Park Guell and Eating on the Rambla

A few years back was our Honeymoon. We had a great trip, couple of nights in Barcelona along with some traveling across Morocco. It was my wife's dream to go to Morocco - and also to go to see Barcelona and a flamenco show - so it was with an easy glance at flight patterns that we decided that we could do both.

After a careful study of the price variations of dates and cities, and some discussion with my wife, we had agreed that we would go to Barcelona for a couple of days, then fly to Tangiers, travel to Chefchouan, then to Fes, spend New Years in Fes, and fly back to Barcelona for another two nights. On the first leg of the trip, we would see my wife's best friend and husband, who would stay at the same hotel we were in.

From the airport

We found our hotel with ease. There is a bus that costs 5 euros 90 one way, or 10 euros 20 two ways, from terminals 1 and 2 of the Barcelona airport to the city center, with stops at Placa de Espanya and Universitat, ending at Placa de Catalunya, which is the aortic heart of Barcelona, the primary arteries of Passeig de Gracia and La Rambla both stemming out of that plaza's ventricles. You can book bus tickets online here.

The hotel and Spanish night habits

Our hotel was called Pension Miami, located in the Raval district, about a 5 minute walk from Placa de Catalunya and 2 minutes from Universitat, right behind the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. The rooms are tiny, but with nice touches of character, like carefully carved woodwork making a kind of mantel over the otherwise Spartan bed. The room isn't much bigger than the bed, the bathroom follows suit, and the Russian couple staying next door could easily be heard with every entry and exit, and one could take pleasure in their snoring while using the toilet with the window to the bathroom's sunwell open. Our bedroom window opened to another sunwell, so we had no view of the street - which after visiting Spain with my parents earlier in the year, I discovered was a wonderful thing. The Spanish don't start their partying until around 11 and finish up at 7 in the morning, every day of the week, and since typical Spanish bars are about the size of that Pension Miami hotel room, most of the partying happens on the street.

near our hotel

As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we met our friends, and immediately went out for a walk through the Gothic district. The Gothic district - so-called because of the Germanic influence on the cathedrals of the area - is a tightly packed district of narrow winding corridors and tall, five-story buildings. Many corridors can't fit even two or three people shoulder-to-shoulder, so that much of the area is pedestrian by default (and there are constantly plans to make more places only pedestrian). A walk through this large area can show you how people have been living in Europe for centuries. I've never really seen a place in Europe like it except for maybe in Italy.

Eating on the Rambla

First up was dinner, and while in Spain, I wasn't going to miss paella - a rice based dish of various sea creatures - which I had fallen in love with while traveling with my seafood-faring parents. This was my one culinary requirement. And we passed one restaurant serving it - indeed, as we'd later see, there are plenty of restaurants serving it - with a guy standing outside, inviting people in. We opted against it. Our friend's reasoning for her negative vote, "Restaurants that need someone on the street to convince people to come in can't be good."

on La Rambla

Normally I'd agree, especially where we live in Prague, where most restaurant workers in local places try to hide from customers. In Spain though, this seems to be the standard regime. It might be something carried on down from their Moroccan heritage, since the Arabs seem to have the same habit about getting people inside, as certainly nowhere else in Europe has this annoying habit of trying to invite people to come in - except maybe in certain, tourist heavy places. Outside of every restaurant stands a "tout", telling you about how delicious their food is, offering discounts, and often blocking your way with their menus and bodies so that you'd quit walking and come inside. Of course, for most people, this has the effect of frightening them off - like in our friend' case, and it would in my case too had I not seen the practice before.

in the Gothic Quarter

We ended up at a restaurant on La Rambla. I'm convinced that every restaurant on La Rambla is exactly the same and with somewhat poor quality. "But there are a lot of people in them," our friend protested my rambling on La Rambla while we waited for our food (it was strange that she was pessimistic about touts and yet not about tourist heavy areas).

