This past weekend, the bond of sisterhood formed west of the Atlantic took me eastward to the city of Budapest. As luck would have it, my NY-based AXO little sister, Rui, was looking for a +1 for a wedding in Hungary, of all places. And, despite not having completed my thesis before hopping abroad, I certainly did not regret accepting the invitation.
On the day I flew in, the bride and groom had invited everyone to an afternoon at the New York Café, which they partially privatized. And by New York Café, they mean something which more closely resembles Versailles than anything I ever knew in New York. The historic café opened in 1894 and is a real display of the wealth of Budapest at the turn of the twentieth century.
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| Day 1 (officially Day 2, but Day 1 for me): Pre-wedding reception. These guys were only getting started. |
Of course, our hosts would have hardly let the pre-wedding reception outdo the wedding day itself. And so, the following day, things really got started. We began with a fabulous photo shoot with my new friends. (Ten wedding guests, myself included had rented a house together via Airbnb where we collectively bonded.)
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| The newlyweds and the Airbnb/Real-World-Budapest/Oliver Wyman crowd |
Glamour shots complete (or maybe that was just Greg and me), we each lined up to get our name checked off the guest list, receive our boutonnière or corsage, and earn passage into Fisherman's Bastion, a national monument complete with castle turrets that stands on a hillside along the Danube River overlooking the Pest side of Budapest. The monument, built at the turn of the twentieth century, has seven turrets to represent the seven tribes that founded Hungary in the year 895 AD. Yes, you've understood correctly: the couple privatized this fairy tale setting for their wedding venue.
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| Siwen and Henry sure knew how to throw a wedding party in style. |
Everything about the wedding was simply perfect, from the soundtrack of the ceremony (which itself took place in Hungarian, Chinese, and English), to the blend of Chinese, American, and Hungarian cultural practices, to the décor and the setting, to the married couple themselves: a brilliant, adorable, and impressive duo who've been together since meeting in high school in Hong Kong (where they shared a connection as the two European-Asians: she was raised in Hungary and he in Sweden). The entire day was a performance in the art of measured elegance, and every last detail was considered. A pair of doves were released after they finished saying their vows. (None of us saw that coming!) They even had a remote-controlled wedding drone. I kid you not.
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| Caught in action: a wedding drone filmed the ceremony from the skies. |
I can't deny that I loved the chance to be a princess for the day, especially in the midst of my zombie-like thesis-writing period, in which days were stitched together punctuated merely by sunsets and library opening and closing hours. (I'll even confess to having crammed in some thesis writing that very morning before slipping into my gown and dolling up.)
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| Princess Emilienne did not have to worry about writing her doctoral thesis this Saturday evening. |
After a long night of dancing, I was more than ready to sleep off the night and clear my conscience with a few more hours of thesis writing before Day 3 of the wedding festivities began. Luckily for me, Rui made sure that I got out and enjoyed Budapest as well. We managed to grab the last two English-language tour tickets of the day for a visit of Parliament. (Guided tours are the only way to visit Parliament.) So I plopped myself down in the Parliament lobby and got elbows deep in the thesis until our turn came around.
Sticking with a theme, Parliament was equally opulent. The tour was also pretty entertaining. I learned that the Parliament building was pretty advanced for its era. It was home to some of the very first elevators, having been constructed within a few years of their invention. It also had a rudimentary heating and air conditioning system built via large tubs in the basement that were alternately filled with either hot water or blocks of ice, which heated or cooled air that was then sent up through vents throughout the building. During a portion of the tour, cameras were forbidden as we visited the crown jewels, which are under continuous guard by members of the Hungarian military. The Hungarian crown jewels weren't always held here: after WWII, as the Communists came to power, the crown jewels were smuggled to Austria then to Germany and over to Fort Knox where they were kept hidden throughout the Communist era. According to our tour guide, the crown jewels were later returned to Hungary in a box labeled "Radiation Danger" to help prevent theft. Gotta love those little gems that tour guides toss about.
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The Hungarian Parliament: not too shabby.
In the bottom middle panel you'll see the numbered holders where politicians used to drop off their cigars for safe keeping mid-smoke in order to attend debates in the chamber right next door (the Assembly Hall of the House of Magnates), pictured in the top right panel. The seven seals which decorate the chamber, shown in the bottom left, represent the various rulers of Hungary throughout its history, from the first Magyar tribes through a series which even included a French king. |
And finally, after a cram session of thesis editing post-Parliament, the encore act of the wedding (aka Wedding Day 3) took us up and down the Danube on a privatized boat while we were fed, serenaded, and entertained by traditional Hungarian singers and dancers, and other performers.
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| Wedding Day 3: a privatized boat tour/dinner/evening's entertainment along the Danube (and a ferocious, wild Greg) |
I hated to have to wake the next day and acknowledge that my life as PhD student was rapidly hurtling back towards me with the approach of my flight. But Rui and I put off thoughts of responsibility that morning and instead finally visited the Széchenyi Baths. The baroque baths were built between 1913 and 1927, and 15 of the 18 pools are fed by natural springs. We hopped back and forth between very hot and cold pools and soaked in warm outdoor baths while an intermittent light rain cooled our shoulders. It was a weekend ending straight out of a fantasy.
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| Rui and me at the Széchenyi Baths |
Thoroughly relaxed and spoiled thoroughly, I boarded my flight back ready for the home stretch of this thesis, and very grateful for such an awesome little sister.
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