the Reservation

Back in December, Jaro’s birthday is days away and I wanted to treat him to something everyone in Budapest must experience at least once: Mongolian Barbeque. It’s a big restaurant in Buda, banquet-style, but instead of cooked food in front of you, they have a large banquet of uncooked meats and vegetables and whatever else they happen to serve. You put everything on your plate, take it to the ‘chef’, and he cooks everything on a ginormous skillet in front of you. I’ve seen variations of this method in the States, but nothing that you pick the marinated meat out yourself and just hand it over to the chef.

It’s all you can eat, and for the measly price of 5,000 HUF (roughly $23), it’s all beer, wine and sangria you can drink as well. This place is incredible. I’ve known people who over-eat and puke by the end, however. My advice: Watch how much you eat and drink.

So there we are, riding the red line of the metro all the way up to Déli pályaudvar, the last stop in Buda. From there, it’s a quick tram ride up the main street, and a 5 minute walk down a small side street to one of the culinary gems of Budapest.

We’re sitting on one of the wide benches watching people (one of the only things you can do on the metro). Jaro nudges me and motions to two girls sitting up the car, and I smile approvingly. Not that they were particularly attractive, but just that there were two of them and two of us. That whole thing like, Well, if I didn’t have a girlfriend I would go over there and start something. You ready, Mr. Wingman? It’s mainly an inside joke between him and I, but I think this is a pretty universal thing between two male friends. Regardless of their relationship status, there is always something about having your buddy around and coming upon the same set of the opposite sex.

But then again, I thought nothing of it and continued to watch the other people around me. We get off at Déli and walk to the tram stop. While waiting we notice the same two girls walking up to our stop.

What do you think? He asks.

What do you mean, what do I think?

Think I should ask them for a night on the town? With that sly smile of his. You know when he’s maliciously joking while he smiles like that.

Yeah sure buddy, why don’t you go over there and do it? Lets see those skills of yours.

But then, he didn’t. We just laughed about it and shrugged our shoulders and swore about how cold it was. The tram comes, we all get on, and jump off at our stop. I turn around, and the same two girls are getting off behind us.

Huh. You don’t think they’re going to Mongolian Bbq? I wonder aloud.

Naw, I doubt it. But that would be pretty funny if they did. Come to our table, ladies. This is fate, since we were on the same public transportation as you.

Yeah that’s going to work.

We turn up the side street and see the restaurant’s sign. I’m salivating just at the thought of entering this place again. Both of us cannot wait to get inside, and then we hear the same click of heels we’ve heard for the last 10 minutes behind us walking up the street.

Shit I think they are going to Mongolian Bbq! Haha!

This is fate man, this is fate! I knew it!

We’re laughing as we walk in, and the smells of the freshly cooked marinated meat hits us like a wall of heat. Oh yeah.

Hello, yes, table of two please?

Shouldn’t we ask for a table of four?

Shut up dude!

I hear the door ding and the pair of following girls walk in and start taking their winter layers off. This is going to be interesting. I turn back to the guy, because he starts to ask me something.

Reservation?

Uh, no.

Oh, I see. His brow crinkles and he goes into the other room.

Jaro and I exchange looks. Uh oh.

The man from before walks back with a friend. The other guy speaks:

Hello yes I am very sorry but you need a reservation tonight. Here is our card. Please have a nice night.

He hands me the card and Im staring dumbly at it in my hand. What? No Mongolian Bbq? Reservation? I’m not eating amazing food? How can this be?

The first host turns behind us to the girls, and they both smile and give him a name. He looks down at his list, smiles, checks something off, and waves them inside. They both walk past us and look at us like we are weak insignificant lost souls wandering through the night.

My mouth is hanging open. I am so embarrassed.

Oh my god. Did you just see that?!

Jaro is shaking his head and covering his face in shame with his hands. Oh god, lets please leave. I cant believe this.

We both walk back outside, and just stand there for a full 60 seconds looking out at the night. Not moving. Going over the last 10 minutes. And the utter fail, the utter embarrassment of getting turned away after acting like the shit, while two girls who we were half jokingly trying to impress, walk right in behind us and see our failure in progress, then flit by like they owned the place.

Oh my god. I cannot believe what just happened. I just can’t believe it.

Jaro is still shaking his head. We were so burned there. So burned, dude.

I try to get over my embarrassment for 5 seconds and take stock of our situation. Well now what?

I don’t know.

C’mon lets find a bar.

We run into a kócsma, which is basically a locals-filled bar that can fit into a small closet. Think Cheers on a vastly smaller scale. And filled with old drunk Hungarians who don’t speak a word of English.

We both sit down and look deftly at our beers. I’m still holding the Mongolian Bbq’s business card in my hand.

After five minutes of just sitting there, its pretty clear we both feel the same way: Totally embarrassed by the situation, and now resigned to our fate of drinking a cheap beer in a total shit hole.

Of course, I should have known to make a reservation. But it was a Wednesday night, and I thought it would have been empty at a time like this. The past three times I had been it was easy to get a table, even when there was a massive group of us. But that wasn’t the worst thing about this. Not eating the amazing food, ok, yeah that sucks. But the looks the girls gave us when they walked by. Jeez. Made the culinary heartbreak and social humiliation all the worse.

By the time we finished our beers, we’ve both vexed considerably about the whole situation.

Jesus Christ that was bad!

I know I know! I just still can’t believe it.

Of all the things! Argh!

Damn. And those looks…

I know! Oh god that was terrible.

We continue to shake our heads simultaneously until a loud CRACK wakes us from our shame. The noise has come from a patron who passed out while trying to walk, as her head smacked into the concrete floor. I look at the time. It’s 7:30 at night. Jesus.

