START BUDAPEST BLOG

You must have heard that taxi drivers preying on toursists is one of the annonying things in Budapest. With a little caution you can easily manage not to fall victim to these suckers. The main rules:

• Use a taxi from a big company
• Order a taxi on the phone if possible
• Make sure the taxi you ordered picks you up
• Don’t take an offer form a taxi driver to visit strip bars etc.
• Try no to look like a fool and use common sense

Click to find out how and why.
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The passengers of a night bus are a cross section of the night: young people going to or from a club, workers travelling through the city to an early shift, homeless sleeping on the bus.

Night buses in Budapest operate between 23.00 and 4 o’clock the following day. Around midnight the night buses can turn into clubs because many so people use the time of the journey to get hammered. On the weekends at around three or four is the after party time when you can see at least one person who is more fucked up than you are. The night bus on the way home is your last chance to pick someone up. It sounds strange but actually you can often succeed.
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Not to pay for the ride with BKV (public transport) is possibly the most popular sport in Budapest. The word for travelling without a ticket is “bliccelni”, which means literally “to be like lightning” and comes from the German word “Blitz” (Lightning).

Traditoinally, BKV checked the tickets either on the vehicles or on the way out from the metro. It took them decades to figure out that they should follow the cinema principle: check the tickets before you enter the premises. So nowadays, you have to flash your ticket or pass at every major metro or underground station before you enter.

There is a way to beat the system, we’ll give you a complete guide on free riding with the BKV. Remember: only the suckers pay, and only the stupid get caught.

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Hungarian language demonstrates its greatest diversity when it is used for swearing. English is limited to the usage of four letter words when something bad happens. Hungarian employs complex, grammatically correct curses with imperative in these situations. It is possible to swear continuously in Hungarian for 30 seconds without repeating any word.

Warning! Explicit content follows! Only click the link under if you are over 18, and tolerate the use of bad words for academic purposes!

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Legend says when the Romans wanted to conquer the land over the river they found a monster called Főz-Süt-Fűt living in the marshes of Pest. The monster didn’t fight the legionnaires, but he had them seduced with beauties from the East. The soldiers never returned to their camp and stayed on the left side of the river.

The monster became interested in watching the people, well, kinda mix. With time he was a true voyeur, bringing people together in the most peculiar ways and combinations. The monster is still around, maybe he lives somewhere under the city. They say if his voyeurism is not satisfied he will wake up rampage through the streets like a Godzilla.

makes an appereance in Zagar’s Bossa Astoria video at 1.30 - 1.40

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Budapest map for real.
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As a Westerner talking to Hungarians, you can often notice an element of arrogance. Hungarians sometimes tend to feel a bit superior because “life (or survival…) in this country is harder than in the West” where people are “spoiled by the social system and lack of challenge and hardship”. Other common topics are: our school system gives more comprehensive knowledge than a Western one; basically everything was invented by Hungarians; we have the most Olympic gold medals and Nobel Prizes per capita and so on.
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English speaking Hungarians often respond to questions like “How are you?” with a stream of complaints. They are not people in despair; this is simply how you are expected to react to such questions in Hungarian.

You complain about yours and let your partner complain about theirs; this is our version of “how’s it going?”. It is as empty as the Anglo-Saxon formality, you don’t care about the other’s problems and don’t expect to be listened to.

If you run a business, you are always supposed to complain, even if you are about to go on the Stock Exchange and spend the rest of your life banging ex-models on a yacht on the Carribean. Unfortunately, the so-called positive thinking has infected some of the Hungarian business people, so they smile and are very sure everything is ok. They are considered to be boastful and even stuck up by some. True, they should damn well respect the Hungarian culture of complaint.

‘Bezzeg’ is a very heavily used Hungarian word that cannot be translated into English. Bezzeg can be used in the sense of “the neighbour’s grass is always greener”:

Bezzeg in Germany you don’t have to pay for the Autobahn!

It is especially used when Hungarians think someone else has unjust advantages:

Bezzeg in Italy the pensioners get so much money they come on a holiday to Budapest!

Bezzeg can also be used if you compare somebody – yourself, your wife or kid – with somebody else:

Bezzeg your neighbour’s kid passed his intermediate English exam at 15.!

The bezzeg-land in the Hungarian collective consciousness is where everything runs smooth and everybody succeeds.

Plazas (the term used by Hungarians for shopping malls) in Budapest mean more than just very Western or American style shopping centres. They are the new city life. You find everything that makes a city different from a village: promenades, high streets, cinemas and cafés.

West End City Center, a shopping mall / plaza behind Nyugati became what it advertised: a new centre for the city. Sociologists talk about a new breed of people for whom plazas are the only third place. The Plaza became a plaza in the piazza (public place) sense; there are even people who visit a plaza to get fresh air.

The whole plaza is an as if thing. People act as if they had a lot of money, as if they were shopping addicts. The truth is: not many can afford buying new things constantly, but acting as if they could (and just did) is nevertheless an option. A lot of women save those fancy paper bags you get in the shops. The paper bag becomes a multifunctional tool: it is a handbag and a tool for as if - a status symbol, an item to make others envious during the plaza cruising.