Hungarian while I was there (by which I'm referring to the language!)...

I'll buy the first person with an answer a drink if you tell me what it says (excluding Richard, Ally and Steve who know already).