Apartment Hunting in Budapest

Excuse me. I meant "flats." I think everyone here becomes immensely confused when all the American study abroad kids say "apartment." Ever since my first night here on Monday, all of us has been trying to find a place to live that is closer to the university and therefore also near downtown Budapest, where it would be more convenient and more fun.

The dorms are good, only too far away from everything. It requires a 35 minute commute on a bus and then the metro. My first day using public transportation in Budapest was a little nerve wracking (thankfully a friend took me in). Everything was in Hungarian; all the stops have unpronounceable names; people moving all around you. The stations seemed like sprawling underground labyrinths to me.

Trying to find a flat in the city is one of the best ways to explore the city. I'm getting my bearings a little. Budapest is busy and alive. I love being brought around the city and given a little peek into people's lives.

Many older buildings were built almost 100 years ago. They use to be palaces, back when Budapest had been the capital to an important empire. The doors leading into these old-world buildings are always hidden between shop windows and underneath graffiti. If you didn't know they were there, you would walk right past them without giving them a second look.

But as soon as you walk in, you are greeted by high vaulted ceilings and courtyards, often with a garden. These flats in old converted palaces have high ceilings and double doors; they look like they have been taken straight from the turn of the 20th century: like echoes of old-world splendor and wealth. Dusty iron wrought gates and railings, dilapidated chandeliers, cracked spiral marble staircases. The building itself is truly a vision of the old-world falling into, giving away to the demands of the modern world.

The interiors of these flats, however, are bright, clean, and decidedly new-world: flat screen televisions, internet connections, antique mahogany furniture juxtaposed against IKEA creations. (This is the first thing I learned about Budapest: it is a place truly caught between worlds, the old and new, the East and West, development and stagnation.)

My current roommate in the dorm and I are going to live together again. (This is another thing to know about Budapest: it's always easier to find a 2-bedroom apartment than a 3- or 4-bedroom.) I think we might have found the perfect place but I don't want to jinx it!