La Rambla is the main tourist area of Barcelona. It's about a mile long street, which divides the old town of Barcelona with the newer area, "El Rival". I say newer area, but new in Europe's terms, which means about 700 years old. Back in the early days, only the Gothic Quarters were walled and the wall ran exactly at the edge of where La Rambla runs today. The suburb, or El Rival, was on the opposite side of this cleared pathway (defensive measures usually keep development and trees from the outside of walls, to make it easier to shoot people). In the 1400s, El Rival was walled in too, but the urban impression remained, creating a huge avenue running down the center of the city.

Anyway, enough about La Rambla and more about touristic nonsense. "Here's something I especially learned in Prague," I said. "Often the most touristic restaurants are the worst. This is because of what they have to compete on. You can compete on location, atmosphere, food quality, service, and probably a few other things. Touristic restaurants are competing on location and often atmosphere. Because they have the location, they know that the thousands of tourists in Barcelona every weekend are going to see their restaurant and come inside to eat, because it's easy, and they see other people in there - other tourists like them - and assume that because other people are there, it must be a decent enough place. But then, because the restaurant knows this, they don't really have to invest on the quality of the food or necessarily the service.

a square in the Gothic Quarter

"Every real estate agent will tell you that value is made from 'location, location, location', and for the lazy, uninspired restaurateur, this is absolutely true. They need the location, and the steep prices the location brings, to raise up profits, rather than a strong reputation for quality service and amazing food.

"Better then, I think, the restaurants that aren't located in the primary thoroughfares. Maybe you'll get an occasional restaurant competing on food quality in a touristic location, but then they'll easily get famous being touted on Tripadvisor or Lonely Planet, they'll up their prices or down their quality to make more money. But if you can find something just outside of super easy reach - like being on La Rambla - and preferably not having been on Lonely Planet for too long, then you'll find a restaurant that might be competing on food quality."

also a street in the Gothic Quarter

The food that night was plain, the paella uninspiring. And to be sure on our return path through Barcelona when we again ate at a paella place on La Rambla, I found the paella equally dull as my wife found her pizza pretty flavorless. This only confirmed my suspicions about the economics of restaurants.

As for walking on La Rambla, I didn't really see the fuss. As you can tell, I took more pictures of the Gothic Quarters, so go walk there. It's much more interesting and there are by far less touts and scammers hanging around.

Park Guell

The first on our tourist to-do list was Park Guell, which was an old Catalan noble family who had hired none other than Anthony Gaudi to design the property around his house. Gaudi built pavilions for events, a viaduct for walking, some statues, and some houses, including his own. Half the property - which is now a garden - was planned to be a subdivision of houses designed by the eccentric architect, but they never got around to starting the construction. After Franco took power, the place was turned into a park and Guell's home into a school, while Gaudi's house was turned into a museum.

looking out from Park Guell

The metro and getting there

Park Guell is easily reached from Placa Catalunya on the L3 metro line, getting off at the Vallcarca stop - don't listen to tourist guide books, they lie, the other stop has a lot of uphill walking. The metro in Barcelona - though the general plan of the metro is about as confusing as quantum mechanics - is fairly easy to use, since each station and line is fairly simple. Leaving the metro at Vallcarca, it's pretty easy to follow the signage to the Park. The signage takes one to a series of outdoor escalators that go right up the mountainside, making the ascent easy enough for even our fattest of friends.

another view from the park

At the park

At the top, one is confronted with going up the hill to the place of three crosses, or going downhill to the actual park. We decided to go up the hill, see the amazing overlook, then descend along the viaduct that winds down to the pavilions. The viaduct itself looks something like a mix between a prehistoric construction and the remnants of dinosaur fossils, built with crawling and sprawling vegetation in mind, perfectly molded to the sides of the hill. The viaduct utilizes the Catenary arch that Gaudi was famous for perfecting, which only increases the appearance and feeling that your walking through a graveyard of giant lizards, especially with how the viaduct winds its way down the hill like the route a snake might take.

walking along the viaduct

The viaduct ends at the pavilion, where also is located the official entrance to the park. Tickets are 7 euros 50 and can be purchased online at their website, or about a 100 meter walk away from this spot. It's probably best to buy it online, and then you can also buy the Gaudi House and Sagrada Familia ticket bundle and just hit all of this stuff without waiting, if you're good with your timing. The tickets operate on a time band basis, meaning the park sells a certain amount of tickets for a certain period of time, so that the crowds are never too large and you never really have to wait in line, especially if you purchased your tickets previously online. It's actually quite a brilliant system.

