So you know how yesterday I was all confident?

Well, today I got hit in the face with an apple.

Let's rewind. The bike-car situation in Budapest, as in most places, is rather tense. I would venture it's a bit more so in Budapest though... the concept of a bike lane is younger than I am. Not many people really ride bikes... you see them on the island, or tooling slowly on the sidewalk. Those you do see on the road are usually what I refer to as "bike crazies." You know... wearing far too much spandex to commute 15k to work, special messenger bags, pedals with clips. Then there's me, and a few others like me. I'm a bit of anomaly in that I wear both a helmet (always) and a reflector vest (when needed). I bike in the street, as far right as is safe, but don't hesitate to take a lane to turn or to avoid being killed after a red light. I signal with my hands, and, weirdest of all, actually stop for red lights.

Generally while on my bike I hate most cars, most bicyclists, and most pedestrians. The cars honk, refuse to cede way, tailgate, swear at me, pass three inches to my left. The bicyclists run through every red light, hop on and off the sidewalk without care, fail to signal, pass on the right, and weave in and out of lined-up cars. The pedestrians... well, they jaywalk with headphones on.

So today on my way to work there was some sort of an issue at Oktogon, a pretty big intersection. The lights were flashing, and there were police officers directing traffic. I was at the front of a line of traffic, in the right lane, waiting for the officer to direct our side to head through the intersection. I was standing there, perched on one pedal but pretty chill... my side had just "caught the light," so to speak, so I knew we had a pretty long wait.

Suddenly a bike crazy whizzed three inches to my left, barely scraping between me and the car in the left lane at lightning speed, dashed through the intersection, almost causing an accident, and was gone. I sighed. The bicyclist behind me sighed. What a jerk.

The driver in the left lane, however, did not sigh. Oh no. He, instead, shouted "Baszd meg, bicikli!" I'll leave you to imagine what that means. I started to look over to offer a sympathetic grimace of apology on behalf of law-abiding bicyclists, when something hit me in the face, hard. A little dazed, I took in the laughing driver and the apple at my feet. I turned to the bicyclist behind me and asked, "He didn't just throw an apple at me, did he?" "De!" responded the girl solemnly. Yes.

I went up to the police officer holding up our traffic.

"Did you see that that man threw an apple at my face?"
"Yes. Where are you from?"
"Um... America. Are you going to..."
"Your papers, please."
"What? Really?"
"Your papers, please."

It is worth noting here that the police officer was using the informal form of "you" with me, the te, which is rather inappropriate in an official context, but quite standard when someone wants to belittle you. So I handed over my papers, and took the standard harassment about them. (I refuse to carry my actual papers with me. It's too much of a risk of them being lost or stolen, so I carry copies. The police are welcome to accompany me and a witness of my choosing to my flat to confirm that the copies are genuine.)

By this time, of course, the offending car is long gone.
"Well, my little miss, what would you have us do?" Hand to God, "my little miss" is a term of address here.
"Well, it would have been nice if you would have spoken with the driver."
"And what would you have had us say? What would we have charged him with?"
"I don't know. Throwing an apple at my face in the middle of the road?"
"Miss, that is not the name of a crime."
"Well, whatever the name of that sort of crime is." Here I think, God help me, I don't know the names of crimes!
"Well, miss, if you can't even say what you want us to charge, how can we do anything?"

I gaped at the officer, wide-mouthed and wide-eyed. Finally, I managed to sarcastically grit out a "Thank you so much for all your help." I biked to work, tears stinging my eyes and dramatically and vividly visualized my revenge... against the apple-thrower, against the xenophobic cop, against everyone who votes for xenophobes, against everyone who shrugs and goes "Eh. That's how it is."

Of course, I got to work and my coworkers saw my face, on which I can hide no feelings. They patted me, fussed over me, told me that the driver and the cop were reprehensible pigs, told their own stories of police corruption, ranted about the state of their country, and patted me some more. They hugged me and poured me glasses of fizzy water and fed me pogacsa, and I remembered why I'm in Hungary. (I was also then forced to participate in a mock election, but that's a story for another blog.) Then I went to Hungarian lesson and cried on my teacher, and she patted my hair and told me she was sorry.

Today I lost respect for the police, at least in Hungary. Today, I understand the magyarok a little more.

Today I also rode my bike home in the afternoon breeze, smelling azaleas and cherry blossoms, their tiny petals falling onto my legs and hands, and into my hair. I looked at the buildings rising around me, at their crumbling, beautiful facades. I maneuvered around groups of Italian tourists standing in the street and taking pictures of every tiny detail. I smelled langos and palacsinta, coffee and cake. I saw an old lady hit a young man with her umbrella, and the young man turn around and help her across the street. I saw a teenage couple kissing on a bench next to a couple in their fifties doing the same. A pedestrian stopped to let me continue in my path and I smiled and thanked him. "Nincs mit, drágam," he called after me. It was nothing, my dear. And I forgave this morning, and loved Budapest again.