Finding My Way Home

I've always approached my travel as a kind of love story. Even this article is shaping up like a Dear John letter I'd be writing in an airport with no intention of mailing it. I came to Budapest after a brief relationship with Prague which probably needs some exposition and more overarching romantic metaphor. Prague was something like a first girlfriend. It was my first time away from my motherland of California, and I showed up after a lot of contrivance, stumbled through those initial cultural differences, spent too much money on cheap trinkets to display my affection for her to the world, and took hundreds of photos of us, me and Prague, together. Then it was time for it to come to an end and I went back home sulking about it being over too soon, how it really was true love, conjuring a way to find a replacement for the experience I had. I saw I could continue my studies in Budapest, and that the city was available, and it seemed appealing. After all, both cities had been raised near enough to each other, I figured I'd know the territory well enough. So I did what people are prone to do when they get an eye-full of a new crush: I fantasized about every intricate detail, looked up more pictures than I should have, imagined this new life as something harmonious, manifest, decked out in the fin-de-siecle style of men with top hats sitting around cafe fireplaces and discussing Chekhov over glasses of Palinka and smoking hand rolled cigarettes.

I arrived in late August with two duffel bags of the bare essentials of my belongings and too many books. It was hotter than I had expected, hot to a point of stifling, which made it difficult to explore. I found myself wasting a lot of time in the air-conditioned hostel lobby where I could chain smoke and mull over the looks from sour faced older women on the metro eyeing the tattered hem hanging from my cutoff jeans. I was frustrated in the way the city didn't seem to need me as much as I needed it. I was getting news from friends all across Europe talking about the quaintness of Italian cafes and the crumbling architecture in Paris. I thought they were deluding themselves. Their lives were obviously full of gregarious produce vendors and friendly municipal workers, perfect replicas of every cinematic depiction they had prepared themselves with. Meanwhile I was getting yelled at by several check out ladies at the market near my house for not having a barcode sticker on my bag of peppers, and trying to accept the fact that the metro security didn’t contain the kind of characters I had seen in repeat viewings of Kontroll. 

So the honeymoon was over, which is a good thing, the pragmatism started to set in and eventually I could start feeling my way back home after a long night. I knew where to go to accomplish what I needed to, and there were a few perks I got accustomed to (the smoking inside, falafel permeation, and the nightlife scene which extended until breakfast, most specifically), but I could feel a restlessness writhing inside of me. I decided a weekend away was the best cure for my feelings of displacement, and I went back to Prague, something I thought I'd never be able to do. I had a lovely time, of course, her looks hadn't changed at all and I still knew all the right spots to go, but on the train ride out of town, I was happy to be headed back to Budapest. "Back home" was the phrase the slipped out of my mouth. Something had changed with the distance. Budapest seemed inviting, accessible, she opened the doors of her bars and ruin pubs to me. There had been a heavy weekend of rain and some of the stagnant soot and general grit had been sloughed off the buildings, and something about Budapest in grey looked very appropriate. The days were getting shorter and the yellow lights from the chain bridge were inviting in the fog and sometimes I would wander home discussing my love for the city with myself.

It took a while, but I've really adopted a great love for the city. It would have been easy enough to settle somewhere else, come to Budapest on a weekend trip, end up at Szimpla or Corvintető and leave with another check mark on my world map and maybe a passport stamp or two. But this is a city to dig in to, one that takes some nurturing and careful exploration and an understanding of its background to fully comprehend. This is a city that doesn't shy away from emotion, and it's nice to come from somewhere like California and not be confronted with the plastic happiness I grew up around. By now I've found my favorite bars, met some wonderful people, and conducted my life as happily as I imagined I would. It's defied my expectations in every way, and the differences are still exciting. More so, it has been completely different from the stock education abroad experience that most come back from their studies with. This is not a vacation and not the prefabricated European experience I've encountered through my conversations with aforementioned students in other capitals. Except for a few times of being hauled around on field trips or study tours, I've never felt like I wasn't first and foremost simply living in the city. The fact that I can conduct my life in the way I would back home has convinced me that this is a city that doesn't cater to the amusement park expectations of most Americans abroad.

In the end this has been entirely my subjective experience. And it's really hard to sum up in 1000 words the complex relationship I've had with Budapest and the understanding of the mechanism inside it. The homesickness is there, of course, but every good native son knows that nothing can replace their motherland. Some might say Budapest and I had some miscommunication at first. Some people never got in a fight with the city, others knew her type immediately. She's a temperamental lover, and sometimes it might not seem like she wants you around, but once you open yourself to her emotional being, she'll start reciprocating. She's a resilient city, a little calloused, and rough around the edges in some areas, but she's strong. And hey, we've only been seeing each other for a couple months, and only now do I feel like I'm really getting to know her.

