SZIMPLA

When Calvin students need a hangout, we find a corner in Johnny’s, spread out a blanket on Commons Lawn, or head down to a favorite coffee shop in Eastown. So what do you do when you’ve been uprooted from all your usual haunts? You find a new one.

Friday night seven of us ventured downtown to find “Szimpla Kert,” a place some Hungarian students had mentioned to us as a popular hangout. After about two hours of walking cobbled streets in between ancient, beautifully-scalloped buildings, we found Szimpla down a dark, narrow sidestreet. It was quite eerie for a place that was supposed to be hopping with college students; we weren’t even sure we were in the right place. So we uncertainly asked two young guys walking down the street where Szimpla Kert was; they smirked, looked us over, laughed a bit and said “just follow us.”

We passed two bouncers at the door and ducked inside.

It immediately became my favorite place in Budapest. We maneuvered through open rooms of graffitied stone and muted green, brown, red and blue walls; old relics—a 40s-style car, bicycles, a pommel horse, bathtubs—made makeshift seats or interesting decorative pieces; all the tables and chairs were beat-up benches and picnic tables, green and white wrought iron chairs, folding chairs, or wooden spools. Sweet smoke hovered in the air over small groups of Hungarians and International students, laughing, chilling, sipping wine and telling stories.

We ate a cheap, delicious dinner upstairs and looked over the black wrought iron balcony to the hubbub of people in the open air courtyard below. The rest of the Calvin group showed up later and Liz Yeager and I stayed with them late into the night, basking in the evening air in the courtyard, delighting in new friends while enjoying the babble of many languages wafting upward and around the space like fine incense. It was a beautiful thing.

Many days we will go there for a cheap meal or a cup of kave with our Lit books, journals, and thoughts.