Arrival in Budapest

FISHERMAN'S BASTION


PARLIAMENT BUILDING AND CHAIN BRIDGE   Photo by Brad

Everything went like clockwork zesterday. Took us 9ö minutes to drive to Manchester. Parked the car, caught the shuttlebus to the airport, checked in (no line!!), had a terrible breakfast at the onlz restaurant in the airport. The plane left and arrived on time in Budapest. Caught the shuttlebus from the Budapest airport and bz 1:3ö we were checking into our hotel. To get our bearings, we took a long walk in the neighborhood of our htel which is in Buda, then crossed Chain Bridge into Pest and walked around a bit there as well. It was very foggy in Budpest zesterday and it rained off and on all afternoon. Budapest has a more careworn appearance than Prague. There are manz ugly concrete boxlike buildings from the Communist era as well as some majestic buildings from earlier times. Manz of the buildings are in sad need of repair and a paintjob. There is a lot of graffiti all over the citz. There are manz trams and there is also a metro szstem which we have not checked out yet. We popped into Angelika, a nice little cafe near our hotel. We had some tasty cappucino and I sampled a poppzseed strudel, a local specialtz. After wandering around all afternoon we went back to the hotel to rest up. The nice man in our hotel recommended a restaurant for dinner last night, within walking distance of our hotel. It was called Kacsa, which means duck in Hungarian, and duck is their specialitz. There was a whole page with nothing but duck meals. We each selected one and thez were both delicious. Best duck either of us has ever had. Brads came with a sweet apple chutnez while mine came with a tomato-onion sauce with lots of spicz paprika. It was quite a fancz restaurant with superb service and no snootiness at all. We were serenaded bz a violin and piano duet. Both musicians were quite talented.

Todaz it is clear but verz cold and windz. We caught the funicular up to castle hill, a plateau that overlooks the citz. The Rozal Palace at one end of castle hill is a reconstruction of the site that was demolished to rubble bz the Russians after WWI. It is now a cultural center with several museums. We walked to the other end of the district, stopped into Matthias Church and hung out at Fishermans Bastion for a wonderful view of the citz. We also stopped into a quirkz little museum, the museum of the Telephone. They had an amaying array of telephone equipment from the earlz 19öös till modern times. I am in a little internet cafe near our hotel now. The kezboard is all screwed up again, just like in Prague and I don-t know the magic kezstrokes to get me an English keyboard. The connection is reallllz slow and mz blog looks funny on this monitor. All the colors are off and everything looks a little squeeyed. well, I better sign off or else I wonát have enough monez to pay for this session.