The Price of Policing Pacific Avenue

The City Council has cast new light on the budgetary and homelessness debates in Santa Cruz this summer, refurbishing street lamps on the entirety of Pacific Avenue. The new LED light fixtures, already tested by the hundreds in the neighboring city of Watsonville, aim to cut down on the city's greenhouse emissions and reduce the cost of lighting up this popular pedestrian area of Santa Cruz. However, some local residents have questioned the prioritizing of this area, saying that political aims, rather than environmental, are behind the refurbishing of the area.

These new fixtures have been especially prevalent at the southern blocks of the street, an area police say has seen increased crime in the process of removing the transient element from the heart of the city's tourism district. Their construction is yet another footnote in the growing saga of a conflict between the city government and the perceived threat posed by a strong number of homeless individuals in the area. Within a few years, several ordinances have come down on this popular and lucrative shopping district, the first of which banned sitting on Pacific Avenue sidewalks, followed shortly by fines imposed on any individual carrying a blanket. Within the past year the city has become even more active, enlisting the help of First Alarm security guards as well as a downtown 'hospitality' force to curtail seemingly seedy behavior.

Many residents see these laws as an excuse to harass the homeless population, rather than a way to improve the quality of life in the area. Andrew Denton, a resident of Santa Cruz county for twenty years, observed the prejudice in police citations. “In the last year of the smoking ban, I haven't known one person to get a ticket. Not that people don't get them, but police won't stop for the average person. They want to give tickets to the people living on the street who can't pay them. They did it with them playing music, with them sitting down and panhandling in public, all the things that you're bound to do if you're homeless in Santa Cruz. It's just a bit insidious to think that it's happening officially.”

It's not just the discrepancies in ticketed individuals that has been bothering residents, however. Many complain that the budget is unfairly weighted in terms of keeping the economic center of Santa Cruz accessible. One woman, a bartender who lives two away from the shopping hub, explained her experience in appealing to city officials. “I thought I had heard a car accident from my living room, but when I ran out to check I saw somebody speeding away from sideswiping my car and a few others around it. It was too dark to make out a license plate and by the time the police showed up it was too late. The whole time they talk about lighting up Pacific, but it already has lights. Why doesn't the city spend any time fixing up our streets? We're the folks who live here and pay taxes.”

These gripes are not unique amongst the population of Santa Cruz, as residents find themselves slipping through the cracks between the city and the expanding university. Approximately 20,000 students are enrolled in the college located six miles from the downtown area, accounting for almost a third of the total population within city limits. Many locals feel that the city cares more about drawing new students to the university which is already facing an over-enrollment and funding crisis statewide. In discussing the issue, I was approached by a homeless man, speaking under the name Louis L'amour about his treatment at the hands of local police. “I had a friend that told me to stay away from the clock tower last Thanksgiving. That's where a lot of us go to sleep and we heard that police would be there to round us all up that night. A bunch of [the homeless] were bussed down to Watsonville, kicked off at the farthest stop and told if they were seen again they'd be arrested for vagrancy. I couldn't figure out why they did it until I saw all the families walking around near the holiday. None of these people want their kids living in a town with people like us, right? That's what they must think anyways”.

Opinion remains split on investing in Pacific Avenue to such a rigorous level. While the homeless population does present cause for concern, many residents would rather see their own interests raised above that of the downtown's aesthetics. Despite Pacific being a large part of our downtown economy, the city can not disregard other areas, lest it find further dwindling support from an already irate population.

Facebook Fumble Leads to Felon's Capture

Donnell Brown thought he had avoided local law enforcement last Thursday, posting a status update to the social media network Facebook about his cunning evasion of arrest. This confident bit of bragging served as his undoing, however, as police followed leads from the social media site to his eventual arrest the following evening.

Police were called to a downtown residence for a noise violation, unaware that Donnell, who at the time had an outstanding warrant for ecstasy possession with intent to distribute, was in the residence. Donnell was boastful in his status update, a service Facebook offers allowing users to share their thoughts with friends on the network, declaring “They never gonna catch me!” and continuing with a detailed account of his escape, reportedly vaulting over a balcony when police arrived at the door. According to the suspect, he fled the residence through a back door when officers announced their presence at the apartment, managing to climb over a second story balcony railing and land safely below. Brown was jovial in his comments to friends, and maintained an air of confidence throughout his description of escape.

However, this confidence served to be his undoing as officers were able to question the suspects acquaintances after stumbling upon this evidence themselves. “People rarely consider the consequences of their behaviors online,” police spokesman Zach Friend shared after the arrest. “This communication is not privileged and certainly not private, and in this instance provided the evidence we needed to determine the suspect's location and serve an outstanding warrant”. Donnell was taken into custody following his arrest and awaits arraignment on the aforementioned charges at Santa Cruz county jail.