BUDAPEST - A MIXED BAG

I'm finally updating this blog on my eighth and hopefully final day in this city - the longest I've stayed in a place since being in India. How strange this is, as Budapest is probably the least favourite place I've visited in the past five weeks - but then again this always seems to happen, that just as I'm fed up with a place and am all set to leave, something special happens.

On my first few days here I struggle to hold myself in the big city. It's hot and sticky, it takes a long time to get anywhere, it's proving almost impossible to be even a vegetarian and eat well here (I've been surviving on mung beans and pumperknickel bread) and my hostel in the 'Pest' area of the city is a total flea pit. Loads of travellers come back from Sziget festival wired and weary, and the 150 bed building is all of a sudden heaving with smelly bods most of which have been void of shower for the entire seven day music festival.

Busking has gone well, however. I play mostly up at Castle Hill near the Fisherman's Bastillion, a beautiful white marble area whose beauty reminds me a lot of Sacre Couer in Paris. So, as I'm playing on what I plan to be my final day in the city, a funky blonde Dutchie rocks up and introduces herself as Saskia. She has a look through my song book, and I hand her the guitar as it turns out she's a singer-songwriter as well. She sings two beautiful self penned songs in a high clear voice; I join in on the choruses and there's certainly a musical chemistry there... and because of this I decide I just can't leave for Bratislava the following day. Instead, we plan a rendezvous of our own.

We meet the next day, same time, same place, and play together for the first time. It's rough and unpractised but there are certainly moments of magic there, and I learn some new songs that are good for busking - Skunk Anansie, Cranberries, Anouk... We make enough to buy groceries and cook for five people at her hostel, which is so social and friendly that I decide to move in the very next day. The place is called 'Back Pack' and is run by a seriously well travelled dude who's spent a lot of time in India, so I feel right at home.

All of a sudden my Budapest experience has changed for the better... now, in a better mood, I busk alone and am gifted with not only money but also a signed photograph of the Budapest Parliament at sunset by an artist who sells his works in the weekends. A funny guy in a hat who sits making bird noises gives me a 'squeaker' and buys me a beer, and I also get some strange currencies I can't even recognise - in the end I decide they are Russian. A bunch of teenagers from an unknown country sing along with me on 'Hotel California' and keep throwing coins at me after each verse (!) and there's certainly plenty of good craic to be found (!!)

I take a day off from busking on Sunday; it's St Stephen's Day and a National holiday, and manage to survive the insane storm that comes out of nowhere at 9 p.m that night; half the cities population is crammed down at the Danube watching the fireworks. It's a total disaster, and at least two people die when trees fall upon their car. Having been in the monsoon in different parts of India, I've still never seen a storm as vicious as this... Saskia and I walk for an hour back to the hostel completely saturated, observing children crying, drunks hollering and teenagers screaming in excitement... it's pretty big, though it doesn't stop the damn fireworks from blowing their tops - they go on for over half an hour from three different vantage points while all around us a different kind of chaos is erupting...

Today, as I finally get around to updating this, I come from an amazing busking experience. Now, I've never been to Italy, but right now I could be forgiven for easily forgetting this fact... on a break from our songs, Saskia and I are approached by maybe three Italian tourists at first, who ask us if we know any songs in their language. I respond by simply handing the guitar to them, and what begins as one or two simple songs turns into a full blown hoopla with the rest of their tour bus linking arms and dancing around us, and about fifty cameras all flashing left right and centre, taking photos and making movies of the spectacle. My face hurts from smiling so much, and we even leave them to it for a while, sitting back and taking a break from our songs as the madness unfolds. At the end of it all (maybe fifteen wierd and wonderful minutes of full Italian comraderie), they've tipped us a total of twenty euro as well as Hungarian forint, and everyone leaves laughing and exclaiming 'Bravo!' 'Bellissiimo!'. It's totally hilarious...

It's been a strange week here. I can't say that I love the city, even after all this time to get used to it, though I think that's mainly down to the fact that I've had enough of big cities. However, I've made a great musical contact which has been more than worth sticking around for - we talk about meeting in Holland next year to possibly record some tunes together. Oh, and I almost forgot - here's another one of those small world stories - within my first two days in the city I'm approached by two people that saw me busk in Ljubljana, and one of them even shows me a photo he took of me singing on the bridge. Spooky! Though in the best possible way... I don't mind at all.

And next on the list? Bratislava calls me.. to be honest, Ljubljana and the rest of Slovenia call me more, as I feel that the country really got into my heart in some way. I plan to return there in a while, after Poland and the Czech Republic, and of course the Slovakian capital where I'll find myself some time tomorrow afternoon, all going well... I say this, knowing full well that the hostel I've moved to is notorious for making one never want to leave it's leafy gardened grounds... stranger things have happened...