Kicking It Old-World Style. Or, Why I Miss Africa
I am in Budapest, staying in an apartment on the top floor of a building constructed in 1897. The ceilings are vaulted, the floor is hardwood, the central courtyard is lined with intricate wrought iron railings. When I stick my head out of the French windows, I can see that the entire block is full of beautiful old fin-de-secle apartment buildings. Actually, most of central Budapest looks like something out of an architecture textbook.
A joke: A European thinks 100 kilometers is a long distance. An American thinks 100 years is a long time.
Europe is old. Which is to say, America is young, one of the youngest states in existence, in fact. Of course there are many countries which officially came into existence in the 20th century, but the cultures in them were always established long before the modern political boundaries. American culture is an anomaly in that respect, and Americans have a correspondingly warped sense of time and history. In America a 300 year old building is a historic monument. Here people simply live in such buildings. There’s a pub in Prague which has been serving beer for the last thousand years.
It is very obvious that Europe is the source of Western culture. Sure, there are differences. My personal favorite is the two-cheek kiss. In general, Europe has more sophisticated food, more complex and subtle literature, more elaborate buildings. Everything is slightly more refined here. Language, and use of language, is also a major difference. Everyone speaks at least two languages: their national language, and (usually) English. Yesterday I was talking to a 22 year old student who spoke Hungarian, English, French, Italian, and Russian. This is just normal here. I’m glad I have a little French, or I’d feel completely like a loser. I mean, not speaking Hungarian is acceptable, but ONLY speaking English is just uncool.
And, to my surprise, Europe has a lot of cool. I have found this amazing little cafe in Central Budapest, a series of rooms around a courtyard inside an ancient brick building that looks half-bombed. Funky doesn’t even begin to describe it. On the walls were works by local artists; one room was full of clawfoot bathtubs converted into benches. During the day they like to play Massive Attack and Morcheeba, and there’s free Wifi. There’s an underground party scene, cool flyers, cooler people. Tonight I’m heading to a club which is actually the top floor and rooftop of a communist-era department store. You ride a tiny freight elevator to get up into it (of course), where a uniformed valet offers you your first drink of the night from a cooler full of booze.
And I’m standing on that roof top, drinking my five Euro cocktail, wearing the jeans I bought in Paris, distracted by the blonde polyglot in Italian pants, thinking: this is too familiar. This is too easy.
I am starting to miss Africa.
I miss the noisy streets with their hordes of sidewalk food vendors. I miss the cheap accommodation. I miss the unpretentiousness of the people. Hell, I miss black people. There aren’t many here. I miss the open landscapes between towns. I miss the desert, the savanna, and the mountains.
I’m even starting the miss the bad parts. That’s what nostalgia will do to you. I miss the crowded buses and the crazy transport systems with unmarked bus stops. I miss the sweltering heat that got into your brain. I miss the informality of village life, where you just went and talked to someone if you needed something. I miss the uncertainly and therefore excitement of the simplest tasks, such as finding a bank that changes my brand of traveler’s cheques. I miss the relief of walking into an air-conditioned cafe in the capital after weeks in the sticks. I miss the bizarre excitement of finding chocolate mousse on the menu of a small-town restaurant. I miss figuring out which of the little stores sold the coldest beer.
I miss the border crossings where sweaty men in cardboard shacks smiled or scowled at the dusty foreigner, and took extra time examining a passport from very far away before they stamped it. And yes, I miss the attention I got just from being white, even if just about everyone I met wanted something from me.
I miss not understanding what the hell is going on. I miss the sense of being out of place. I miss the strangeness, the newness, the feeling of your universe expanding. Africa made my world bigger. Europe reveals its secrets to me too easily, and I discover that I’m really not all that surprised.
I need to leave the developed world soon. I need to leave the West. I need to be alone and confused, surrounded by people I do not understand, eating food I’ve never seen before, full of wide-eyed wonder once more.
