What I love about Budapest

There are grape vines outside our kitchen window. Sitting at the table I can see the light filter through the translucent, green leaves. Shadow upon shadow, dancing almost indiscernibly with the light breeze.

The Ujjerő bouldering gym is possibly the most amazing place I've been to so far in Budapest. Imagine walking down a driveway with warehouses on both sides. You stop at the door with a indecipherable picture on the front (if you look very closely you'll see that it's a climber). Inside you find yourself in a lobby lit only by the light coming through the doorway. Past the desk is a low corridor that leads into the gym. Most likely you will see a dozen people on the floor and in the air. English, Spanish, German and Hungarian flow freely as climbers swing around the small room. Everything about Ujjero seems friendly and communal.

Family style meals were not something I thought I could have in college. I imagined myself existing on muesli, bread and cheese. Instead I'm part of a wonderful food group that loves veggies and cook incredible food for every meal. I get to sit at the table cutting up fresh peppers and mushrooms while I watch Josiah and John fiddle with the record player that we inherited from a previous group. Our kitchen has a homey feel and is the place to go if you need a little nuttella (or nuss, as we call it here) or someone to vent to. Once we get the record player running it will also have some sweet vinyl Paul Simon, Queen, and Simon and Garfunkel.

I spent yesterday evening on a bridge that spans the Danube. The evening was the coolest we have had so far, with a steady breeze that dispersed the afternoon heat. We found a seat on the trestles of the bridge just as the lights came on across the city. The seagulls swooped and sailed overhead, taking advantage of the last rays of light. The tour boats passed under us, their soft jazz carrying across the water. As night fell the trams that passed us seemed like silent movies. For a few seconds the men and women riding them stood before us, illuminated like a scene from a play. A second more and they were gone.

Every time I ride the tram into the center of Budapest I feel a little less out of place. It's true, I am still virtually illiterate and can't even answer the simplest questions, but I know what tram will take me home. I have a one month pass for the public transit system with my photo on it. It makes me feel permanent, like a school ID would. Having that piece of paper in my pocket holds me to Budapest. No matter where I go, at the end of the day I end up back home in Buda, at the end of tram line 41.

Artists of Berlin

The walls of Berlin talk. In this city famous for it's wall, every concrete surface seems to call out for my attention.

Most of my week in Germany I stayed in an apartment in East Berlin, a few miles south of the City center. The view from the balcony of the 6^th story apartment was beautiful. Lush green trees spill through the cracks of terracotta red roofs; the steeple of an ancient church pushes out to dominate the skyline. At street-level, however, the green trees are overgrown with weeds and the bushes hide broken glass and soggy leaflets. The buildings are old and often ill-kept and the cobblestones of the streets shine with discarded metal bottle caps. Some parts of Berlin shine new and untouched, catering to the busloads of tourists that flood in every day. The greater part of the city, however, has an unkempt feeling. It's overgrown islands, dilapidated buildings and, of course, graffitied walls.

I have to admit that I love graffiti. Even in Honduras, where the spray-painted walls are often the product of violent gangs or an angry protester, I love reading the words scrawled on the walls. And when graffiti moves past these crude marking on a wall, it is not only interesting but truly beautiful. Graffiti has the freedom of a charcoal drawing with the permanence and size that allows it to communicate to huge crowds. It is an incredible way for art to retain its presence in our everyday lives.

I've been wondering how graffiti became so prevalent in Berlin, since it seems more common in this city than in any other place I have visited. While I was in Berlin, I saw an old photo of young men and women dismantling the wall. In the background stood a man holding posters and brushed. I like to imagine people, angry at their government, angry at the injustice of their situation, angry at the wall, grabbing a brush, a can, and shouting it out. I imagined the colors spreading: from the wall, through alleys, over roofs and under bridges, carried across the city on the subway. Plastered across whole buildings, until it even started creeping into homes, galleries and restaurants, embraced as more than just a sign of protest.

Somehow the graffiti that covers the walls of Berlin don't make it look run down. To me, the kaleidoscope on the walls hint at a culture that is wide awake and ready to to talk and to change. Maybe the graffiti is merely vandalism, but I like to think that there's more to it. In a city that often looks like no one cares for it, men and woman have painstakingly painted it's walls. And there is something to be said about that.