I’ve lived a life without issue. I have no children. I’ve not watched someone grow day by day, week by week, month by month. I’ve not been present for the teething, the nappy changes and the terrible twos. I’ve not see them start school, play sports and pass exams. I’ve not seen the first date, the broken hearts and the angst that comes with being a teenager. The closest I’ve come to such a metamorphosis is my little corner of the VIII kerulet in Budapest.
When I moved into the neighbourhood back in 2008, I was flying in the face of some strenuous objections. It wouldn’t be somewhere I wanted to live. It was full of minorities (there are just about enough Irish in Budapest to form a minor minority… hello?). It was home to drug dealers and hookers and less than savoury people. It had no decent shops. It had nothing in the way of good restaurants or wine bars. And apart from Corvin cinema, it had nothing much in the way of entertainment at all.
Now, rating powers of observation on a scale of one to ten, with one being “so unobservant that I didn’t notice taxis in Budapest were turning yellow” and ten being “so unobservant that I didn’t notice the Nemzeti Hotel on Blaha is now furnished” I’d rate myself about five. Okay, so I never noticed Corvin Mall being built. In fact, I didn’t know it had opened until a month later when it was pointed out to me by a friend. And I live just 200 metres from its front door. But since then, I’ve been paying closer attention to what’s going on in my corner of the VIIIth.
Corvin Sétány now boasts its own fab Hungarian fusion restaurant – Kómpót – that has an excellent daily menu and a yellowfin tuna starter that’s to die for. It also has a great little wine and chocolate bar – Vino és Wonka – that has a chalkboard menu sporting wines from every wine region in Hungary, wines you’d be hard pushed to find anywhere else. And it has a friendly fruit and veg shop that will source whatever exotic fruit or veg you can think of. It’s home to Dumaszinhaz – comedy central – and has other restaurants, bars and cafés to suit all tastes. It has a gym with a 25-metre pool (or so I hear), a Norbi outlet and, just opened (or should I say, just noticed), a Lidl. And this is on the Sétány, not in the mall itself. The area is landscaped to within an inch of its life with the best of materials and in summer is a great outdoors space with live music and an almost Barcelonian feel.
Until recently it had its own community garden but this was bulldozed a few months ago. Fences went up. The diggers came in. And I was left wondering what was afoot. Yesterday I saw the placard. Another 227 flats are being built… these, in addition to the hundreds already built in phases I and II. When will it end?
My child has grown from an unruly but lovable ragamuffin into a cosmopolitan teen with its own ideas and opinions, its own taste and style, it own flair and fashion. And I’m the one rebelling.
Of course I love it. I want for nothing. Everything is there, right on my doorstep. What’s not to like? But a little part of me wishes that it was still untamed. That it hadn’t matured so quickly. That we weren’t losing touch.
Mary Murphy is a freelance writer and public speaker who is afraid to blink in case she’ll miss something. Read more at www.stolenchild66.wordpress.com