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The paid area of the park includes as I said, the pavilion, a walk around the school and the backside of the entrance. It's probably actually not worth the 7 euros, since most of that can be seen from the outside almost as easily, and you can take your Facebook picture in front of the gates without actually paying admission. Besides all that, the viaducts, which are in the free area, are really the most impressive Gaudi-designed part.

selfie time

The Maritime Museum

Last up for the day was the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, which looks far cooler on its pamphlet than it actually is - which is unfortunately all too often the case with touristic sites, the longer I travel, the more I wonder if I should just leave things in the grandeur of my imagination than being let down by the great weight of reality and universal insignificance. What I was imagining was that the shipyard-converted-to-museum would have a bunch of massive 17th century frigates on display that you could walk around on and pretend you're a pirate or fighting with pirates - I'll here admit that my mind never matured past the age of 12. But as we started walking around the Drassanes in the south part of Raval, I realized that there weren't any buildings there large enough to contain my dreams.

Outside had a little wooden submarine reminiscent of the Beatles song. You can't go inside, but you can look in the windows and see what's going on inside. In the museum, there is a large royal barge, but you can't go on it, you can only admire the view of the body of the vessel from below. Then there's a large collection of various types of small fishing boats and a section about cruise liners and pirates that has some pictures and lots and lots of reading. It took me a really long time to get through this part, because I end up trying to read everything no matter how not actually interesting the information is - don't get me wrong, the section on defending Barcelona from the dreaded Berber pirate Barbarossa (not to be confused with the Holy Roman Emperor) was actually quite awesome.

we all live in a wooden submarine

Also included is a small shipping vessel that's sitting out in the marina near the marina shopping mall. You get to go inside and all, but if you've been on a boat before, it's not that terribly interesting, except to take pictures at the wheel. For all of that it's 7 euros. To me it's worth it at that price, but then I'm a fan of history museums, from the life of quixotic writers to the maritime adventures of temporarily independent ports. But if you're only going to be excited by swinging on the ropes of the riggings - something I would have enjoyed a bit more - better to find a ropes' course somewhere. The past is dead, and reliving the past seems to be left to Renaissance Faires and Dungeons and Dragons.

on the boat

#barcelona #touristicsites #parks

Michael Jackson, calligraphy, and Fahad Aliyu

We were on the lookout for somewhere interesting to go and see. I was there in Budapest just for a couple of days and my friends wanted to take us somewhere besides the typical ruin bar (of course we would do that too). So during dinner, the thought came up...

"Why don't we start at an art market?" one friend said.

"Will there be live music there?" I asked. Two things that usually get me out somewhere is live music and free booze.

"I think so," she said. "But it's an art show, so there will definitely be free booze."

"Okay, I'm in."

the front of Painter's Palace

So we headed down to Painter's Palace, an underground, kind of hidden joint in Jozsefvaros. They do a lot of various art functions, like showings, life drawings, creative writing clubs, and all sorts of creative artsy workshop stuff. When we were there, there was an art market there, where local artists would display their work, hopefully sell it, and happily talk about it with any curious folk.

the art market event at Painter's Palace

The artist that really caught my eye that night was a calligraphy artist by the name of Fahad Aliyu. He had a lot of the traditional Arabic calligraphy, but even more interesting to me were his calligraphic pieces of Michael Jackson. He gave me his card and wrote my name on it all fancy-like, and we exchanged emails and had an e-chat.

Calligraphy is a really interesting world to me, in part because maybe I don't know much about it. In the Western world, it seemed to me to be pretty much limited to illuminating religious texts--and since we've no prohibition on drawing and sculptures, religious art tended to go that way--and graffiti. Plus, our alphabet perhaps isn't the best for illumination anyway.

In the Islamic world, they did have a stricter prohibition on what was acceptable as religious art and what wasn't, leading into a centuries-long foray into the development of script as not just translation, but as art itself. When you go to mosques or other buildings throughout the Middle East, you can see so many pieces of flowing letters that even the image itself looks poetic, and it's certainly a fascinating aspect of Islamic culture to me.

