Szechenyi Baths

One cannot avoid the baths when seeking activities in Budapest - they are both a tourist destination and something of a cultural must for native Hungarians. I must admit, prior to going, the idea of a collective bath with a large mass of others did not necessarily get me excited. My mind races right to the unsanitary conditions of such activities and I begin to develop the hebbie-gebbies. Nonetheless, I ventured out, this time opting for the metro line that runs underground the Andrassy. I learned that this subway line was built for the 1900 world's fair, or something to that effect. It was built prior to our modern understanding and construction standards, and thus, barely below ground. I imagine at the time - before modern cars - that it is was quite a development, the first in continental Europe probably.

I fought with the ticket machine for a while and the non-English speaking attendant seemed disinterested in assisting me, but did bark some orders which I ignored. Finally, a ticket fell into the slot below. As I grabbed it, memories of grade school construction paper filled my mind, and reminded me that this quality was probably something the communists instituted years prior to save resources. I glaced at the directional line and found the metro stop I needed. Once inside, I felt like I stepped into a movie set in a Hollywood back lot. The metro cars may be the originals from 1900 and, if not, certainly communicated a similar asthetic. Thank God I took a seat because the train zipped along at a rapid pace that surprised me and I could easily have stuck my hand out the window and touched the wall, probably a mere six inches from the train - again, this was an example of one of the first subway lines in the world. I arrived quickly at my stop for Szechenyi Baths and exited the station to find myself standing somewhere in City Park. I looked right and figured the large, ornate building occupying a large piece of real estate must be the spot. After a few failed attempts, I found the proper entrance. At 8 PM, I paid my entrance fee - about 8 USD - and followed the crowd to see how the hell this worked. A string with a key served as my guide to finding the safe place for my belongings while I bathed with the masses. I disrobed in an extremely large gym-type locker room and again followed the crowd back up the stairs and out into the baths.

At this point, I must communicate that the term baths is a bit of misnomer. A few better terms for Westerners, American especially, would be simply, city or public swimming pool. There are, of course, some big differences like three distinct pools - one hot, one medium, and one cold. The hot and medium baths had bubbles (similar to jets) and the cold pool seemed more like our typical lap pool where people actually swam back and forth for exercise. One foot inside this one communicated to me that I had little interest in that experience. Signs inform guests that a pre-bath shower and scrub are essential before dipping with the masses - this I liked, as it assured some sanitary standards. I did not see any enforcement of this rule, but hey, at least it was suggested. Being in such a social scene alone, and in my skimpy European style bathing suit (when in Rome), proved another opportunity to feel alive. I hide my slight angst and decided the best course would be to just get wet. So, I picked the pool with the fewest number of children.

After about thirty minutes, a horrible development occured. My spray tan (a gift from a friend of mine in LA who wanted me to look "fabulous" for my trip) was beginning to lose its "grip" due to what I could only deduct were the minerals in the water (a healthy alternative to the chemicals we would use in America). It was a complete flashback to that time in Palm Springs fifteen years ago when I went to the white party and lathered on some of what was then a new development in beauty care - the tan in a bottle stuff. The heat in PS literally melted off my tan and I dripped the orange stuff off onto the white towel I was using. Mortified barely explains my state of mind then as an insecure gay kid almost literally and figuratively melting in a sea of judgemental, body conscience gay men. But, this is a whole different story. Some of those feelings revisited me now in Budapest. Although I am very confident now about my physique, the whole melting experience in front of strangers, however judgemental or not, still caused a little anxiety. As a twenty five year old back then, I quickly made an exit and probably sobbed a little from embarrassment. Now, as a seasoned 41 year old, I decided to tell myself to deal with it and proceed with the experience.

A wonderful one it was. I enjoyed the faces, the smiles, the heat, the laughs, the people again living totally in the moment, in the experience. As the sun began to sink and dusk began to take hold of the sky, I too found myself lost in the moment, content and delighted, and now completely sold, on the concept of community bathing. This communal bathing moment, opened my mind to some thoughts regarding nothingness and freedom. Something about being amost naked in a pool of humanity allowed my mind to consider why the experience offered such joy. The nakedness and lack of physical possesions offers complete freedom to live in the moment. The baths gave me a clearness of desire, even thought, of things (who needs things when bathing?). I was struck by the simple message the experience offered - that tossing aside material things opens me to new experiences. Free from the worry of thinking about things unloaded my mind and released me of the prison of common thought about my stuff - maintainence, accumulation, order, and upkeep of them. I embraced something outside of my norm, my life standards and culture. I swam among strangers experiencing a common journey of mind and soul. Beautiful. This propelled me to consider that a sort of personal anarchy, spiritually speaking, instead of the rule based mentality we typically use as our mode of operation, our default, truly is the way to God. God, or being in the now, is actually found via the new paradigm, the new experience. As they say, the Devil is in the details. Learning the rules and focusing on the future steals us of the now and bogs us down into the past and the future. When we get caught up in rules, standards, or the customs of our upbringing, we forget to simply live our lives. God is stolen when we forget the current moment. Our real life literally stops when we are in the past trying to consider, or learn, a lesson so that we can apply it to the a situation in the future. Being open to new, atypical things, people and experiences may be a way to experience God. Perhaps, that is reason my soul longs to travel the world. It knows how to feed itself real mana from God. I have always been a strong believer in taking the road less traveled. For some, this is a scary concept - the foreign in life. But consider this, the once foreign turns into the common once you visit it routinely. The cycle can then be shifted back to a variation of the opposite in order to re-find the new. As your new thought, belief, experience, custom, attitude gains steam over the old, it becomes common again. Thus, a thing, experience, custom, attitude, and activity can be both good and bad at the same time - two sides of the same coin as they say. A thing can be both typical and atypical to different people at the same time since we are all on our individual journey back to our collective whole. Travel gives us the surprise we need on our path toward fulfillment and/or englightenment. A surprise makes something more special, due to the very nature of surprise. It is something fresh, new and thus much more appreciated and meaningful and good (relatively speaking to one's personal journey). This is why swimming in Hungary, as opposed to doing this back home in America (something I have done hundreds of times) becomes so meaningful.

After nightfall, I headed out of the baths, two hours seemed plenty for my soak and after my contemplative mood, I was eager to grab some dinner and investigate the nightlife.