14 SEPTEMBER 2004
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Subject: Budapest. Date: 14 Sep 2004 From: James Clark Budapest I went to Budapest with a new low cost airline, Wizzair. Like all good low cost airlines it has a brightly coloured livery and a silly name to match. They also have the occasional promotional fares, such as 100,000 tickets at €1 (plus tax, of course). The good thing about these airlines are that the planes are new as well. Wizz only started in June this year and the interior still had "new plane smell" - an aroma similar to the one we all know and love in cars. A brand new Airbus A320 with leather seats. Very nice. I've had an uncanny knack this year of turning up to places when some sort of national event is on. So it was that I turned up to Budapest on St. Stephens day, a day celebrating the before mentioned Stephen who founded the State of Hungary in 1000AD. On my first walk along the Danube I found Hungarian dancers in their traditional garb and giant pots of goulash bubbling away, as if this happens every day in Hungary. "Airshow? Buzz cut Alabamians spewing colored smoke in their whiz jets to the strains of 'Rock you like a hurricane'. What kind of countrified rube is still impressed by that?" - Sideshow Bob I am Sideshow Bob, I am. If you didn't guess by my first paragraph, I like my aircraft and aviation (not in a plane spotting kind of way though). Included in todays celebrations was an airshow that was performed along the length of the Danube. It made for a spectactular show with the Buda Castle, Chain Bridge and Parlament building as backdrops. If there was one disappointment of the show though it would have to be the accompanying soundtrack. Being that we were in Hungary, a former Eastern Bloc country, they would have done well to have played some "Scorpians" (as Sideshow suggested), "Europe" or some other long forgotten hairy 80's East German outfit. Instead we got 90's drum and bass "Chemical Brothers" and "The Prodigy". 
Budapest is a beautiful city. Once two towns Buda and Pest divided by the Danube. Buda is where the old town is with its hilly, windy streets. Pest is characterized by lots of long, elegant streets with stately buildings that come with being a former imperial capital. The Parliament Building, like Westminster, is a neo-gothic classic built on the riverside. 
You can still see reminders of Hungarys former soviet past. There is an interesting statue park outside the city called "statue park" home to giant communist statues. James |
