My bland-but-friendly South African "mate" and I decide to venture out into the thick of Pest, past the fast food chains and tourist hot spots, to take in a real live soccer game between Budapest's two biggest teams. Excited as we are to pretend to be real Europeans for a few hours, neither of us bothers to get actual directions to the stadium.
This proves to be a problem. We get nowhere near it, and since my Hungarian is a little rusty, I struggle to obtain suitable directions.
"No worries," as my inescapable Aussie compatriots would say. We pop into a dingy pub in a dingy neighborhood on the dingy outskirts of town and watch the game over a couple of pints of Arany Ászok.
At least I think it was a pub. It looks more like a finished basement.This little impromptu man-date forces me to pretend to give a flying fuck about apartheid and its after-effects, something I haven't had to do since 11th grade Humanities class. The game is rubbish: Újpest bests MTK 4-1.
Not wanting the magic to end, we continue our man-date with a bit of live jazz, Hungarian style. "Hungarian style," for the record, means watching an old lady croon American classics like "New York, New York," occasionally replacing "New York" with "Budapest" (clever!).
It must be a pretty good set, as one rather boisterous gentleman gets excited enough to be escorted out by police.
This man-date has been a total fiasco. I'll call you though, I promise.
###
