Ontario Discovery Walks

The Long Journey Home

Not only was my flight home delayed, but I also had to wait in line to discuss meat importation laws with a customs officer after I declared the Hungarian salami I brought in my carry-on. He waved me through, but told that meat, no matter how delicious it might be, cannot be brought into Canada in such ways.

Family Time

When the prodigal son returned in Jesus’ famous parable (that's a Catholic education for ya), the family welcomed him and slaughtered the fatted calf. When I returned to Little London, the family was gathered and, in lieu of a fatted calf, devoured six pounds of pulled pork. This does not count the smuggled salami, the cheese (hey, we’re Dutch, after all) and the bevy of desserts. My family: We all love each other, and we all love to eat well.

Witnessing the explosion of Rob Ford

If you could lock Joseph Heller and Franz Kafka in a room with a pen and a notebook and they could not have conceived of the surreal political spectacle that erupted when I arrived. It’s like the political version of those photos of the tree barks skin disease – it’s as frighteningly disgusting as it is fascinating – and it's still going on.

One of the better ways to watch the press conference of a lying, drunken mayor?
With a whiskey in a fine pub.

Celebrating the end of Daylight Savings Time with an extra hour of debauchery

We got an extra hour, and then we killed as many brain cells as we could in that hour by while introducing my friends to the perils of Palinka.

Hangover

The Koreans have an amazing hangover cure, it’s Porkbone Soup. It provides much-needed fluids for the over-partied body and brain. Also, for uncultured Westerners like me, there is no easy way to eat it, so poke away at slowly, looking awkwardly at the Koreans at other tables expertly eating theirs. This also means you don’t eat too fast, which is important if you’re like me and have a tender tummy after boozing.

A marshall artist's interpretartion of breakfast/dinner.
(Not to scale)

What I like most in Toronto is that you can get Porkbone Soup one day, then gorge upon great burritos the next. Toronto has no single personality, it’s a schizophrenic mix of ethnicities, neighbourhoods, and personalities. It’s what makes it great.

Final Days of London

My time in Toronto was making the rounds (and often having rounds). So, my time in little London was the real rest. I spent quality time with my parents and siblings. Meet the odd friend for coffee or drinks. Rest up. Recover from Toronto, and prepare for what’s going to come.

The Wedding

Way back when, before I left Canada for the Hungary, I promised two friends that I would make it back for their wedding in a year. So, here is the main reason for my visit (also, trans-Atlantic flights during Christmas are a messy business I want no part of). In addition to being a great party, it was also great to see two friends married in such a lovely ceremony.

The fist kiss

Epic party time (that's why I forgot to take photos)

The Long Trip Home

The next morning I awoke hungover, or possibly still drunk. It was a rough. The hotel everyone was staying at had a Golden Griddle, where everyone gathered to nurse their hangovers over coffee and bacon.

I was a little slow to rise and required a stern phone call from front desk to get me moving. I know I mentioned earlier that Porkbone Soup is a great hangover cure, but friends and a breakfast buffet are great cures too.

After breakfast, I got a ride to the airport and continued what felt like the longest day ever: Flying forward across six time zones into the next day, where I had a four-hour wait in Frankfurt for my flight to Budapest - all with a fuzzy booze-addled brain.

I love Budapest, yet I still hesitate to call it home, but collapsing into bed at the end of that day felt pretty good.

Oh, hi, Budapest

Beneath Budapest's Bullet Holes

There must be a department in Budapest’s city hall that prevents bullet holes in buildings from being patched because there are a lot of them.

The 1956 Revolution, the siege of Budapest during World War II before that – all literally left their mark on the face of the city. Budapest has seen its fair share of violence. And while we spend so much time talking about the scars from that violence, we don't spend near enough time talking about what is beneath the scars.

Before the First World War, Budapest was a centre of rich culture, scientific endeavour and engineering achievement. It was the second city of the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire. Beneath today's bullet holes and decade of neglect, this is the real Budapest.

Explosive economic and industrial growth created incredible wealth back then. Writers and thinkers gathered in the coffee houses. Classical masterpieces were composed and performed in the Opera House.

This is a city where the continent’s first subway system was built. They built the Chain Bridge, at the time was one of the longest bridges in Europe over one of the world’s mightiest rivers – a feat of engineering.

This is also when most of the city’s apartment blocks went up in the city’s centre. Thick-walled, high-ceilinged, with dramatic sculptures on the front – many of these have survived decades destruction and disuse visited upon the city. And all this time many people, like me, now live here too.

The layers of upheaval and violence that have passed through the city have added layers of grottiness over that grandeur, but it’s easy to get a feel for Budapest’s old time urban beauty and grandeur as you walk down the streets.

Those grand, old days might be long gone, but this is a city that seems to embrace its entire past, from the Old World ostentation to its more recent decrepitude, like the new ruin bars pop up in old, vacant apartment blocks.

But that’s an easy example.

Many of these buildings were put up during a massive building boom from the 1870s until the 1910s. They have lasted as long as they have because they are built like fortresses.

While opportunistic people build their ruin bars, by and large people live in these buildings, as they have since they went up. The limestone fades but it lasts, the stone Atlas out front crumble but still bear their load. All the while life goes on beneath the facade – families are raised, courtyard gardens, hidden from the streets, are tended and lives are lived.

We might see the bullet holes and marvel over them, but the real attraction are these beautiful buildings and the generations that have and will continue to live in them.

Burgers of Budapest

If I closed my eyes before I left for Budapest, and tried imagining all the food I'd be eating here, a burger would not be among them. Goulash. Cheese. Pickled cabbage. Blood sausage. But burgers? Nem.

In these last few months, Budapest has been schooling me in the way of the burger. What I did not realize before I arrived was that Hungarians are a nation of meat lovers. Burgers happen to be a tasty byproduct of that meat love.

An example. My friend Marcin was visiting, after way too much beer, palinka, whiskey and wine, we found a burger place that had opened that day. What luck. We ordered the establishment's signature burger with fries. Even in our inebriated state, we knew we were eating something special.

Earlier in the summer, Teak shared photos he took at the Burger Fest with his SLR. The food shots were more like food porn. Dripping sauce, and gooey cheese atop cow-sized patties of meat, ready to be noshed upon. The Earl of Sandwich could not imagine the possibilities.

I find this ironic in my own monolingual way because the Hungarian word for cheese is sajt, which is pronounced almost like a four-letter word. So, when I order a cheeseburger in my broken Hungarian, it sounds like I’m asking for Shite Burger.

Despite the lingual pitfalls, I've made my burger rounds, there are places that locals and foreigners at the office alike all know and love.

Most of us are gorging our way through the burger stations of the cross, and there is not end in sight, which gives us little to complain about. In fact the sin is not to partake in the burgers of Budapest.

As an old grill cook, I know it's easy to make good burger, and it's easy to mess up and make a bad burger  but it's difficult to make a great burger – there are plenty of great burgers in Budapest.

When Kata and I sampled the burgers at W35, we were both impressed. This small, side-street eatery took a good burger, and made it better, they added their own little Mex-Tex touch, which is also unusual back home.

So the burger tour continues, and I sleep soundly at night knowing there are more delicious Shite Burgers out there, waiting to be eaten.