In Our Neighborhood

In our neighborhood, no more than a ten to fifteen minute walk from where we are staying I found a few places that are worth documenting. For example, the church above is being cleaned by the local parishioners for service on Sunday. In the shank of the day, people are showing their devotion to God and church by keeping thing clean. Or maybe they just like to have a clean church.



On down a block or so is another church painted a nice bright yellow that shows well in the late afternoon sun.

Google translate tells me that the latin over the door means "of the sun the glory of God". This seems appropriate with the front bathed on the light of the sun.

But there are places other than churches here. Here is a local store of some description. Google translate tells me it is an "iron shop" but I am skeptical that I know what that really means. We're finding the translations of Hungarian to be fraught.

Another, perfectly normal house on the corner of the street.

But there are still reminders of the past here. There is a block of mostly empty space with several large, abandoned buildings standing. Clearly, this is left from the communist era and not treated well by the neighbors.

Other houses have, what seems to me, to be reminders of a more difficult time. I see, on my walkabout, lots of people out with their kids and dogs for an evening perambulation. I can't quite imagine a place where you take toddlers and grandparents out for a walk and people still need barbed wire to protect their property. Yes, every one, including our home owners have a fence, but this seems a little over the top (no pun intended).

In addition to the neat little house such as the one we are sitting in and the many others that line these streets, we find abandoned ones like the one below. It seems a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Budapest.

We see very, very few for sale signs here and we have never seen anything like a moving van. People stay put here. The details of where you live here seem less important than the fact that you live here. the public transport is heavily used and the traffic at anytime we travel is pretty light for a city of over a million people.

The house you saw in the above two images is for sale (the Elado sign),  contrary to my last statement, but still, it is not a house you'd buy to live in with simply starting over. There are a few places in the neighborhood where houses are being completely remodeled. Our house hosts tell us that no one borrows money for a house, they pay cash. This sounds startling until you grasp the state of the economy here. E saw a flat for sale not far from the Danube with an asking price of 8,000,000 Forints. Pretty steep you say? Well, currently the exchange rate is 300 Forints to the Dollar. This puts the asking price at under $30,000. If you pick the right neighborhood, you could but a place, stay for a few months and sell it again and still have a cheap vacation.