The city that kept a piece of my heart
Unknown
July 20, 2017
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.