But anyway, this interview doesn't really touch on religion, and I don't mean it to.

It's about Fahad Aliyu, an architecture student from Nigeria who spent much of his later youth in Italy and now studies in Budapest, where he also practices and teaches calligraphy.

I plan on doing more interviews like this of other travelers and expats that I meet along the way, so hopefully you enjoy.

Let me introduce you to Fahad Aliyu:

Fahad Aliyu standing in front of some of his work

Saint: How did you get started in calligraphy? What's your main influence or inspiration?

Fahad Aliyu: I’ve always loved writing since I was a little kid. I was and still am obsessed with my handwriting, always striving to make it better one way or the other. On the other hand I really love letters and see them from a different view unlike the average person, I have a way of analysing them structurally, I feel connected to letters every time I’m writing. In mid April 2015 I was going through my Facebook feed and came a cross this video which showed an artist called Seb Lester recreating famous brand logos using calligraphy. I was not only amazed but blown away so I said to myself; "if this guy can do it, I definitely can” I got a few brush pens and decided to give it a try. Since then I stuck to it and haven’t looked backed or paused for a second. So Seb Lester influenced me from the very beginning, but gradually developing as an artist, I’m inspired by a lot of things around me, starting from myself, memories of the past, my thoughts and visions about the future, friends and family, architecture, but my favourite source of inspiration is nature.

In what way does nature inspire you?

I’ve always found mother nature fascinating. Mainly because of the sheer freedom. You cannot limit a tree for example; to how tall it can grow or how wide it can spread its roots, it’s simply impossible. Its leaves grow and wither, and the cycle continues. I tend to set my mind loose when I’m searching for ideas or inspiration for my art, especially when I’m bored and want to try something different. Which is why I often peep into nature, I try to be very dynamic. Just like the leaves when they wither, I’m always ready to start afresh and never scared of trying something new. This is important to improve and develop yourself as an artist. This is the main reason why spring is my favourite season of the year. To see the rebirth of plants and their blossoming colours is simply magical.

You mention later that you study architecture... do you feel a connection between the art of letters and the art of architecture? What led you down the path to study architecture? Was that a choice you made before or after your interest in calligraphy?

I feel the strong relation between architecture and calligraphy (at least from my point of view). Although architecture is a completely different world of its own, you have to think in a different dimension, to view things in a more intricate way than the normal human does. I like to say architecture is about bringing a conceptual idea to reality as opposed to calligraphy where you’re dealing with already existing forms. I’m currently working on an interesting series called “callitecture”, mixture of calligraphy and architecture. I came up with it because I want to create the fusion of both. It’s inspired by my admiration for Leonardo Da Vinci.

When I was much younger in junior high school, I loved drawing. I had a collection of sketchbooks filled with colourful comic drawings of superheroes. Later I fell in love with technical drawing and also realised I love making and repairing things. Whenever I had an idea to create something I would gather scrap materials and give it a try, whether it turned out successful or not. I guess that’s the spirit I still possess till today. I had a few creative projects that I was very proud of and as I grew older I realised architecture was the way to go. I always wondered how a human mind could think of something as huge as a building and actually see to it that it was built. My curiosity kept increasing and I kept fueling it, and here we are a now!

Are there any other calligraphy artists whose work inspires you?

Yes, the likes of Pokras Lampas (a crazy Russian guy who currently has the world record of the largest calligraphy piece, made on a rooftop in Moscow); Vincent Abadi Hafiz (Zepha), a French calligraffiti artist; eLseed, a French Tunisian artist who does Arabic calligraffiti; Cryptik, a mandala artist whose works are based mainly on meditation, the soul and spirit. I discovered all these artists and a lot more through Calligraphy Masters, the largest online platform for calligraphers and lettering artists.

I had to look up the work on those guys, but those are some really amazing artists. You can definitely see the link between architecture and letters, especially in Hafiz's work. Do you contemplate doing things along that vein when you'll be designing visual spaces?

Absolutely. My biggest inspiration when it comes to murals is elSeed. I see myself separating the two, but still under the same umbrella. I envision myself like Da Vinci, but a simpler version. Artist, architect and engineer. I’m working on harmonising them all in one package to dish out to the public in the future.

calligraphy meets structure

You do a lot of Michael Jackson pictures. How did you get so interested in MJ?

