Day 7 - Are You Kidding? We're Going Sightseeing!?

Yep, today was a very busy sightseeing day, with very little shopping, but not entirely shopping-free.

We got a pretty early start on the day today as no one came to visit us in the morning to plan the day's activities or to chat. Up until today, either Zora or Erzsi has come over, and we usually didn't get out of the flat until about 11:30. And once we left the flat, the first thing we would usually do is go have lunch! So that was more wasted time. However, today was different. I believe we actually left the flat at about 8:30am, and headed directly for the Buda side of the river. But first, there was the traditional strudel, tea, and palinka for breakfast. The only reason we decided to have the strudel for breakfast was because - it was there! The small refrigerator in our even smaller apartment is kinda overflowing with strudel, so if we wanted to add something to our diet, you know, something nutritious like a vegetable, something else would have to go to make room. And it was the poor strudel that we selected to go first. Then the palinka. 

The train let us out at Moskva ter. If you recall, that's where we got off the train yesterday and shopped until we dropped and never made it to sightseeing - unless you call going up and down and up and down and in and out and in and out of stores over 4 levels in 2 different buildings in the shopping malls, sightseeing? There were sights, but not much worth seeing - with the exception of the local, um, structural attractions. But I digress. However, I was afraid, very afraid, that Diane would want to go back to the mall. She said no, she had enough of THAT mall. Oy.

It was a bit challenging trying to figure out which way to go, as this was a giant intersection of 3 major roads, smaller streets and hills, with several different buses and street cars running in every direction, and more up on a rise in front of us. Where we wanted to go was to castle hill, but even with the map it was challenging to figure out which way to turn. Although it was against my better judgment as a man, I took it upon myself to ask someone for directions. I looked for a fairly younger male thinking that he might know more English than an older one, and wouldn't yet realize that our common manhood was at stake. So I found one and asked, and he appeared to be very happy to try out his English to help me with directions. I'm not sure why, but it was a pleasant experience - and my manliness appeared to still be intact.

Diane wanted to walk from where we were up to castle hill because Erzsi had told her that there were shops along the way - but not to buy anything because the prices were higher than on the Buda side. Ok, I can handle that. The young fellow pointed us in the right direction and we began walking. Fortunately, it wasn't too far, maybe a quarter mile. But it was all uphill. Several buses had passed us by, and at times I was wishing one would stop. But none did. Diane was very disappointed though that there were no shops on this street, just houses.

So finally we made it. I couldn't believe my luck! We were sightseeing and there were no shops - yet. When we arrived at the gate, the houses along the narrow street were stunning. At first, there was an ornate church, and then an old Jewish prayer house, and then the houses lining the narrow road. It's not that the houses were ornate, they weren't - not like in Pest. It was more of how simple they were, the colors that they were painted, the decorations around the windows, the doors, and the flow down the cobblestone streets.

We walked around for a bit, ooohing and aaahhing at all the fantastic architecture (and no shops.) As mentioned, one of the most striking thing about these houses were the windows, doorways, and the wrought iron gates as you'll see below in some of these examples.

We continued to walk towards the castle and found a restaurant for lunch. The sign outside was offering gulyas (goulash - a soup), chicken paprikas, and dessert for 3000 HUF, about $15 per person. When Diane and I first met Zora several months ago at her home in New Jersey, she cooked us a dinner of chicken paprikas (pronounced "paprikash) and gave us the recipe. Actually, Diane helped Zora cook it so that she would know how it's done. And believe me, we've eaten it almost every week since then. So we got seated.

The waiter brought us bread and a jar of something that looked like a paste or spread. The info on the jar was in Hungarian, and my book didn't have the words for the ingredients, except for paprika, so I smeared a bit on my bread and tasted it. It had a great taste, but was very spicy. After leaving my ego behind once again, I asked the waiter what it was, and he said it's for the soup. Ok. So when the soup came, Diane and I tried it first without the mix, very good, and then with it. Well, we both ended up adding a bit too much, but being the man that I am, I finished both. I'm still here so it couldn't have been that hot. However, it did blow away my tastebuds for the chicken dish. So I guzzled down a few glasses of water to cleanse my palate, and hit the chicken. It was good, but I must say that both Zora and Diane make it much better. The cake came after we were done, and was drizzled with chocolate syrup, like at McDonalds, and it tasted just as crappy.

