After a good night of proper rest, and not having done any plans for what I would see in Budapest yet, I took a quick snack. At the same time Adriana came and asked me what I intended to do for the day, to which she suggested, after telling her about not having made plans yet, to go with her to her and Natalia's university to have a look over the side of Buda for a change and on the way back, head to the Castle - one of her best places in the city.
Having agreed to do it straight away, we left the Jozef Körút to head to the north west side of Buda. After taking the tram and a connecting busz to the uni, I there waited, while Adriana was waiting for her signatures. Meanwhile, I came outside, to see the abouts of this area of Buda, some of the work there exhibited by the students. What surprised me was that her university work collaboratively with Mercedes Benz, which I find amazing for all interested in industrial design! A few people were making keeping a fire alive under ruffly zero degree temperatures to make , far away, but their happiness and simpleness could be felt at an immense distance.
When Adriana came and we head back, I looked to an old, abandoned like house filled with wholes on the walls. Interested in what they could be, I questioned her, to which she responded as it being an house, still standing from the second world war whose wholes were actually marks of loose shots... it made shiver and feel a little uncomfortable; but we were just heading to the bus stop to get back. But this was just the beginning...
From here on, everything took a different path. Adriana went hope and gave me directions to go to Buda Castle. Take the 16 and it will take you there, she said; and so I did, or I thought to have done. Instead, I got on another bus that went all the way up to the very end of the hill. It almost felt like I was entering the mountains, covered in snow, with a very rusty tram line running along. At that same time, the sun came out and shone Peste with the most intense, warm colours. Me, astonished, didn't even thought about the way I was taking. My only thought was how wonderful this view is and where could I manage a spot were I could make a photograph of this beauty. So, with an adrenaline pump in my body, I waited and waited, while the bus was turning to the left and right again, to find an open space that would give me just the tip to press stop and leave to make it real. However, the hill is very forestry and the houses were built around them, in a very humane way, thus making it impossible to have a clear view over what I was seeing but still, I did manage to get pumped enough to look around on the other hills for possible ways to get this picture which hopefully will happen before I leave Budapest.
Anyhow, went the up-going bus became levelled, that was when I decided to leave. Not because I had just found the spot but because I had went to far from the castle, which I saw on the map to be very close to the river. And I was not at all close to the river, I was lost!
After exiting the bus, I took the first road to the left and started heading down a row of icy, snowed stairs and, with the help of an dodgy handrail, for a few time I didn't felt on them. Still, my head was thinking about the light that I had just witnessed and so, despite the slippery stairs, I kept looking for a trace of openness, without any positive outcome. Nonetheless, being lost in a place that was outside the map I had been given made me feel quite alive and free. Breathing the fresh, wintery cold air was making my hand turn red and my nose was making me look like Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer. Yet, I carried along, and down, and left until I found what seemed to be the main road which the bus I came up in took. Crossing the tram line and the road, I waited for the bus to come. When it finally arrived, it looked alike the one I had took to come this way. I was wrong again. Thinking I would go to Széil Kálman ter, I ended more to the south, near Déli Rail Station.
Again, a new place, no way to find my way on the map. No references and still shy about asking people for directions, because of my mental blocage, I walked around it, in hopes to find some signs that would put me on the direction - not the right one anymore - of the river, from which I would be able to find my north again. And it did indeed happen! A sign, with a smal icon of a castle, was pointing to the right side of the rail station. Encouraged again, I walked towards a tunnel, only to find a broomstick that reminded me in it's very own way of 'Soliloquy of the Broom', a photograph taken in 1843 by William Fox Talbot. Not hesitating a bit, I grabbed my camera and got ready to make my photograph. Kneeled down, I was just about to presse the button when I felt a kick on my back. Surprised, I quickly took the photograph, stood up and turned back, to see what had just happened, while thinking 'Who the fuck, and why, just kicked me?!' only to see a mid age, grizzly man breathing alcohol and shouting words in hungarian that I will not ever now which meaning had. Still, the kick had made it's statement and knowing that trying to speak would not solve anything, I said some words in my very own portuguese and carried on my way.
Quite an intense beginning of a journey, I would say. The kick itself didn't bothered me more than the look on the mans face. It felt that the anger he had had not been put to me, personally but for the condition of the man. I'm not with this saying at all what a gap exists between us (which doesn't) but in my naïve way, why would someone do such a thing to a kneeled person...
Scared and afraid to take the camera out... angry for what had just happend, I went up an assembly of stairs, towards the Castle and only at the end of them, after around 10 minutes, I was able to get enough strength to take it out again. Seing what were some castle walls, I went round in hopes to find an entrance to its inside. Finding some more stairs, I went ever upper, only to face myself with a large, clean balcony, from which I took a panorama of the scenery where this losness had taken place; where all my insecurity lied. But also where all my humanness was and the motif of my photography lied.
Turning back, for now, that side, I went to the 'touristy' part of Budapest. The fancy, historical and beautiful part of it. Very silent and still absorbing all the information that I had just gotten, walked around Mathias Church, closed already at that time but still, plenty were the tourists walking around. And me, being there and having such disturbing experience just now, felt the act of traveling and all the smily faces of the ones around very hypocrite, just like me being there was.
All that show off, all those poses of the people, the need to record and justify to others that they existed in that place; all the richness mask of what a city really is... it is not only the fanciness and beautifulness of their past... everyone can loose their material richness in a blink of an eye. However, the people still remain and the people make the city soul. They are what define it, not their buildings, materialist expressions of an utopian disguise.
Let the past be past, but never forget it. It is the past that shape you, but no materiality should define you, but your actions. And thus, I made this photograph, thinking of what Socrates said once: "How many are the things I can do without!".
These words were not being shouted to them, but also for be, for I was being as much of a sinner as the ones around me. However, such thought are in my mind and I shall not leave them aside, for I shall make amends for the actions I am making, hopefully soon.
And if my actions can't make amends yet, let my attempts of photographs and words try to reach someone. For if I can touch even if a single person, I'd find myself a happy living man.
And for now, we stay here.