Growing up, MJ was my role model. I dressed like him and danced like him, he inspired me to always keep my white socks clean and my black shoes polished, all thanks to my dad who introduced my brother and I to him. I’m proud to say I have the coolest father on earth. He would buy us MJ disks that contained a compilation of his music videos, and we would all sit together and watch him execute all those sick dance moves. My dad would play us Bob Marley songs while traveling on long journeys and tell us stories of how they loved him when they were youths, while deciphering the lyrics. So my best way of keeping all these memories alive are through calligraphy. Sometimes I write famous quotes or lyrics by these legends, but making a whole picture calligram of Michael Jackson for example, is a way of visualising the childhood memories that I can’t let go of.

As an American, I'm always fascinated by the pieces of American culture that spread out through the world and were picked up, like how Jackson is popular still in a lot of countries. I remember when he died, I was in Georgia, and I think it impacted the local Georgians more than any of the Americans that I knew! As a musician myself, I find a certain fondness for Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, since my dad was also playing them a lot when we took trips to their home in Louisiana. Where were you taking trips with your father to when you were young? And is your recreation of MJ somehow a tribute to your father as well?

I had frequent visits to many Doctors due to a health issue I was struggling with when I was much younger. These appointments were often in a different cities, many hours drive from where we lived. So I embarked on lots of journeys with my dad. This was when I listened to tracks by Bob Marley and MJ, and several other trips within Nigeria. So yes the MJ recreation is a tribute to him. For my next exhibition I intend to make a Bob Marley portrait as well.

What brought you to Budapest?

I lived in Rome, Italy prior to Budapest, where I completed high school and Hungary was suggested by a family friend as a reputable country with good universities. So I came to Budapest, and I’m currently studying Architectural Engineering at Budapest University Of Technology And Economics (BME).

So which feels more home to you now? Budapest, Rome, or where you grew up?

They all feel like home since my growing up was divided between these places almost equally because we moved a lot. But if I was to choose one, it’ll be my home town of Bida, Niger State, Nigeria simply because it has the most memories for me personally. That’s where I learnt how to read the Qur’an, to read and write Arabic as well. The skills which I still possess till date. Each of these places hold their memories but Bida is more special because it defines my originality, I’m very conservative when it comes to my culture. I was born there and I made the transition from an infant to a toddler before eventually moving to the capital city.

How did you get your work posted here at Painter's Palace?

I was scrolling through public events on Facebook (I always do that to find art events or exhibitions to attend) and I came across the art market event at painter's palace. I thought it was a good opportunity to sell my art work, meet several artists and get more connections and exposure.

more of Fahad's work

Do you do a lot of showings around Budapest?

Yes I do. My main event is usually the wild art exhibition which takes place every six weeks (the next is on the 14th of April). It's an amazing idea which was brought to life by a young genius artist. A non-profit, one night only exhibition that gives upcoming artists of various specialties the opportunity to showcase their work to the public, each event is hosted at a different location. It has been gaining a lot of recognition on Facebook and within Budapest in general, we see the attendance increasing with each event and thousands interested on Facebook, I'm very glad to be part of this movement.

Where is the next wild art exhibition? And what's their facebook page?

The next exhibition is at Patyolat in the 8th district of Budapest. Their face page is ‘Vad Art Kiallitas’. Hungarian for Wild Art Exhibition. Same for their Instagram page.

You mention doing workshops. Tell me about those.

The first workshop I had was with a non profit-organization known as Artemisszio together with a volunteering organization called "Open Doors”. We had a combined calligraphy and textile printing workshop which was a fun experience. Then I got hired by Prezi.hu to teach their staff, and I've continued giving workshops at Open Doors since I'm a part of it myself. Also recently, a new student activity we created among international BME students called blank; a scene where students with talents mainly beneficial to us architecture students, can share their skills freely with others by teaching it, we launched this in February and we hold sessions every Saturday. I'm glad everyone interested in calligraphy is taking it seriously and willing to learn. I’m always ready to share my knowledge with as many people as possible, because I believe calligraphy is a fading art form that needs to be revived.

