Interesting aside in one of the Frederick Forsyth obits in the Times. He was struck by the women of Budapest. There is a certain vibe amongst the folks of both genders here. Perhaps centuries ago, a people from the east found good farmland and an especially defensible and auspicious bend in the great river, and decided to settle down and milk the happiness of the earth. And the culture does still seem to have the fruitful-and-multiply stance about it. At least in the capital. The outer districts are likely entirely populated by unshaven Kraznahorkian madmen living in castles of dirty, discarded styrofoam construction paneling on the windswept heath, staring listlessly at the groundhogs.
Aside from travels in university days, one of my first encounters with the place was a bobbled bus transfer -- as the stops hadn't been announced, and I didn't know that there were two stations in town, and it was the middle of the night, I got off the bus and realized my mistake as the bus pulled away. Looking around, I saw a subway station (above ground) nearby and decided that there must be a map there. I walked over, and just as I arrived, what turned out to be the last train of the evening arrived, and I got on, although I hadn't yet got to the map on the platform. As it turned out, it was going precisely where I needed to go. I stacked my bags on the seat opposite, and as I did so, a young woman with long dark hair and a long flowing skirt, seemingly the genius of the place herself, waked past and smiled.
It takes the power of decision to decide to milk what joy you can from the earth, and though I've never seen eye to eye with the Epicureans, the stance that sets itself to live in such a manner does has some faint tincture of Eden to it.