After lunch we hiked further up the road, and finally reached the castle. The views of the Pest side of the river were fantastic, and the architecture of the castle itself was incredible. Even Diane was marveling, and not complaining about not shopping.

All of the columns in this part of the castle are different in some manner. And there are hundreds of different designs.

We especially like the statues.

Nice view.

We looked around a bit, took a few pictures, and eventually went into the castle which now has several separate functions and buildings: 1) art museum 2) history museum 3) library. The library has 2 books that my gg-grandfather, Ede Zeisler, wrote back in 1862 and 1866, but I am scheduled to visit there on Tuesday so not today. We decided to go into the art museum and look around. It was free so that was very nice.

The paintings were primarily Hungarian, which I guess one would expect to see in a Hungarian national art museum, and so many of the people in the paintings were unknown to me. From my family research over the past 10 years, I have read up on much of Hungary's history, so some of the people were familiar. Nevertheless, they were all gorgeous. Most of them were from the 18th and 19th centuries. I was hoping for a portrait of one of my family members, but it was not to be. Maybe if they had paintings of prison cells, one or more of them would be in there. But that's another story for another day.  

We finished walking around, and so we went downstairs to the main level to consider our next move, and to organize our stuff. Diane was sick and tired of all of the sightseeing and wanted to go shopping!

The woman at the information desk spoke English pretty well, so we went over to her and asked. She appeared to be in her early 50s or so, and was very friendly. However, when Diane asked her where we could find the local shopping district, she went into a well-mannered tizzy - something about how she wouldn't go near an Americanized shopping mall. That was beneath her. When she was growing up, she shopped at real stores, not the chain stores like in those "American" type malls. And then she threw some numbers at us about how many malls there were per person in Hungary vs the US. Of course there were many more malls in Hungary per person than in the US. Why should it be any different? She's gotta have a story to tell, and she's going to tell it right - with numbers to prove it. Hrumpf! Basically, she just told us in a very nice way to go f..k off. So after giving us a bit more info that was totally useless, we left.

We were looking around the outside of the castle or palace, when we came upon a fantastic water fountain, with no water. Diane wanted me to take a picture of it, so I did. After the photo, a young woman asked me to take a photo of her, with her camera, by the fountain, which I did. I snapped off a few shots, she thanked me, and departed.

The water fountain

After that, we took the bus down the hill because our feet were killing us, and we were too far away from that Thai foot massage parlor from yesterday where I could have paid a little more for something a bit "extra."

When we got down to the bottom, we were right at the beautiful Széchenyi Chain Bridge that opened in 1849. We got off the bus and began walking across the bridge when we bumped into the photo girl again while she was taking pictures. We asked her if she wanted me to take another picture of her on the bridge, but she declined.  So we continued to walk across the bridge. Now you have to understand that this was the first time that I had walked across such a large bridge. You would think that having grown up in Brooklyn, I would have taken the time to cross the famed Brooklyn Bridge at least once in my life, but I'm sorry to say that I haven't. Always wanted to, but never have. So this occasion was actually pretty nice. I was impressed.

Chain Bridge across the Danube in Budapest

Once we got across the bridge, we hightailed it to the nearest H&M clothing store to pick up some necessities. I mentioned in a previous post that the flat we're in doesn't have a washing machine or dryer, and there are no laundromats around here. We need 2 days worth of some extra stuff like underwear, socks and tee-shirts, so we bought what we needed, but they didn't have everything.

We walked around a bit more, and ran into the same girl for a third time! I was beginning to think that there was a message here, and considered for a moment asking her to join us for dinner. But I didn't think that Diane would appreciate it, so I quickly crossed it off my list.

We had been talking for days about taking a boat ride down the Danube. It was about 4pm, and dusk was just starting to settle in nicely, and we had the time, so we purchased tickets and headed for the boat that was due to depart at 4:45. We were the first to board about 30 minutes early, but we also got the best seats right up at the bow. The boat has outdoor and indoor seating, but the weather was really nice, and so we decided to stay outside.

