BLOOD AND HONEY

I do this thing when I travel where I adamantly refuse to take too many pictures. I want to be able to actually see what I'm looking at, instead of pointing a lens at it all the time.
Budapest is a beautiful city, and one that felt more alien to me the longer I was there. In that way that a difficult and handsome man can be terribly withholding and ambivalent but still captivating at the same time. (I have a type. It's a problem.) We arrived after a five-hour sweltering train journey (the air conditioning was broken) from Prague. That train journey, heat stroke aside, felt oddly familiar and yet utterly foreign. The corn fields reminded me of Iowa; but I had never seen so many acres of sunflowers in my life. The villages and towns we passed all had Soviet-era towers and churches with that distinctive steeple shape, like an elongated teardrop. And in both town and country, graffiti is everywhere.

When we got off the train in Keleti station, I knew instantly that something unusual was happening. Hundreds of people were swarming the platforms, and hundreds more were lining up to buy tickets. I noticed that nearly all of them were young men with no luggage, and then I knew--refugees. (I refuse to refer to the events this autumn as the migrant crisis. More of them are refugees of war than economic migrants.) I had been following the refugee crisis since the drownings off the coast of Italy earlier this year. It's one thing to see that in the paper or in a video on the Internet, but to see it in person does something to your heart. At least it did mine. The urgency of those fleeing the horrors of war, the fight for survival, the vulnerability and the courage of thousands of people all jammed into one little place--it's palpable. You can feel it. It is as tangible as heat bouncing off asphalt. Underneath the train station were tents, where children were playing and sleeping and crying.

This experience set the tone for me for the rest of our time in Budapest. But there were many joyful moments for us, too.

If you go there, go to Cafe Central. The walnut cake there was so good I thought I was hallucinating. (Maybe I was. I had head exhaustion. But still.) I was a total tourist and had chicken paprika there as well, and goulash, and it was far and away my best meal in Budapest. We also went to Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest remaining synagogue in Europe, for a string quartet as part of the annual Jewish festival. I loved the music. They also had this art installation in the courtyard called the Tree of Life, which was metal, and whose leaves chimed in the wind. It was very unsettling and somber and beautiful.

We went to the Gellert hotel for the spa, which was a sumptuous art deco heaven. The water has fancy minerals in it or something. I just liked it because swanning around in an art deco spa, with sunlight shimmering off the blue-green walls and the comforting echo of the spring water gushing out of the pumps, is just so fun. It's like being an off-duty movie star or reclusive duchess. (Can you tell I have an overactive imagination?) However like all spas they make you wear those hideous shoes.

I don't have pictures of it, but our hotel, called the Bohem Art Hotel, was fantastic. Easily the best hotel breakfast I've ever had, anywhere. (Savory French toast with tomato and cheese? Homemade pastries? Raspberry Greek yogurt and fruit salad that doesn't scrimp on the pineapple? Brown bread that rivals the soda bread in Ireland? Cheese-stuffed sausages wrapped in bacon? Perfectly cooked scrambled eggs? WHY DID I LEAVE??) Our room was slightly smaller than the average toaster and the shower doesn't have a door or curtain, which would be sexy if you were staying with your husband or lover or something, but for me just meant that the floor was flooded after showering. But hey, it's an art hotel, so they can be arty and cool. The housekeeping staff gave us free bottled water every day and everything was immaculately clean; the bed was comfortable and the air conditioning pleasantly robust. Located close to the market hall and one metro stop away from the city centre, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I have been away in Eastern Europe for most of the past month and now I am back. Photo diary to follow.
Since I am also bedridden with the flu, I have been lolling around on Pinterest (for the first time in three years). It's made me remember why I disengaged from the site in the first place. It feels very homogenous--the same things pop up over and over again. There are also a lot of nonsensical myths on there.
Myths make me angry because they trick people. They trick people into buying things they don't need. So, rather than just yelling "Charlatans! Thieves!" to my computer forever, I have culled from like half an hour of hopping around on Pinterest some flagrant myths, and debunked them:

