On the Beautiful Blue Danube: Part 3

     When we look on the past we find colors limned in either vibrancy or dullness. Unless pleasant or putrid, scents settle into dormancy until we brush with them again. While dots on the past timeline become rigid objectively, other points gain animation and begin to mash in our heads. They scramble to anticipate the motion of the pinpricks that waver about the future with indiscernible frequency and order. In our heads, we see what we want to see, and we strive to connect everything because of our sense that everything actually is connected. Emotion alters memory as a writer embellishes a story.

     It seems to me that many months have passed since my return from Europe, so Prague and Vienna begin to merge in my memory. Without looking at my notes, the first thing I remember about Prague is its surfeit of cobblestone. Stretching to eternity beneath renovated buildings, these stone walks of two-inch cubes form into designs that sometimes move under clumsy feet and tipsy minds. Groups of men always hammer them into the ground one after the other. These groups repair and replace old stones with new, black, white, and grey.

     They – the men and their stones, the minute and numerous garbage trucks – keep the city pristine. They all ensure that Prague remains worthy of being seen by eyes the world over. Conscientious strollers dress quite fashionably; they put us all to shame. Yet, the shopping is cheap because of reluctance regarding the conversion from crown to euro. Restaurants, etc. near and around Old Town Square make practice of scamming tourists and chase them away to Vienna, I suppose, where music fills the streets.

     On the popular streets of Vienna, quartets count time and hearken back to another age when musical giants gravitated to the city. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Strauss are paid homage by men clad in 18^th-century garb. They gesture and prompt ticket sales to upcoming performances at the Vienna State Opera House. They speak German and English while they extend pamphlets to diverse bands of people dispersing and assembling around musicians and cafés.

     Warm with wine, we hop from this café to that. We eat cake and visit Haus der Musik, the museum of sound and music where science and history nestle into its floors. On the big screen of the interactive installation at the peak, the Vienna Philharmonic applauds the successes or jeers at the failures of baton-wielding conductors. We experts follow the rhythm of The Blue Danube and a myriad other classical works.

     I wonder now if we could have taken the Danube River from Budapest to Prague and then to Vienna. Maybe then, along a smoother flow, the memories wouldn’t blend so soon. Moreover, I know that journeys through several time zones tend to damage “internal clocks”; they cast a haze over “reality.” So now, here in Kansas, back here in the center of the most developed part of the New World, I’ll ground myself. I’ll relish the moments and forget about the seconds between now and the time I choose to see the world again. 

Footless on the Charles Bridge but ready for rain in Prague

Fin

On the Beautiful Blue Danube: Part 2

The legend goes that the Danube River appears blue only to the eyes of those in love. Its brown color ceases to register, and a lover can either struggle or submit while the beautiful blue consumes him. He familiarizes with insanity after he accepts that he has no choice; he has only love. Through release, he experiences unconditionality and forgives everything because of an itchy feeling that death is the alternative. 

On the 14^th and 15^th of July, 2012, servers caroused about the tables at my brother and sister-in-law's wedding reception in Hungary. They sported trays that overflowed with shots. We consumed them incessantly, and I thought the servers encouraged insanity and emotion. They watched while I tried to keep from overflowing during the groom's visual presentation, which was at first a history of their relationship and then a musical, lip-synched tribute to it. 

In retrospect, the bride and groom drank in the beautiful blue and even succeeded in making the brown a little less murky for (most of) the rest of us. They looked at each other during the ceremony and created indelible imprints on their minds. Each was determined to remember the other's body language and facial expressions. Each was prepared to discern the layers of thought and feeling that flashed beneath the oceans in the other’s eyes. 

I was envious, even jealous. Embarrassingly, I imagined my own ceremony and created the features of my love's face. I made severe angles, a subtle smile, and kind eyes that revealed his desire - even there - before God. He had not only this yearning but also ardent devotion that both ruffled and comforted me. His touch with the ring reinforced my idea of him as we stood in front of our immediate family and closest friends. 