Tell me more about your Artemisszio and Open Doors. What do you do with them? What are their missions?

The Artemisszió Foundation has been operating since 1998 as a non-profit organization of public interest. The founders were young anthropologists who wanted to apply their theoretical knowledge and the results of their scientific research to foster social and personal development and open-minded thinking. The Artemisszió Foundation is aiming to achieve its goals through the research, promotion and use of the theory and practice of intercultural communication.

Open Doors on the other hand is a volunteering organisation that helps migrants and refugees. Their program aims to ensure that refugee young people are successfully integrated into the Hungarian society, developing self-expression tools and quality relationships. They also organise creative workshops and youth exchange programs. I participated in an amazing youth exchange program last August which involved participants from 5 countries (I was part of the Hungarian team) usually with a theme (last year’s was change for media). And at the end we learnt how to produce videos in a professional way. Composition and technicality, shooting and editing up till final production. Our videos were later broadcasted on national TV. It was an amazing program which I’ll love to experience again. Though intensive, but very well worth it. The videos can be watched on youtube if you search for “Change for media 2017”. Thanks to Open Doors Hungary, Erasmus+ and SCI europe.

How can people get in touch with you and see your work?

I'm available on Facebook and Instagram with the handle @falligraphy. I can also be contacted via My email address which is aliyufahad@ymail.com or aliyufahad1@gmail.com.

I feel people should look deeper into themselves and find that one thing they love to do, what makes you feel alive. What raises your heartbeat anytime you think about doing it, work on it constantly and strive to improve yourself always. You might have a talent but waste it by not exploring ways to build it up. Stay open minded and take criticisms as part of the improvement procedure (especially for artists) because we're not perfect and neither is our art.

Thank you again Fahad, and best of luck to you in the coming future!

#art #budapest #interviews

A Syrian soul singer in Budapest

When we got back from Naples, I learned that a friend of mine was coming to Europe. “I’ll be in Berlin at this time and Budapest at this time,” he said.

“So why not stop at Prague? It’s in the middle,” I said.

“I’m going by plane.”

Damnit Wizzair and your ridiculously cheap flights! So then, it was up to me to choose one. I was in Berlin most recently, and I was closer to the folk that he was seeing in Budapest, so Budapest it would be.

Budapest is about an 8-hour train ride from Prague. It’s a comfortable train, easy to book online, has wifi and all that jazz. The only thing it doesn’t have is a food car.

In typical Czech fashion, there’s just some dude that roams up and down with random bits of food. Sometimes sandwiches, sometimes five-year-old Bickers Bars. Seriously weird off-brand stuff that probably haven’t been made since Communist times. Buying water from those guys is also a wonder, as when you get the bottle of water, you get the slight feeling that it was filled up at the toilet of the last station. Just a vague feeling though. I’m sure its fine.

Always best to go with the beer.

The beer is likely to have been sold quickly and cycled through, so it should be safe.

I met my friend Andy at the Budapest station, and since my other friends didn’t have a spot left for me to stay, I got an apartment across the street with AirBnB. So far so good, except that I forgot my phone and tablet charger… there’s always something! It’s okay, it’s just a couple of days and I’ve got an extra phone battery. At least this time I remembered my camera chip and charger, not like when I was in Naples.

a statue outside my airbnb

The first time I had been to Budapest was for a two-week stint waiting for my Russian visa that never came. It was half-crumbling ruin and half-construction site with only the very center of the city being a presentable place for tourism and life. The coolest part of town was the old Jewish ghetto, which was a giant morass of old buildings that were once bankers’ palaces (by Jewish ghetto here I don’t mean it in the World War II sense, but rather in the historical sense of concentrated Jewish neighborhood, as the ghettos in World War II weren’t usually in such nice places).

some shots around the ghetto

Holocaust memorial outside a synagogue

random building in the ghetto district

and just a cool building somewhere

The bankers’ palaces though were old remnants of their former glory, long empty, and the interiors had been gutted and turned into gigantic dive bars. The bars, called ruin bars, would often have a couple of kitschy items, like a giant Cupid or some neon lights, to give it atmosphere, but that was otherwise it. And as this was back before the tourism wave came to Budapest, they were all kind of empty, a little bit seedy, and very cool feeling. I wanted to revisit that, obviously.

