Carlos
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Re: Record shops in Budapest?
Oct 01, 2012, 14:10
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Thanks! It's on the agenda ;-)
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aswyth
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Re: Record shops in Budapest?
Oct 02, 2012, 00:57
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The easiest way to get to your hotel from the airport is to take a minivan - the airport has some deal with a minivan company, where they charge a set rate to and from the airport, and they'll take you right to your door, and pick you up when you want as well. They have an English-language phone line and they are very reliable. It's not too expensive. Otherwise, you would have to take a bus to the metro station on the number 3 metro, then switch lines to the number 2 metro, which takes you to the Buda side and THEN take a taxi to your hotel, up the hill by the castle. You would save a little money, but if you don't speak Hungarian you will find it nerve-wracking, plus you would waste some time and to be honest, a lot could go wrong. It's not worth the relatively small savings, to be honest. Most bus drivers / metro employees / local taxis do not speak English. (The airport minivan people do speak English and several other common languages, like German.)
I second the Terror Museum - great place to see the ugly side of relatively recent history.
I work as a music publishing consultant, which has nothing to do with why I go to Budapest - I just really like Hungary. I am also working with Hungary's most notorious bank robber (29 banks and post offices!) who was just released from prison and will be the subject of several movies - Johnny Depp's company bought the rights to a book about him.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
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Sun Of Bytch
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Re: Record shops in Budapest?
Oct 02, 2012, 08:21
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aswyth wrote:
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi aswyth I know you were speaking to Carlos but since you mentioned in the thread to ask you whatever, I was wondering what your impression is of Hungarians attitude is to Roma and Rom culture?
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aswyth
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Re: Record shops in Budapest?
Oct 02, 2012, 13:30
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Quite a large portion of Hungarians would admit to being fans of Romani music, no doubt. But for most people, that's where the love affair ends. A reasonable number of Hungarians might admit that systematic and institutionalized racism exists, but you might be surprised at how many blame the Roma themselves for this or deny it completely. There's kind of a disconnect there. During the big election two years ago, a rightwing politician, when asked about the "problem" of Roma, said that they should all be put in a camp, and only the ones who showed that they could behave like "real" Hungarians should be released. The comment didn't cause much of an outcry, sadly. There's a lot of denial about the lack of opportunity and fairness for Roma - the attitude of many Hungarians is that the economy is in peril, unemployment high, social benefits being cut . . . so why should we worry about people who "don't even want to work in the first place?" But few people talk about the fact that one can still see help wanted adverts that make it clear that Gypsies need not apply, or the general attitude that any successful Rom must be a criminal.
That said, the Roma in Hungary are a much smaller part of the population than in Romania or Bulgaria, and they tend to be pretty well concentrated in certain (generally poorer) parts of the country, so for many the subject is pretty distant to them. The EU has, at the very least, made Hungary *appear* to make things better (often superficially), and occasionally one does see some signs of progress - schools built specifically for Roma, a Romani restaurant or two opening in Budapest, the election of some Romani politicians, and so on. But there's a lot of denial which is worrisome because the population of Hungarians is declining, but amongst the Roma minority, the population is increasing rapidly, so there really isn't any getting around the fact that attitudes need to change, and the sooner the better.
There was a spate of very violent crime against Roma around three years ago that became a big news story internationally and shocked even the Hungarians with its brutality, but little seems to have changed as a result, and the current thuggish government has done a lot to make the aroma into scapegoats for many of Hungary's problems.
For the person on holiday, it's unlikely that you'd notice any of the this at all, and there's even a fair chance that you could spend a week in Budapest and not even notice any Romani population as such. And most ethnic Hungarians are now savvy enough to understand that racist attitudes should not be discussed with people they perceive as having very PC mentalities (anyone from the West, basically), so none of this is likely to be very apparent until one speaks Hungarians or has a pretty large circle of Hungarian acquaintances.
This all sounds (and is) pretty awful, but in fairness to Hungary, there are countries wi th worse attitudes and generally more discriminatory policies, so I'd hope it wouldn't dissuade anyone from visiting. Italy and France, to name two, are frequent holiday destinations with their often equally abhorrent expressions of anti-Rom racism, just to make a comparison. I reckon that as Hungary (plus Romania, et al) mature as tourist destinations, this will actually help some of the worst behavior disappear, out of fear of bad publicity if nothng else.
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Sun Of Bytch
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Re: Record shops in Budapest?
Oct 02, 2012, 21:50
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aswyth, thanks, appreciate your reply.
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Carlos
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Re: Record shops in Budapest?
Oct 08, 2012, 15:20
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Back in Portugal with my heart full. Lovely city, not that nice people in general, but we loved it. Thanks guys for all the tips.
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