We had some tea while waiting, and just before we set sail, while the sky was darkening nicely, and the engines had just started to rev in anticipation of the trip, all in one moment, Chain Bridge, the castle, the big church a bit further down, and the huge parliament building on the Pest side were lit. Wow! Right in front of us was a very different city than just a few moment before.

Chain Bride and Buda just lit up

 The ride was an hour long, nice and slow, but towards the end it got a bit too chilly for us and so we went below. Once the ride ended, we disembarked and wanted to head back to the flat, but first we needed some food.

We decided to hit one of the grocery stores if we could find one. Don't forget that this is Sunday night - in Budapest. We found out that it doesn't matter. The stores are open late on Sunday. The problem was that we didn't know where to go to find a grocery store. So we decided to head back to the flat to see if we could find something in the neighborhood.

We walked around a bit and found a train station. The Metro stations are all underground in this area, so we went downstairs. However, the train maps for this station are horrible, and we got a bit turned around. We wanted the M1 line, but we were at a M2 station. I saw a sign for the M1 that pointed back up to the street, so we followed it thinking that we might have to walk a block or two to get to the M1 line. But as we exited the station, right at the top was the "Match" grocery store! It's a chain here in Budapest that has some decent foodstuff. So we got most of what we wanted; some Russian made pickled herring (ok, that wasn't on our list, but it sure looked good,) hummus, sun dried tomatoes in oil, salt to replace what we had used to wash out the coffee pot (don't ask,) sugar, salami, black olives with feta cheese, lettuce, and napkins. We already had some bread back at the apartment.

Right now, you might be asking yourself "What the heck are they going to make with THAT stuff?"  And if I were you, I'd be asking the same thing. Well, we were hungry, and just bought whatever looked good, and whatever was on our list - although the list was much smaller than what we bought.

Grocery stores in Hungary are pretty funny when you try to check out. They don't provide any bags to pack your stuff - at all. None. Not even for a charge. Not only that, there's no one to help you pack them even IF you have your own bags. AND the counters, at least in this store, are really short. So the checkout clerk rings you up, and either you scramble like crazy to pack your bags while she rings up each item - if you were smart enough to bring enough bags, or you have to take your items off the counter and place them on another nearby counter so that you don't hog the first counter. Get it? I didn't. I would have just let the stuff pile up on the first counter until they fell on the floor, but don't forget that I have a woman with me who protects me from doing stupid things like that. She knew right away to use the second counter to stash the stuff while I paid the bill and the next person stepped up. Weird.

We were I was fortunate that I didn't have to take off my jacket in order to carry the groceries (no bags, remember?), because, once again, I am protected by a woman who also has this gift of knowing what to bring along for the ride. She had brought along her big carry bag that we've been using throughout the days to carry things like extra maps, notebooks, pens, clothing, other shopping goodies, etc. And now groceries. What a woman!

We finally get back to the flat and unpack the stuff. Diane loved the pickled herring, best she's ever had, but I thought it was a bit flat. Tasted the same as what we get back home, but not as strong, and the fish were small and had a weird texture. Go figure.

So Diane opens the refrigerator and takes out the rest of the stuff we've squirreled away, such as the potato and sauerkraut strudel, and gives it to me to heat up in the microwave. Now the microwave buttons are all in Hungarian, and there's no way to know what they say. There are 14 different buttons on the thing, but being the technical guru that I am, I begin pressing every one to see what happens. Eventually, I hit some buttons that get the thing going (I still have no idea what I did) and heated up the strudel.

So on the table now are the following items: potato and sauerkraut strudel (no mustard), salami, hummus, black olives and feta cheese mixed in oil, lettuce, herring, sun dried tomatoes, bread, and seltzer. Diane focused on the potato strudel, herring, some lettuce and tomatoes and a piece of bread, while I had a bit of everything except for the herring, of which I had a bite not long before. Diane decided that she didn't want the sauerkraut strudel, so I ate that too. And to top it off, I had a shot of palinka. Diane passed on the palinka.

And finally, since we weren't able to purchase all of the clothing items we needed, Diane broke down and washed some items by hand. Fortunately, we have one of the heated towel racks, so we placed the wet stuff on that to dry. What a pain. Should have done some more shopping.

And that was our day. 

Tomorrow is party time!

Jó éjt, jó szerencse. (Good night and good luck.)