a street uptown

The first night though, we had other plans. Obviously, when you’re in Budapest, you’ve got to go to some weird concert of a Syrian wedding singer. We went to that, held at Durer Kert, which definitely maintains the feel of a ruin bar, and maybe it is one, I’m not actually that sure of the technical definition. It’s a live music venue in an old university building, where the old lecture halls have all been turned into their individual clubs. Each hall hosts their own band, where you’ll have to pay an individual entry most nights. You’ll get both local acts here and international acts, and the other interior bars and garden are free for the roaming. There’s also no single type of music played here. We were at a Syrian wedding singer concert, but that same night there was also a hardcore punk and a death metal concert, along with who knows what else.

a romantic scene in one of the bars

yalla yalla in the house!

I’ll be honest, though the Syrian wedding singer guy, Omar Souleyman, was kind of awesome. A weird Arab techno something vibe going on. Even his name is pretty hilarious, as it’s usually Anglicized as “Suleiman” but here he’s purposefully put some soul into it, man.

The next day, Andy and I just wandered around the town aimlessly, hitting a few bars along the way. We started off along one of the main squares, the Oktagon, and then zig-zagging around Kiraly street.

We finally ended up at the riverside, then at Kalvin Ter, and had some ethnic Hungarian Vietnamese food. We then met up with our friends again after their daily routine was finished, and made our way for a few drinking sites.

outside Painter's Palace

The first was a little art hole, called the Painter’s Palace, where there was a little artist’s market. I met an artist there doing some amazing calligraphy. I’ll talk more on that next week.

Then we hit the Jewish ghetto again, aiming specifically for some ruin bars.

near Kalvin Tor

We went to Szimpla Kert, whose tradition is the one really that started the ruin bar thing back in 2001 in its first iteration. It’s now on Kazinczy street, and forms a fantastically bizarre complex of different rooms from different eras, a jungle-esque upper corridor, and a large courtyard garden that features outdoor films and a table from an old Trabant car. The place was absolutely packed, but we were able to find a place in the courtyard. Not ideal for the winter, but it stayed surprisingly warm, filled with outdoor heaters as it was.

in the courtyard of Szimpla

also in the courtyard, not watching movies

another bar in Szimpla

We decided to change scenes and went to Fogas haz, which is also Instant. They were once separate places, but later merged, or something. I’m not sure. But here I was able to pronounce the death of ruin pubs. There was a security line with a face control, then an enforced coat check place, and so on. And we were finally inside. They had some live music going on, which was good, but nothing we were interested in (it was progressive rock, which I’m not too keen on these days now that I’m an older gentleman and such). We finally found a neat little back room filled with weird art that looked like a coffee shop to an art gallery, or at least somewhere proper to plan a revolution.

the main room at Fogas haz

However, what really killed the mood, was some lady charging for the restroom. It wasn’t the typical old lady in the bathroom who kind of guilts you into throwing a coin at her, but rather the old lady had set up a barricade on the outside, complete with a big burly guy to shake you down for an investment in her sanitation business.

plotting revolution in a backroom

I ask her how much, “500 forints!” she yells back. That seems a bit much, that’s like 4 beers or something--at some point these wacked out inflated currencies are like Monopoly funny money--but I really have to pee, so I throw the coin into her tray. Later, when walking out, I looked around and noticed a sign that said something like 100 forints. Real mafia thing happening with the toilets, I tell you. But then I noticed another group of people coming in, a dude wearing a giant penis, and his mates chanting out British football songs. A stag party. Ah, I see now. The Brits haven’t just ruined Prague, but Budapest too. Here’s to a hard Brexit!

one of the bars at Fogas had some weird pics

including a Put in

After all of us got gypped at the loo, we decided to move on to where there might be a free place to pee. A more low key spot with superior beers, Uncle Ogre. A much quieter spot, completely lacking in the British football chants, and serving much better than the regular swill at the ruin bars. It was a good way to end the night/trip.

#budapest #bars