1. You can get your hair to grow super long super fast if you take supplements or eat better.
No. Hair growth and length, like so many other things, is largely determined by genetics. Example? Myself and my college roommate and BFF. She treats her body as the temple it is and eats so well she doesn't even need vitamins but she still takes them anyway. Her hair, of course, is also shiny and healthy and strong like the rest of her, but it grows slowly. When I was in college I ate terribly (and sometimes I still do), only started exercising junior year, and never bothered with deep conditioning or quarterly haircuts. I counted the citric acid in Coca-Cola as Vitamin C. (Well, almost.) My hair has grown about eight inches since February. It will grow all the way down to my hips. You wanna know why? Both my grandmothers have incredible, thick, coarse, wavy hair. There are steps you can take to take better care of your hair, but how long it grows is something you can't really control.

2. You can get flat abs by doing nine thousand crunches. 
There is no such thing as targeted fat loss. When you burn fat, it happens all over your body. Additionally, crunches are sort of a lousy exercise, I think. You can and will strengthen your core with all of the major lifts, like deadlifts and squats. Far more effectively, too, since you have to use muscles in the front and back of your body to stabilize yourself during these lifts, rather than just the six-pack muscle in the front of your body. 

3. You can get rid of blackheads by doing something with Vaseline or charcoal or whatever the hell else. 
Blackheads are hard to get rid of. The only reliable method is to have them extracted by a facialist who's really good at it. If you try to do it yourself, you could scar, and all that those homemade treatments succeed in doing (or those pore strips) is inflaming your skin. You can reduce their occurrence with the right products, like AHAs.

4. Cellulite creams work. 
This one isn't from Pinterest, this is from Kylie Jenner. She claims that she uses butt plumping creams that stimulate fat cells. Okay. NO. Whether you're trying to get rid of them or stimulate them, no topical cream is going to do anything to the fat cells in your skin. It doesn't penetrate deep enough. Don't let anyone make you believe you shouldn't have cellulite, or that it's abnormal. The majority of women do. The outer layer of our skin is thinner so the connective tissue and fat beneath it is more visible. Even slender people have it. Any boyfriend who complains about it is a douche canoe, unworthy of beholding you in all your glory. Throw him out, and then send him an invoice for all those cellulite creams and years of psychological damage because, let's face it, if he's judgmental about cellulite that's probably the tip of the iceberg.

5. Detox ANYTHING. 
Detox is this buzzy buzzword applied to everything from tea to body brushes (first of all, what?? what's wrong with a washcloth?) and I hate it. Your body already flushes away the junk that you don't need, that's what your liver and kidneys spend all day and night doing. And the word "toxin" implies that we constantly ingest massive amounts of formaldehyde or something. Which we don't. I'm as wary as anyone about bizarre substances companies may put in our food or skincare, and there needs to be more transparency and rigor in the FDA's standards, but what bothers me about this trend is that the products that claim to be detoxing don't work. Is herbal tea, or hot water with lemon and cayenne pepper, going to magically flush any tiny molecules of BPA from your system? No. If you chronically drink to excess, is some detoxifying mask going to be able to reverse the dehydration that alcohol causes? No. It's total snake oil and scaremongering.

6. You can get rid of dark eye circles with tea bags.
Ah, genetics rears its ugly head again! If you have chronic darkness under your eyes, it could be due to sinus problems, anemia, or just having more pigmentation under your eyes. The likely truth is that those shadows won't go away unless you treat the underlying cause. Even then, you may not be able to get rid of them. Take heart. I leave mine uncovered whenever I need to appear especially serious and studious. Does it work? Who knows. Do I feel more like the heroine of a Victorian novel set in Yorkshire? Absolutely.

Now if nothing else you can walk free in the knowledge that most of the time the stuff people are selling you is junk. I hope this was useful for you. I'll be back with something prettier soon.