May 31, 2007

Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 23:03:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: the best of Pest...

Aloha, (yeah yeah, I know thats not any european language)

Its been a while since my last trip email. I can imagine the conversations at
work.. [Dany: "oh someone stole his laptop in Romania"] -- hahah, NOT TRUE! I'm
safe and sound, and in possession of all my ... uhmm... possessions, plus a few
more.

So I'm going to start this email from where I left off the last one, and since
each day will probably contain a lot of info, I'll make them in separate
emails. That way it'll also be easier for me to update the website with
these... By the way, all pictures through June 2 are already updated...
Yesterday's "more haunting" pictures from Auschwitz are still in my camera and
will be updated later..

May 31:

Breakfast in the hotel included a chocolate mousse layered cake with a crusty
pineapple topping.... I indulged... in your honor, Di -- happy [belated]
birthday!

The previous day was spent roaming around old town Buda, on the western bank of
the Danube. I spent the 31st in the town of Pest, on the eastern bank. And no,
the Danube is NOT blue in this city. From what I was told later, the river is
only blue in Vienna (I disagree but oh well thats what the tourguide said), and
by the time it reaches Hungary it is quite polluted and looks just like any
other major brown river! Ok, back to the story....

I left to go on the tour of the Hungarian Parliament building -- the "Top 1" of
the "Top 10" attractions listed in my Budapest tourbook. Visitors are only
allowed accompanied by a tourguide, and English tours are only given at 10, 12,
and 2:00 PM. By the time I got there, the 10 AM tickets were sold out, and I
bought the 12PM tour. With the time in between, I started walking...

Liberty Square. Nice. Of course everything in Budapest was nice. This was the
spot of one of the many uprisings in Pest's history. Sitting here typing this
email and with my tourbook packed in my luggage, I can't really remember which
uprising it was! I think the communist one in 19...56(?) But there's a nice
park there with a nice monument there and surrounded by a lot of nice-looking
buildings on all nice sides. It was nice.

This was on my way to St Stephen's Cathedral. That is SPECTACULAR. Of course a
lot of places in Budapest are spectacular. But this was one of those
breathtaking places. Certainly not "you been to one church you been to 'em all"
type of place. I remember the first time I walked in I thought "Oh my god!" and
not because its a place of worship, but from the first sight, I think it rivals
Vatican's St Peters Basilica in terms of the amount of marble and gold
decorations inside! The cathedral is on the Pest side, and both Buda and Pest
were extremely rich in the medieval times because of the Danube River trade....
it shows in this church! All that money seems to have gone in here! Also the
time of day I was here may have made a difference: the sun was rising and at
that time (roughly 11 AM), it was high enough to shine through all the windows
of the dome, making all the gold inside glitter bright! A really amazing sight!

There are two other attractions within the church, but I saved them both for
later. It was time to go back to the Parliament for the start of the tour.

The tour was nice.

I had a little problem understanding the tourguide's english accent (a problem
that would repeat itself the next day and again in Aushwitz yesterday) ... but
I got the jist of it. Used to be bicameral house, now its unicameral... the
"other" house is now only used for special meetings, thats the one that we
tourists saw, and it was completely empty. But the decorations inside.... wow!
okay, this is the OTHER place where all that money went to!

There was also a stop at the "crown jewels" from the old Magyar kings (not
Austro-Hungarian empire)... the cross on top of the crown was bent -- nobody
knows why. But it was "nice" to see.

After the tour and lunch I went back to the cathedral, for those two remaining
"attractions". The first was the elevator ride (thank God, no steps -- my legs
were already killing me from the previous day) up to the top of the church for
views of the city.. The views from here were not as good as from Castle Hill on
the Buda side, but still fantastic. Everything was much closer, and the bridges
on the Danube were not all completely visible, and neither was the whole
Parliament, but still there are views from here which you cannot get from
Castle Hill, mainly of the eastern side of Pest, "behind" the cathedral.. as
the city eventually turns into farmland and "great plains" of Hungary...

Next was a well-preserved hand from St. Stephen (the first Magyar king who
converted to christianity, roughly 1000 A.D.) -- first time I've ever seen
1000-year old human remains that is not just a bone. That was a little creepy,
but interesting to see something that old that has survived in such good
condition..

After this I decided to come back to the hotel (I had to go to the bathroom and
refused to pay the money to do that anywhere -- that is just WRONG!) Well, by
the time I got out at Astoria station, it was pouring rain/thunder/lightning...
"the works".... with no signs of it ever letting up... This was dissapointing.
Tonight would be my last night in Budapest (on this trip), and I had really
wanted to go out at night and see, among other things, the Parliament building
in lights from across the Danube River. Its a picture postcard shot, and I was
desperate to see THAT with my own eyes....

It didn't happen on this trip! Maybe the next one...

I stayed in the hotel all day, with the same "dinner break" as last night
repeated tonight...

A couple of you have asked me about that "dinner break" .... I purposely didn't
put anything about it in my last email because it violates the principle of
"eat everything".

McDonalds.

No comments please. Yesterday was my fault. Today was forced by the rain.

The next day - May 31st - would be my last day in Budapest... and one to
remember for "Part 1" of a great sub-story in this trip...

Will write that later.

Aloha,
me.
P.S. happy belated birthday to two of you, even though one of you is MIA...