Leaving Hungary...
As of 6:15 PM this Friday, June 15, I'll be leaving Budapest and heading in to Kyiv to start shooting Chernobyl. I haven't a clue what my internet access there will be like, but I suspect it won't be nearly as convenient as what I have right now (Wifi in-house at my nephew Tristan's place, where I'm staying) so those of you who have been in regular contact with me, please don't expect me to be too prompt with my email replies.
Budapest has been AMAZING, and I'm really quite sad that I have to leave tomorrow. There's been no shortage of interesting things to keep me occupied during my stay. I've climbed Gellert Hill (Among other things, an old WWII fortress, but with evidence of use dating back to 1200BC and the Celts.), wandered through St. Stephen's Basilica (Szent István-bazilika in Hungarian) seen his mummified hand in a shrine. (The church keeps it in a reliquary at the back of the basilica. The hand is kept in the dark unless you put 100 Forints ($0.75 CDN or so) into a small machine to one side. Once you've paid up, a light comes on illuminating the hand for 60 seconds or so. If you want more time to pray to it, you need to pay more.) The rest of the Basilica is absolutely GORGEOUS, and quite honestly blows St. Paul's in London clear out of the water. Even Notre Dame in Paris couldn't hold a candle up to what they've got here in Budapest.
I've tried, twice, to visit the Hungarian Parliament and take a guided tour of the place, but haven't been able to swing it unfortunately. I'll have to do it next time I'm in town.
Other highlights here have included Statue Park, or Szoborpark, is a park just outside of Budapest proper where a large number of old Soviet-era statues have been "retired" ... Personally I think it was a true stroke of genius, saving all of them and making a park out of them. It's an AMAZING place, and well worth a visit if any of you reading this ever happen to make your way to Budapest. This is definitely on my list of places to come back to. I'd love to spend a few days working on a photo essay here. Sadly, I only had an hour before I had to hop back on my bus and head back in to town.
Last but not least on my itinerary for the week was a visit to the Children's Railroad, a small-gauge rail-line operated almost entirely by children. Apparently these things were quite common during the soviet days, and a quick google search reveals that there are several still in operation, though the Budapest one is still, from what I can find, the largest and most successful of the ones that remain. It took me an hour or so to find my way to Széchenyi-hegy (I believe, but am not sure, that "hegy" means "station" or "stop"). From there I took the train to János-hegy, then got off, walked for a while, and took a chair-lift back down to the city before busing home. The railway is another thing I'd love to come back and spend a week or two shooting as a documentary project. The kids are AMAZING, they literally do everything except drive the train itself (a job reserved for adults only), though, as the picture below illustrates, boredom does strike at times.
That's all for now. I'll do what I can to post an update or two once I've arrived in Kyiv, but I make no promises. I'm flying solo from Budapest on (That is, I've had wonderful friends and family putting me up until now) so things should get a bit more ... interesting... as I progress east.
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Nic's Current Location:
Tristan and Krisztina Hume's Apartment, Budapest, Hungary
+47° 29' 25.43", +19° 4' 6.08"
