St. Stephen’s Day

As usual, I’ve got a complete backlog of topics to write and no time to write them. Budapest has been quite fun so far but the time gained by my slightly-decreased amount of partying has been consumed by the terrific increase in local events. As it turns out, I happened to show up the day before St. Stephen’s Day, which may be Hungary’s biggest party of the year.

St. Stephen–that is, the Hungarian St. Stephen–was the first king of Hungary about 1,000 years ago. Dude stepped into town, whipped up on all the Magyar tribes living in the area, brought them into a single, federated state and introduced the heathens to Jesus. Ever since then we’ve called this area Hungary. But, confusingly enough, the similarity to the nomadic Huns ends with the name.

For the several-kilometer long stretch of the Danube that separates Buda and Pest these people were throwing down in Steve’s memory like the party animals they are. Red Bull put on an air show, ethnic foods and crafts were hand-made among the crowd, and beer was everywhere. Right after sundown they put on a fireworks show that was literally four times greater than any show that I have ever seen in my life. That is, each of four bridges over the Danube detonated more colorful explosives than the largest show I have ever seen in the states.

But midday I was wandering the streets of the city when I stumbled into a hell of a show, of a different sort. Off the main roads, the beautiful St. Stephen’s Basilica is not visible to normal traffic. As I rounded a corner and caught this remarkable site the bells erupted into a thunderous climax of joy. Thousands of people were crowding around the entrance and even two former and the current presidents of Hungary were present. Within minutes, the main event: the right hand of St. Stephen himself, enshrined in a vessel of gold, was carried into the church. Leave it to those wacky Catholics to openly weep and cheer over some desicated bones.

Today I saw a bunch more of the city. On castle hill the weekend-long party was continuing with ethnic music (I want it on CD), artisans demonstrating century-old practices of wood, iron, and wool working, and of course that great Hungarian food. I also saw the House of Terror, which provided me with even more data on how ugly those goddamn commies were.

Tomorrow I’m going to add a few pictures to the site as well as a couple of experimental articles right from my travel journey. Until then…