The best night ever (so far)

Yesterday I spent the day in my dorm room, reading and actually getting some work done (two thumbs up!). I skipped on the boat trip in favor of getting work done not so much because I felt I had an obligation to do work, but because I was tired from spending the 2 previous days in the sun. I had more or less decided to stay in for the evening as well, but was persuaded by Mark to go down to and check out the "bridge shit." I had walked along the bridge the day before, and the booths looked pretty cool, but that's not what persuaded me to go out. Rather, I remembered that I had seen a sign advertising "Hungarian Jazz Music" for Sunday evening. It's a good thing I remembered that, because it was the best night I've had here so far.

This was really, really fabulous:

The first group that we saw was... I don't know. I don't have words. In one sense, it was standard jazz. The band was all wearing the same outfit, they were playing jazz music, etc. But the lead singer (as you will see) was the craziest thing I've ever seen. He had a cutoff shirt on and tattoos everywhere and weird hair and red stuff smeared all over his face (I can only assume it was supposed to look like blood) and he was shouting and drinking and just being insane. My roommate, Sacha, described the sound (quite correctly, I think) as being very similar to the music played in Jabba the Hut's hideout in Return of the Jedi. Just look (and then listen):

That wine bottle was handed to him by an audience member.

Really, really fabulous. I decided to stick my tongue out at the last minute. A wise choice, I think.

This is the craziest guy I have ever seen:

After this masterpiece, we sat on the bridge and ate some Pringles and drank some beer.

Here are some shots:

A much better shot of the flowers and the street fair scene.

First order of business: Pringles and one of those horrible Soproni beers. It's growing on me (and it's cheaper than Heinekin). In Europe, there's not such thing as a beer garden. You can just walk around with it. So we plopped down on the side of the bridge (not the part that hangs over the water, Mom) and had our Pringles and drank our beer and listened to live jazz. Our view:

Some random shots of things being exchanged for money and people looking to exchange money for things:

I thought about buying one of these for some of the kids I know, but then I remembered that most of the kids I know are boys. But Henry does call his long t-shirt a "dress"... hmmmmm.

CUTE.

I do love pasta... but I don't need a hair clip adorned with pasta.

From the Buda side.

Candy!

More candy!

Even more candy!

From right to left... Pest

Danube (Duna, they call it here)

Buda

The magnificent bridge we spent the night on (not "spent the night" as in "slept," but "spent the night" as in "were there for most of the night").

The Four Seasons on the Pest side.

A friendly local dog. I love dogs to begin with, but after a couple of beers, this made my NIGHT.

The dog was on his way out - the last group had just played, and so I headed to the Metro station. I had my iPod with me, and so I got to walk through the city with music pumping into my ears. I used to dislike the whole iPod thing - it seemed that people were disconnecting from the actual world. But then I tried it... and it's unbelievably good sometimes. So here are the photos of my trip home from downtown, with lyrics from the songs that were playing. Some of the lyrics really enhance the photo, I think. They certainly did when I took them. (Gotta love shuffle mode.) It can be a little music trivia - you all can guess the song (some of them - in fact, most of them - should be pretty easy).

"Cause you came and you took control

you touched my very soul

you always showed me that

lovin' you is where it's at"

"You make me sing like a guitar hummin'

So hang on to me, girl

Our song keeps runnin' on"

"Waiting for the break of day

Searching for something to say"

"Chewin' on a piece of grass

Walkin' down the road

Tell me, how long you gonna

stay here, Joe?"

"You're so excited, I can feel you getting hotter... oh baby

I'll take you down, I'll take you down

Where no one's ever gone before

And if you want more, if you want more

More, more, more

JUMP! for my love. JUMP IN! and feel my touch"

"They think our love is just a growin' pain

Why don't they understand? It's just a cryin' shame"

"Young and beautiful

Someday your looks will be gone

When the others turn you off

Who'll be turning you on?"

Slow ride

This is obviously out of order, but it's my blog so I can post things in whatever order I want to. These photos are from the trip over here - I think I intended to put them up when I got here, but then I was jetlagged for about 2 days and completely forgot I had taken them. Until today... when I found them while browsing my photos instead of doing work.

Completely exhausted and slightly hungover, I get myself an Egg McMuffin (no ham) and a large OJ in the Denver Airport. This always sounds like a good idea, but it rarely is. I regretted this decision almost immediately (although the OJ was good).