Now all the patrons are swarming around her, trying to wake her up. Her husband (or father, I can’t tell) is holding her head up from the floor and telling the bartender (in Hungarian) to get her a glass of water with sugar. But before she can get this, another tells her, No get her a glass of orange juice! The bartender is searching through her bar. There’s no orange juice! Fine then, any juice! She pulls out pineapple juice, pours a glass, and brings it to the lips of the girl who looks to be having a minor seizure on the floor.

Jaro and I look at each and nod. Ok, let’s go. We get up and walk out the way we came, away from the craziness of the locals and their drunken woes.

At least something was able to make it clear to us that, really, a little embarrassment was the least of our worries.

The Illusion Can Only Last So Long

I’m standing in the concessions line at the movie theater at MOM Park. The Park is a shopping complex in the hills of Buda. It’s hugely popular among expats, probably because their million-dollar homes are a stone’s throw away from it. I rarely hear Hungarian, and I often times forget for a split second where I am, thinking I’m wandering through an American mall. But something always brings me back. The illusion can only last so long.

MOM Park is also one of the few (or last) places to find films in their original language. In other words, American films released in English. I could go on and on about how much I hate the dubbing (or ‘synchronizing’ as these Magyars call it) practice in film, and even more that most Hungarians somehow believe the film is better when dubbed than in the original language. I only see red when I encounter these people (most happen to be my friends).

Films were meant to be in their original language. Period. That’s why it’s called the ORIGINAL language.

The movie theater in MOM Park is one of the last havens for these. Dubbing has become the norm, and I see no end in sight to this terrifying trend. Magyars just love their speech pasted over the lips of American actors. So I get to the Park often, because this dubbing manifesto seems to be gaining strength of iron and will.

Which is somewhat ironic, because I’m there to see a Hungarian film. With English subtitles. One of the other reasons I love MOM Park: the only place in Hungary with Hungarian films subtitled into another language.

But back to the concessions line. Noémi needs water so we’re there. I never get concessions. I never buy stuff at movie theaters. I can’t stand the way they over price the stuff. I might think twice if they sold beer, but then I would have to pee half way through the film, so I shake that idea out of my head. Plus, I’m more interested in mentally swearing at the guy in front of me. Really, what is this guy doing? We’ve been standing here for 5 minutes with NO change. Argh!

My eyes wander the faces around me, and settle on a man a couple yards away from me looking at the movie posters. He’s not so imposing, but I notice people are keeping a wide berth around him. I mean, there’s no one around him. It’s really crowded too. And everyone is staring. And pointing.

Wait, what’s going on here?

The guy turns around and I realize why the people are staring. He wears a sweater and jeans, glasses and this funny half smile. Like he knows something we don’t. And he probably does, or is putting on a half-assed display to make people think something that may or may not be true.

After all, this is the same guy that got caught (via secret recording device) telling his colleague Hungary was broke, and that he had lied to the people to win an election. The same guy who stood fast in 2006 as some of the worst riots since the Soviet invasion of 1956 occurred, watching as angry Magyars chanting for his resignation ripped up the streets and laid waste to anything that lay in their path. The very same guy who shrugged his shoulders as Hungary’s currency went from strong to such a devaluation that the IMF immediately approved an emergency $31 billion loan to help the struggling country to its feet again, wary of the Iceland economic disaster.

This man is Ferenc Gyurcsány, the Prime Minister of Hungary.

And he’s now standing not ten feet away from me, looking at movie posters.

At first I don’t really know what to think, because this is such a strange occurrence. Gyurcsány is Bush’s equivalent, and hated almost as much by his own people (possibly more so, as Gyurcsány’s approval rating among the 10 million people across the republic of Hungary is slim to none). That being said, he’s still the PM. He’s famous. I’ve seen him speak once before (never understanding a word he said), but still, that was up on a stage in front of the Parliament building. This is me standing across from the man in the lobby of a movie theatre.

With everyone staring. Or no wait. Glaring. Yeah that’s it. Eyes boring into his skull.

I poke Noémi and motion behind her.

Look, isn’t that…?

Oh. Yeah. Weird, it is.

People are staring.

They should. That guy fucked our country over.

And that’s the opinion I’ve encountered among most, if not all, the Hungarians I’ve talked politics with. They’re all Victor Orbán supporters, the leader of the opposing party. But I see no difference between either of them. They’re both part of the Old Guard, something I try to explain to every Hungarian who happens to express an interest in what I think about their country’s political situation. The conversation usually devolves into a shouting match about why Hungary sucks politically, but before that happens, I try to tell them that the Old Guard is dead. The economic and social situation will not change once Orbán takes control in 2010 (he has previously held the PM position). Hungary is fucked until they usher in the next generation.

The country will never change unless the New Guard rises up out of the shit their older counterparts left behind.

This view/arguing point usually leads to dejected faces and statements like, ‘Well, what can I do?’ or ‘I’m just one person, how can I do anything to change a whole country?’

And it always makes me laugh, which only makes things worse.

For a people who are so proud of their revolutions, they seem to forget their history. But then, how can they look past the centuries of occupation, border re-structuring and bad decisions made over the years? That would make anyone a cynic.

And these people are the mothers, fathers and children of all cynics.

Meanwhile, back at MOM Park, Gyurcsány, the most hated man in Hungary, turns around and walks into the same theater Noémi and I are just about to make our way in to. I still am a little shell shocked, seeing a major political figure, with absolutely no secret service crawling up the walls, and about to watch the same film.

It’s like a joke: The American professional with his Hungarian girlfriend walk into a movie theater in Hungary. The film is Hungarian, with English subtitles, with the Hungarian Prime Minister in attendance, in a Cineplex devoted to those foreign expats who control all the money in the country.

But what’s the punch line?