Occupy Szabad Sajtó útca?

Sunday felt like the first of those late autumn, early winter days in Central Europe that people love to warn you about. Mid-40s, damp, pure grey -- the kind of days that make the happiest and healthiest people feel dour and fevered. Pulling up the shutters that morning, I thought to myself that Prime Minister Viktor Orban would probably be pleased -- both the left and the right might just choose to stay home.

I headed off to the protest after lunch, after taking a long time to decide whether or not I would go. I felt a little silly, like Norman Mailer in his writing on the 1960s protests, when he spent a silly amount of time thinking about himself and what his place in all these sweeping events was. Would I go as a journalist? not precisely, because there's no money involved. As a participant? that's tricky. I take the idea of national self-determination seriously, and Hungary is not my country.

Yet, 2011 has a certain special feeling, like 1989, 1968, maybe even 1848. Whatever is happening is bigger than any one country. I've spent a lot of time these past few weeks thinking about Occupy Wall Street, and how I'd respond if I were still back home right now. My opinion has changed a few times over that stretch. I began from a definite distance -- I have a permanent skepticism of the way leftist dissent in America presents itself as a laundry list of isolated grievances. Maybe its generational, but I can't think about this sort of checklist of interests without irony. But I've been won over by the idea of it. After all, I have an unreasonable mountain of student loan debt. I devoted myself to a profession that was trashed by unimaginative leaders, investment bankers, and a professional managerial class. So in general, yea, I have some pretty serious grievances. 

So I chose to go as an observer, a blogger, and see what I could see. The walk to the protest was striking, as usual. I crossed the Lanchid, which I've done dozens of times this month, and it never looks the same. On Sunday, it was decorated with flags -- it was National Day, when the country commemorates the beginning of the 1956 Uprising.

Across the Ukraine

I've let keeping up with things fall away the past few eventful weeks. The simple story is, we are in Budapest, having arrived here at the beginning of the month. We've been getting used to our new surroundings, and more on that later.

We arrived here by train from Moscow, which was truly one of the most interesting ways to cross the steppes. It took about two days -- conveniently at the same time as the Red Sox were flushing the season for good.

Here are some images:

I had very distinct ideas about what we would be able to see from our window. I wanted to see those rolling steppes, the 'Black Earth,' the vault of the sky and the curve of the earth. I was a bit off. The land was in full autumn gloom -- permanent drizzle, menacing low clouds. But somehow, the land itself seemed to be appreciated, as opposed to in Russia, where it sometimes feels taken for granted.

The station at Vinnytsia, about halfway through.

Reading the land as it passed, all I could think about was the place's long, bloody history. Just the idea of the millions that perished here in my grandfather's lifetime alone is staggering. The whole place feels haunted.

The schedule, more or less.

Our spalny vagon, at the station in L'viv. This was the only place where we stopped long enough to get out for some fresh air..

Keleti Station in Budapest.