Lake Michigan on the flight from Denver to New York.

Emma! Look what showed up on the map!

One of these touch screens was on the back of every seat. The best feature was the trivia. I am "A." I played several games - each game consisted of 20 questions.

YEAH!!!! I won 2 games out of the 4 or 5 that I played. I always placed in the top 3. Take that, OTHER PASSENGERS.

The Atlantic Ocean.

The New York City skyline.

Upon landing in New York, we were informed that we would have to wait a few minutes to pull up to our gate. We arrived early, and the plane that was at our gate hadn't departed yet. Just 10-15 minutes, said the pilot. But then 45 minutes passed. At about that time, the pilot announced to us, "gate management is very important," and then we sat there for another 15 minutes. At about this one hour of sitting on the plane and not moving at all mark, the pilot informed us that our plane would be towed to the gate. It was kind of a long time, and there were a lot of babies on this plane... but I just remembered Louis C.K.'s words of wisdom and laughed quietly to myself.

I was very hungry when I got to New York, so I went into Chili's. This was on the wall directly in front of me. The best part is what is the bit on the left.

"What To Look For:

1. The victim collapses

2. The victim cannot speak of breathe

3. The victim turns blue"

I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my salmon and rice.

Dinner on the flight from New York to Budapest. This was actually pretty tasty. AND the price for the meal must have been included in the ticket price, because I didn't have to give them any money at meal time. They just gave it to me.

The Danube. One of the first things I saw when I woke up from my Ambien induced sleep.

They make an excellent point in calling it "baggage reclaim," rather than "baggage claim."

This is my "Welcome and Informations" packet and the Hungarian monopoly money.

One week down, one week to go...

This time I'm just going to post words. Well, okay. There will be some photos, but there will be more words compared to the last few posts.

It is Saturday evening. I am sitting at my desk eating bread and hummus and drinking a Coca Cola Classic. All 3 are delicious! They use real sugar in the soda over here (like they do in Mexico and Canada and... pretty much everywhere except America), instead of high fructose corn syrup, and it makes Coke delicious in a different kind of way.

Yesterday (Friday), Lizzie and Sacha and I went downtown to meet up with Mark and have a look around.

Lizzie from the UK (left) and my roommate, Sacha, from Florida.

Unfortunately, this concert isn't until November. So I had to settle for a photo with the poster.

We went into a mall, but quickly decided the day was too beautiful to be spent indoors. So we decided to walk to this island in the middle of the Danube. For all of you smart asses (like me) reading along, I'll emphasize that there is a bridge connecting each side to the island - that's how we walked to an island in the middle of a river. It was *so* pretty!

We walked around a bit, and then realized we were all starving. So we walked to this restaurant directly behind the fountain to have a bite to eat. This is apparently the restaurant that we'll be going to on Friday next week for our "farewell" dinner. The best (?) part of the place is the sculpture that is directly to the right when you enter the garden patio.

Yeah. That just happened.

This deer has a pretty serene look on his face considering his present state, don't you think?

Arguably the best feature of the sculpture was the attention to detail down south. I've never seen a deer's reproductive business, but I'm fairly confident that the penis does not look like a stick of butter. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please.

The menu came with a history of the restaurant (though there was no such info about the deer):

"From June til September a unique garden movie theatre entertains the guests."

I had some tasty gnocchi and a Hoegaarden (after plenty of water). This meal can be viewed in the post that has photos of food, if that's important to you. The good food and delicious beer proved too much for us, though, and we all were pretty much ready for a nap after that. So, Sacha stayed on the island to do some reading, Mark headed over to Buda, and I to Pest. One thing I have really been enjoying about this city is the graffiti. I generally enjoy graffiti - I think it tells you a lot about the attitude of a city (if you can read it - which I can't here) - and it's very colorful here.

I'm a girl.

They're really anti-blue here. Blue is strictly prohibited. They'll tow your car if there's blue. See?

1300 meters ahead is a place where you will apparently drive into the river.

After this nice little walk back to Pest, I hopped on the Metro and then the bus back to the dorm. I laid low for a bit, took a shower, and then met up with some other students. The class took a trip - instructors included - to a bar downtown.

