Thursday, March 6, 2008

Back in the US

And oh it feels so good. But, let me re-cap the parts of the Budapest trip I haven't yet recorded. After our outing to the castle, the next traditional Hungarian activity we participated in were the baths. We went to baths that were all outdoors. And although it was extremely cold outside, you did not feel it, because the water was so warm. The clashing temperatures made a thick steam stream above the water. There were a ton of people, lots of old men playing chess on floating boards, others standing on water vents, or under bubbling fountains. I tried out the sauna, actually 2 of them- for about 5 minutes each. It reminded me a bit of the erg room from my college days ha, I wasn't the biggest fan- but it was something new. And after I dashed out of the sauna I had to stand under the cold shower.

The next days were full of trips to the traditional market, to the top of the largest hill (with the freedom statue), to the outlet shopping mall, ice skating, to the movies, to Menza, to bars like Krazy Cafe and Beckette's, to the grocery store to get more fresh croissants, rolls, pasteries and pretzels. While ice skating we encountered a ton of Hungarian teens- many attempting to be "cool" and impress the girls. They were pretty good at skating though, they even put down coke cans and skated in between them all sorts of ways. They also formed a line, a sort of copy the leader line and did a whole bunch of backwards skating, jumping, etc. I was grappling with backwards skating, and ended up being quite successful.

My favorite food was the sport XL bars. I brought back a ton. They are rich chocolate bars with a tint of rum. They also had ice cream versions of the sport XL bar.

The place I stayed was comfy, clean and had the highest ceilings I've ever seen in an apartment. It also about as much security as the White House. Check out the picture of the front doors. I enjoyed the office there too, check out the view. It was nice to be able to handle all the work that came in over the night, before getting bombarded with new stuff (as I was 6 hours ahead of US time). Cool picture of the basilica right down the street from the office too.

Glad to be back to my normal routine, bed n dog. More pictures to come once I get around to uploading them.

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