Day 6 - A Long Day and a Winding Road...and Shopping

It's been a very long day. Not sure how long I'll last writing this tonight as I'm first starting at 10pm, and it's been taking me about 2-3 hours to write each of the previous posts. Diane is already asleep, so it's not a problem - other than for me dragging in the morning.

Got up at about 7:30, had breakfast of leftover strudel (could it have been anything else?), and waited for my cousin Erzsebet to come by. Erzsi is Zora's sister - both are decendents of my cousins, the baron and baroness, whom I mentioned in an earlier posting, and the primary reason for us coming to Budapest.  We had met Zora in the US as she lives in New Jersey, but Erzsi lives here in Budapest.

Erzsi arrived at 9:30am and was nice enough to bring us a breakfast - of pálinka. For those of you who haven't heard of pálinka, it's home-made booze, and in this case, it was kerítésszaggató pálinka, or literally in English "fence-ripper" pálinka. It's a tradition here in Hungary to have a shot or two in the morning for breakfast. And we did partake. Whoooooeeeee! That stuff is strong! 52% strong. And illegal too. I can tell because Diane said so. And believe me, when Diane says something is strong, it's strong, and therefore probably illegal. Many years ago, Diane brought home a gift of White Lightning - a wonderful, home-made brew closely related to lighter fluid that's made in the deep south that will make your eyes spin and shoot out of their sockets - just like in the cartoons. I couldn't believe that she drank the stuff, while I took one sniff and burned the hairs in my nostrils! This particular pálinka was made from plums so it had a really nice taste. So we were all feeling wide awake by the time we downed 2 shots, and got down to business as to what we should do today.

So we made our plans to walk around the Pest side of the Duna for a bit, and then head over to the Buda side. But first, we wanted to check out the giant farmer's market on Vámház körút, one of many streets in Budapest where my g-grandparents lived for a bit. But we would be on our own. 

Yesterday, while I was in Gyongyos trudging though the thickets of brambles taking pictures of dead people headstones, Zora and Diane were going to the spa to get a facial and their hair done. On the way, Zora twisted her ankle pretty badly, so she is now out of commission for the duration. So Diane and I would be on our own - which is not really a bad thing. There are times when you need some time away from the family, and this was as good a time as any. So after Erzsi, Diane, and I decided on a plan of action for the day, Erzsi headed home. She hurt her back last week and can't walk for too long. Quite a pair of sisters, eh?

Diane and I took the train a few stops and got off at Kálvin tér which is a block or two from the market. The place is huge! The bottom level is dedicated to food, and the top to general market stuff like clothing and furniture. The place was absolutely packed with people. It's Saturday at about noon, and everyone wants to eat - including us. So we dodged people left and right, turned this way and that way, bumped a lot of people, took a few pictures when I could, but eventually we got to the prepared food aisle.

 Market on Vámház körút

 

Inside of market. It's so big it could have been a train station or an airplane hanger!

 Prepared food vendor aisle.

 Food

 
We looked for a vendor that had lots of people on line, but it was too crazy for that as there was almost no way to tell who was on line for what, so we settled for the first opening we saw, and one where we noted some English was being spoken.

Although I have no problem pointing to something that looks reasonable to eat but not really sure of what it is, it was much better for Diane to know what she was eating. So I did the dance with the mob of people scooting back and forth while Diane grabbed a place to sit and eat. I was looking at what others were eating, chatting a bit with some other English-speaking people who had some of the same concerns as Diane as to what was what, and chose a bunch of stuff from the pans of food. Hey, if it wasn't any good, we'd just toss it. It's not like we're at a fancy restaurant or something where we need to have some level of manners and eat everything on our plate. And it was also very convenient that Diane was sitting right next to the trash can.

But it really wasn't necessary. I chose some sausage wrapped in bread - similar to what we have in the States called pigs in a blanket, sauerkraut, stuffed cabbage, and rice. Most of it was reasonably decent peasant fast food. But I was a little peeved that I had to pay 150 forint, about 60 cents, for mustard. Sheesh.

So after stuffing our faces, we walked around a bit and was just about to leave when we saw a stand with...say it with me now....strudel!  Believe me, I am definitely going to be strudel'd out by the time I leave Hungary. We purchased another 6 pieces including potato and sauerkraut. Strange, but true. Sauerkraut strudel. I tasted the potato strudel and it was something akin to a kanish, but with less onion and salt. It will be great with some mustard. Hey, don't laugh. That's what we did growing up in Brooklyn. Ok, not with the strudel though. That we had with ketchup (ugh, just kidding.)

The next place we went began just across the street, and that was Vaci utca, a really nice.....shopping street. Here we go again. I bet you girls are so jealous of me getting to do all of this shopping with a professional! 

However, I need to take a moment to describe why Diane likes to shop when she's somewhere other than home, and she has a pretty good reason. Seeing what's in the stores is a good indication of how the people live in the area; what kinds of clothes they wear, food they eat, prices they pay, etc. In this way, she gets a better understanding of the local culture. I do it with food, and she does it with what's on the shelves. Also, I have to clear up something I wrote a few posts ago while we were in Vienna - akin to Truth in Advertising. I had suggested that Diane spent a lot of money while we were shopping, shopping, shopping. But that wasn't really true. I got caught up in the moment and went with the flow. The truth, however, shall set you free - and is weirder than what I wrote. The only things we actually purchased after all of that shopping, and going in and out of all of those stores were 1) a shot-glass for my daughter, 2) a tee-shirt for me, and 3) a boars-hair toothbrush for Diane. True.