I got a little insane that night, but I kept it hidden beneath a coating that only a few knew how to nibble. I took shots, and I danced alone, and I thought of how scandalous the waltz was when it was new. People dancing in such close proximity - they threw it in our faces, really. So, in front of everyone, I did the Twist. After the fireworks, I got tired and overwhelmed. In bed I got a headache, and the next day I threw up four times. 

They're about to cut through the coating, and we're all about to eat cake

On the Beautiful Blue Danube: Part 1

     Through the blue tinted windows in the rooms of Art'otel Budapest, my family and I gazed on the Danube River every morning. Its brown color transformed into one more favorable, more fitting, to Johann Strauss's waltz "The Blue Danube." Cyclers made constant use of the path on our side of the riverbank, ringing incessantly at posing tourists (at us. To be fair, the pavement was marked: half for walking, half for cycling). The Parliament building stood in clear view across the river. Illuminated until midnight, its beauty and magnificence seemed to dwarf that of anything I'd seen. 

     Upon stepping from the hotel we grew accustomed to the smell of sewage; our noses un-crinkled sooner with every expedition. But during most of these outings we walked across the Chain Bridge, and I whistled that brilliant waltz while we peered at the building (the largest in Hungary) and everything else. We craned our necks at the statues of lions that towered on each end of the Bridge. Tongueless, they roared as the river must have below and stood as symbols of power and protection. They stood in the way of those who dared oppose Hungarians' desire to be ruled religiously by anything other than Catholicism and its seat at the Vatican. 

     In the 1850s, the Chain Bridge was one of several built to connect two separate cities: Buda and Pest, pronounced "pesht." Art'otel (decked from top to bottom with "classy" [depressing] artwork) is in Buda. However, some of the best restaurants and shopping are in Pest. Pork is the meat of choice in Hungary, paprika, the spice and goulash, the dish. Variants of this dish are everywhere, as is pálinka, a fruity and delicious liquor that is customarily imbibed in shot form upon entering others' homes. If there's any Hungarian custom I'll be sure to adapt when I've a place of my own, it's certainly this one. 

     In Buda, which is hilly as opposed to the flat Pest, we got a chance to see the city from higher places. Originally bronze statues turned sea green with age, cathedrals with intricately painted interiors, a castle built in symmetry with its Transylvanian counterpart...all of these, I took in stride. The people walking about them were more interesting. These people were kind and hospitable. Women were usually pretty and men were usually muscular, or so it seemed. The young (and plenty more) partied hard, and it was possible that the old (and plenty more) harbored prejudices. 

     Gypsies, people usually of Middle Eastern appearance in Eastern Europe, apparently live in ill repute in Budapest. Due to perhaps widespread perceptions in Hungary that these people escalate crime, that they hassle, harangue, and threaten, they are occasionally shunned. Given the fact that some make a habit of lumping people into groups based on appearance, I wasn't the only one in our party who wondered if we would be treated poorly during our encounters with the natives. In retrospect I don't believe that any such thing happened, but I know that rejection based on who or what I am would cut. 
     
     I found that one of the two English language news channels available in the hotel, Russia Today, keeps its mother country's rivalry with America alive and healthy. Among stories detailing Americans' ridiculous indignation over the Chinese origin of their representatives' Olympic uniforms, reports of outrageous American torture tactics, and bloody battle footage there were constant ads for a reality show called Divers. In them, dumpster divers rooted through the trash of stores like Trader Joe's and made delicious-looking meals with perfectly unspoiled food while they rattled off statistics about exactly how much these organizations waste. Capping these messages were promos for the RT News app, which encourages viewers and users to "occupy Wall Street online!"

     These perceptions and their overwhelming presence on an international news channel were eye opening, to say the least. I wished that we had such raw reporting in the stateside mainstream. But after long days with opened eyes, I started to brood. In the end, I switched to Japanese news in English. There, everyone was happy and innovative. (And yet, you say, it IS the most homogenous society on the planet. Yeah, yeah.)

The Parliament building at night from a boat on the Danube River