Budapest

This is our second full day scurrying around Budapest... for scurrying... no fault of our own... is what it feels like...
... We did Paris... We saw Rome... and they are busy... but these places don't hold a fragment of the stress that seems to hang over this city... and resonate on every street... and... I don't understand why...
... It's beautiful... historic... but inviting?... it is friendly... helpful... touristy... but... ?... something does not sit right...
... Sure... I'm glad I came here... and sure... I've learned... and glimpsed... a world I've never known before... still shrugging off the life under the iron curtain... people held under the foot of others since the 15th century... lost every major war for 5 centuries... a beaten people... and maybe... through years of suffering... the fear of occupation... the culture was all wrung out... if culture was what I hoped to find... now... maybe... slowly coming back to it's own again... but not quite here yet...
... and in it's absence... though I try to throw out a line... I find nothing to connect me to this city... not even a collectible... a bobble... that lines the windows of tourist shops... maybe to put on your keychain... that defines the place... lets everyone else know that is where you have been... and what they stand for...

... But in its defense... I have yet... and will not have the time... to really look for culture in this place...