Now on with the rest of the story.

So we're walking down Vaci utca (pronounced vatsi oot-sah) going in and out of the shops, when I noticed a sign for a Thai foot massage. Now Diane loves having her feet massaged, so here's a nice opportunity to be a good husband. We went in. Initially, I didn't want it for myself, but Diane wanted me to do it with her, so I relented. We selected the 30 minute massage for about 4000 ft each (about $36 total.) They give us some slippers and a pair of thin, white, cotton shorts to put on in place of our pants. It was almost as bad as a hospital gown because it had a front opening that, well, was open and wouldn't stay closed. It was minor and didn't matter because I was wearing my skivvies anyway (and the massage therapist was pretty good looking too.) They sat us on a pair of very nice leather chairs with foot stools, and began the massage.

Here I am, paying good money for a massage, with nice Thai comforting music in the background, trying to meditate on the massage, while the 2 massage girls were chatting away incessantly. Ever try to relax and meditate and get a foot massage with 2 people chatting away, laughing and giggling, back and forth non-stop, and on top of it all, in another language? Not so relaxing. But my massager had a good set of hands and was doing a nice job on my feet and legs. And I know that Diane was loving it.

At one point, my girl asked me to bend my leg at the knee so that she could get to the calf. She rubbed and slapped and massaged, and at one point she leaned over and hit my calf in a such a way that I thought that she wanted me to put my foot back down. I was wrong. My foot ended up square in her left boob. She looked up at me, our eyes met, and without nearly any time to think she said with a grin "If you want that, you pay more." Now if I was single or alone, or if my wife of 30 years wasn't sitting right next to me, I might have been able to come up with a really smart retort. But in the moment, I was considerably dumbfounded, and was only meekly able to reply "uh, um, no, no, that's ok." Sheesh. What a missed opportunity. Diane hadn't really noticed what had happened, but after we left (yes, I gave my girl a very good tip) I told her the story and we laughed pretty hard.

We spent the next hour or two walking around the shopping district, and then back through the Jewish quarter, up several streets, just walking around getting lost. We do that sometimes just to see what we stumble upon. We do that frequently when driving in a new place, but not usually when walking. After a bit, we came out on a major street called Rákóczi utca, and walked a few blocks to a lotto store. Diane wanted to buy some lottery tickets, but no one in the store could speak English to tell us how the games worked, so we left without a purchase.


Agnes, my contact from Gyongyos, was coming into Budapest today, and wanted to meet me again so that she could give me a CD with the pictures that she had taken in the cemetery of the headstones. I had no idea where she wanted to meet. Could have been anywhere in Budapest. But I was up for it. While we were in the lotto store, I received a text from Agnes telling me where we should meet. It was at the McDonald's (ugh) in a place called "Blaha Lujza." I had never heard of it before, so I scanned the map. It took a bit of time to find, but I found it eventually. It was 2 blocks away from where we were. See, getting lost has it's perks. However, we were there and she was still 30 minutes away. So Diane and I walked around the area a bit, and then went into McDonalds. This was one that had a McCafe, so we had a cappuccino.

Diane and I are not big McDonald's fans. As a matter of fact, we swore it off years ago when Samantha, our daughter, was a baby. Hate the food. But in this case, we didn't have much of a choice. Seeing as all we were having were a few cups of coffee, how bad could it be? In reality, the only thing I can complain about is that they used chocolate syrup on the foam topping. That we could have done without. But overall, we were satisfied. 

We were sitting in a booth by the window with Diane facing inward and me facing the window. At some point while chatting, Diane says "Is that Agnes?" I turned around and sure enough there she was walking past us inside the store, behind me. Now Diane had never met or seen a picture of Agnes, so I was flabbergasted that she was able to pick her out of the crowd (ok, so there wasn't a crowd, but still...) Agnes only stayed for a few minutes, and after she left I asked Diane how she knew it was Agnes? All she could say is that her antenna popped up when the woman walked by. I don't know how she does it, but I will leverage that power in the future!

It's now 12:21am as I write this, so I'm going to truncate the story a bit, of which I am sure you'll be thankful.

After leaving McDonald's we hopped on the train to Buda. This is the opposite side of the river from Pest where we were staying, and the area that has the castle and an old church and some really, really neat old houses. Lots of good sightseeing stuff.

Earlier this morning, Erzsi had spent about half an hour describing where we should go and what we should see and which street to walk down and which street to not walk down and which train to take and which bus to take and what places to see and what places not to see - etc. Never happened. We got off the train at Moskva ter to begin sightseeing....and went shopping for the rest of the day. Never got to see anything but the inside of a giant mall for the next 3 hours or so. It was waaaayyyy dark when we finally left, and we were too tired to do anything else. And what did we purchase? A pair of eyeglass frames for me, some necessities for the flat, some skivvies for me, and a travel guide to Hungary. Now that was well worth the time, eh? I especially was impressed with the travel guide as we will be here for only 3 more days, and it's pretty much fully planned - or not. Not sure if the travel guide has information on all of the shopping malls in Hungary or not?

We finally got back to the flat and dumped our stuff and said goodnight to each other when Diane was ready for bed.

My turn for bed. It's been a long day, a winding road, and I'm going to have to talk to that wife of mine about the shopping. But first, I think I'll have some apple strudel.

Minden jót. (Have a nice day.)