Emese | Szentlélek square

“I avoided Budapest for a long time. I dared to go abroad even before coming here. I was afraid that I would be an ant in this city and I would end up in the grinder. I grew up in the countryside, there are two things to do as summer jobs: detasseling corn or collect leeches from the drain and sell them at a low price for the local factory that produces medicinal cosmetics. When you walked along the street, there was a very good chance that some stork dropping would land on you as there was a stork nest on very second lamp post. I loved to be a child here, still it is very difficult to talk about Balmazújváros with a romantic nostalgy, a little bitterness always mixes in it. When I first moved to Budapest because of my master’s degree, I needed assistance on the phone even to get to somewhere two blocks away, I went everywhere in high heels compulsively to compensate for my inferiority complex. It has gone since then. I’ve become a Pest girl: I instinctively put an article before first names (unfortunately) and I go to the streets in flat shoes and worse. I got in closer contact with Budapest when I had a foreign boyfriend, who had lived here for a longer time and he was familiar with the nights - and days in Pest. Looking with his eyes, I realized what a wonderful city this is, where Eastern, the Balcan and the Western culture meets. Since then I lived in many places, from the legendary artists’ rent in Népszínház Street to the posh Buda area flat. I’ve never been afraid anywhere as being alone is very freeing and gives courage after a while. Currently I work as a cultural journalist and I have never been as close to the “fire” as I’m now. Everything and everybody - even the greatest artists are within an arm’s reach as they are humans. Now Pest is not as big anymore, it’s almost small.”