Suicide in Budapest

It was one of those juxtapositions that made us giggle, Claudia and me. As we walked back and forth upon the long bridges that crossed the Danube, from the older Buda to the newer Pest, I noticed how short the safety walls were along the sides of the walkway.

Here in the U.S., we're protected from ourselves, out of concern for liability more than for our own safety, I suspect. It's as though building the safety walls higher and covering them with barbed wire will somehow dissuade people from hurting themselves. In Budapest, where so little of the recent past has been devoted to tourism and appearances, no such provisions have been made.

We laughed at the attitude, about how, as in many places in Eastern Europe, the prevailing philosophy is, "Live here if you'd like, but if you'd rather die, we won't stop you."

It's exactly the kind of city that could spawn this story:

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Police on Friday removed the corpse of a man believed to have hanged himself at least a year ago after builders and students at Budapest's University of Arts had initially mistaken it for a modern sculpture.

The body hung for a whole day in a garden building that had been re-opened for repairs before onlookers realized what it was and called the police, local media said.