The city that kept a piece of my heart

I came to Budapest for an Erasmus Traineeship at Legjobb Vagyok (I am the Best NGO) and I’ve been living here for nearly three months now. Not only have I developed my language skills (both of English and Italian, since I have an Italian work and flatmate – and other two Italian flatmates, and a tiny bit of Hungarian as well – ok, I’ll be honest, my knowledge of Hungarian sums up to the words I incessantly hear at the public means, such as “végállomás” or “kovetkezo megalló”); I’ve also acquired new knowledge about marketing, such as the concepts of direct and indirect marketing, social media best practices (timing, quantity and quality of posts), and I’ve developed my writing and video making skills.

We’ve had fun in the office when there were five or six of us; my favorite days revolved around food, of course, and were when I walked to the market with Duru to grab lunch or when I went to the place that sells huge ice cream with the others. But there were also times when we went for a walk or to play something, and it was cool. Or when there was this deafening silence on the office, and suddenly somebody started laughing out of nowhere. I also really enjoyed the view of our building from across the street: the beautiful trees on the entrance, the brown church right beside it, the arch back in the yard…

I can’t say that it has always been easy, though. The office got kind of crowded at a certain point and I felt it was affecting my productivity. Sometimes personal relations got a little tense as well, but with patience, self-reflection (of both parties) and civilized discussions, one could manage to pull it through. But apart all that, most of the days were nice, especially when András took us to visit the Asian Center, Bósnyak Market, Szentendre and to the surprise event, which consisted on Hungarian folkloric music and dances.

Now the most difficult part is to talk about the city and what it represents to me… I arrived with my expectations up for finally being back to living in a capital (ok, I’m from Rio de Janeiro and it’s not the capital, but truth be said, it’s huge and it’s Brazil’s most famous city), and I’m gonna leave disappointed… Disappointed that I have to leave, disappointed with what the other cities around the world could offer but don’t, disappointed because Budapest made it really hard for other cities to compete with it in terms of having fun for free. I’m not trying to depreciate other cities here; it’s just that when you’re a student with not much money to spend but wants to have a good time anyway, some places make it a hard task to be accomplished, while in Budapest you can have fun for free every day. There are always many things going on: the nightlife here offers so many free options; there are free events, parks, the amazing view of the Danube and its bridges (where I once sat and spent the whole afternoon chatting with my friends) Margaret Island, Citadella, Buda Castle’s garden, Fisherman’s Bastion and fireworks over the Danube every now and then. By the way, for me the city is completely different during the daytime and at night, so make sure to see it both ways. I’d also like to point out that here I felt safe to walk around at any time of the night or day (even though you can occasionally find some harmless drunk people). Budapest is nothing but magical.

Well, even when you have to spend money on things like food and the thermal baths, you  ‘ll realize that it’s pretty affordable, and better yet, so much worth it. My favorite places to eat were on the Jewish Quarter, more precisely on Kazinsky utca. I often bought ice creams as well but in other neighborhoods – preferentially not the touristic ones, where they would sell a tiny scoop for twice the price. 

I’m not ready yet to think about how much I’m going to miss the city and the friends I made here. When you spend so much time living with someone, they start to look like they are family. And if you’re lucky enough as I was, it’s the kind of family that you’d like to keep around. We’ve shared so many laughter and great moments, and also a few bad ones. All of them were good to keeping us closer. I’m pretty sure that we’ve all learned important lessons about living with different people with different manners and habits and that all of us are now somehow better and wiser. I’ll also miss the friends I made at work, and amongst the many memories, there were three songs that deserve to be highlighted for being part of a top-notch of my time here: riders on the storm, Budapest and the absolute number one, DES-PA-CI-TO.

At last, I just wanted to thank for the opportunity I was given. If I got here it was because someone believed in me, and I hope I was able to correspond to this expectation. Those were wonderful three months and I’ll certainly speak with my heart rather than my mouth when asked about how was Budapest.

This article was written by Nathalie Diirr Miglio Bensabat.