Left to right: Chris from Riverside, Amit from Cambridge, and Ivan from Chicago

The place was (and still is) called Gödör Klub, and it was pretty serious. You can check out photos online if you google image search the name. I tried to get photos, but it was kind of dark when we got there, and the place was just too huge for me to focus long enough to snap a shot. But here are some photos of the night - it was a blast...

Michael McKenna, me, Mark Balaguer

I think we know who's bicep is bigger, don't we?

Voluntarists and Non-voluntarists can get along.

From left to right: Patrick from Riverside, Per ("Pear") from San Diego, and Lizzie.

Dancing! Also, McKenna is the only person I know who *still* wears a Livestrong bracelet.

So that was a fun time. It was a late night, but a very good one, too. I slept in. Surprise? No.

So now it is Saturday and I just returned from an afternoon out on the town. I took the bus and the Metro to downtown, and then walked along the river to the bridge. Mark and I planned to meet on the Buda side of the chain bridge at 12:30, and I was expecting the bridge to be the way it was when I first crossed it a few days ago - buzzing with tourists on the side with cars zooming past them. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover there was a street fair happening! The bridge was closed to cars and there were loads of little stands on the sides selling all kinds of things. It's happening again tomorrow, so I might go back and take some time to look at what they're selling. Here are a few shots:

The flowers hanging across the middle were really pretty - not sure this photo captures it.

These guys were playing some traditional Hungarian music. It was... something else.

After this nice little surprise, Mark and I went to a cafe - Coyote Cafe - and had some caffeine to get us going. We walked by this really beautiful house on our way to the coffee shop.

Pretty much all of the houses are gorgeous, but this one stood out (for obvious reasons, I think). After coffee we got hungry in Hungary, so we went to the restaurant next door. It was about one block away from the river, and we could see the Parliament building from our table. The menu at this restaurant was full of food items that I didn't know a person would ever eat. For instance:

Mmmmm, tasty.

Needless (I hope) to say, I did not have the grilled goose liver. I had some penne with spinach pesto. When we finished and the lady came to collect our plates, she looked at us and asked, "was it delicious?" Translations are funny. Since we were so close to the river and the view of Parliament from the Buda side is *so* excellent, we walked down to take a look. Here I am with Parliament in the background.

As if this isn't pretty enough, we then walked up the hill to the castle. Yeah, that's right. A castle. Not a palace. Not a cathedral. A CASTLE. We were greeted by some locals playing music about halfway up the stairs. I recorded a bit of it here:

Right after he asked me "where are you from?" and I told him "the United States," he and his cohort started playing "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. It was incredible. We had to get up and leave, though, because this guy just wouldn't quit. So we hiked up the last bit of stairs to the castle. It was like Disneyland, but the castle wasn't made of plastic.

It also came with a killer view of the Danube and both Buda and Pest. From left to right...

Parliament on the right

The Basilica just left of center

No big deal.

And some shots from our walk around oldtown (I have no idea what it's called - but that's what we were calling it all day):

See what I mean? Disneyland.

A nice little street.

A big ol' church.

While we were walking around here, we saw a few art gardens. We started to walk into one of them, and this is the first thing that we saw (if you have small children, send them away):

That is a naked woman touching herself, in case it's not clear.

Now, I am not shy or made uncomfortable by people doing natural things (and neither is Mark), and so we figured we'd keep going. Immediately after taking this photo, I noticed another sculpture on my right:

This is a man in a trench coat holding an umbrella... and touching himself.

It was at this point that Mark noticed the relation in which these two sculptures stood with regard to one another, and the scene took on a whole new feeling.

We left after this part. Walked back up to the castle.

The castle from the other side.

At this point, we were going to go to one of the many baths. We decided to sit down for a minute because the sun had been beating down on us for several hours. We saw about 3 different couples getting pre/post wedding photos taken. I was tempted to take pictures of them, but there wasn't a discrete way of doing that. While we were sitting, the temperature went from 90 degrees and stifling hot to 60 degrees and overcast. This occurred very rapidly, so we decided to skip the baths and go our separate ways.

On the way to our fork in the road, we found a playground.

And another excellent sign. Wolves are strictly prohibited.

Tomorrow there is a boat trip to some little old town called Szentendre, but I think I will skip it in favor of getting some reading done for this next (and last) week. So... there's a giant update.