Back in Paris

Dave decided this morning to change our Holiday Inn reservation to something "more adventurous." We are staying nearer the airport we need to fly out of on Monday morning. Unfortunatley this hotel, the  Kyriad in Parc des Expositions,  is in an industrial park area, and so there are no markets or restaurants nearby. We walked to the only thing somewhat close, Speed Rabbit Pizza, and had a lovely dinner. They have a logo that includes Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the movie.

To recap the rest of the dsay getting here, we left Budapest this morning, taking multiple modes of transportation and winding up at the airport in time to eat a meal and spend the rest of our forints.  Amazingly enough, you can buy underwear at stands in the metro subway stations, and there are people on the street selling things from bags - like the woman shaking a handful of brassieres at me outside the grocery store.  What was that about?

We then boarded SleazyJet and settled into our seats as possibly the only people not traveling with children under the age of 10, most of whom were fussing or talking loudly.  The flight wasn't full, so we had a row to ourselves. We landed at the Orly airport, bought passes to the RER train, and set out for the other airport region to find our hotel.  All this went reasonably well, and we met a young man who was trying to navigate the RER/Metro system to find his hostel.  He was from Australia and we talked about things he could do in Paris for a few days that were cheap.  It reminded me of Emily and her jaunts around Turkey.

We are planning on crossing town again tomorrow and going to Versailles, one of the highlights we both wanted to hit that we haven't seen yet.  We fly out early Monday and get back to the US on Monday evening.

Buda & Pest

While we know the metropolitan area as Budapest, it is actually 2 cities separated by the Danube River.  We are staying in Pest.  Today was sightseeing day, so off we went at 8:30 to have a bite to eat at a coffeeshop and head to some of the sights. We bought 24 hour passes to the subway, so we could ride as many times as we needed without having to continually buy tickets.  This was done at a window with a woman who spoke no English, but it all worked.  Surprisingly we have enough Hungarian to buy things, order food and say thanks.  

I'm going to comment again on the escalators in the subway.  They move FAST!  And believe me, you have hardly eyed the place where you are going to step, when it is away from you in a FLASH and you are hanging on to the railing for dear life down a steep incline.  At least today we weren't dragging luggage as well.  If you've ridden the escalators in DC, the ones that are really long, into the Metro stations, imagine those, at a steeper incline, moving about 3 times faster.  There are warnings that passengers should board the escalators at their own risk.  The exits are a little different as well, as the foot board where you step off is tilted up, like a brake, so you can hop onto the non-moving part and slow yourself down through a little physics. Usually when I get on, I am unable to keep myself from saying, Holy Jesus, that's fast! 

Today we took the yellow subway line out near the end of the line to go to some of the neighborhoods that have bathhouses, parks and Hungarian sights.  It is a charming little train the the chimes that warn you that the doors are opening and closing sound like cute organ music.  And the stations are tiled in white and brick red tiles - very nice and clean looking. 

Here's the train and station-ish.  

From here we went up and looked around at the largest public bathhouse in Budapest.  We didn't have our suits and had a lot more to accomplish - so off we went. From there we walked to Heroes Square, a monument park dedicated to all the famous Hungarians.  So famous I don't recall who they are, but here's a cool photo.

From here we hopped on the Metro a few stops and got out in one of the prettiest neighborhoods in Pest. Treelined streets and clean looking buildings for the most part.  And here on Andrassy boulevard  is contained the House of Terror.  A museum dedicated to telling the story of Nazi and Soviet occupation of Hungary from 1944-1989.  Not necessarily the most uplifting way to spend a few hours, but it was really interesting and we learned a lot.  It is housed in the building used by both regimes as the headquarters for their interrogation and execution units.  Yikes.  Some of it was downright creepy, starting with the doorman using a button to swing open the door, not grasping it and opening it as one might expect.  Outside is this sculpture:

Ok, so after this we were somewhat drained, but carried onward, because there was lots more to see.We then hopped back on the metro to head to the university area, which houses on of the best mathematics abroad programs.  We were unable to locate anyone from the math department, but at least we visited the university.  It had some funky buildings  and sculpture - 

  

Ok - so now onto the Great Market Hall. This is a large bazaar type shopping place- lots of meats, fresh veggies, etc. It was built in 1896 and is 3 stories of shopping.  We went though all of it.  We bought some treats for a picnic lunch and it was hard to keep the nasty pigeons at bay while we ate.  

Re-energized we headed for the Chain Bridge and Castle Hill.  This took us to the Buda side of town.  We took the funicular (that's two funiculars in one vacation!!) to the top of the hill.  There were great views all around.

This is a photo of the Chain Bridge.  Historic note - when the Nazis were defeated by the Soviets, they blew up all the bridges as they were retreating from Budapest. Bastards. 

This is a photo of the same bridge, but from the Buda side from the funicular.  

Then we went on a walking tour out of our Rick Steve's book.  Rick is a great guide and I would recommend his books wholeheartedly.  He's usually right on about what is fun to see, what not to pay for, and most of his walking tours are downhill from wherever you start. 

Us overlooking the town of Pest. 

Some of the sights we saw - many are recreated buildings that date to post-WWII, as most of Budapest was destroyed in the war.  Some of the buildings are historically accurate, and some are not. 

 

This is the Turul bird - a big creepy bird that flew around with a sword and supposedly he dropped the sword where the home of the Magyar people should be in the 9th century. Okaaaayyyyy. . .

This is King Matthias, last Hungarian king, and his pals on a hunting expedition. Including Ilonka, who fell in love with Matthias not knowing he was king, and when she realized he was king, and she would be entirely unsuitable as a wife, she killed herself.  Many Hungarian legends are gloomy and end with someone committing suicide. 

This is Matthias' church, which, like many Hungarian roads and buildings, is under restoration. It is nicknamed for him, because he got married here, twice. 

This is the Vienna Arch, under which you can pass, keep walking for about 10 days, and you'll get to Vienna.

 

Just past the arch, is the National Archives of Hungary.  We don't read Hungarian, so we didn't go here either.  Also, it might have seemed like work, so no thanks.

At this point we had been walking and sightseeing for over 8 hours, which seemed like 10 days.  We headed back into town, took some more metro trains, and went back to the hotel.  We relaxed in the spa for a couple hours, and are now hanging out in the room, packing, etc.  We head back to Paris tomorrow for two more days, and then home. 

Back in Budapest

We left Pecs this morning. We had our typical hotel breakfast of cereal, scrambled eggs, and pastries over 80's american pop music. We decided to go to the local market to get a few items for our trip such as water and chocolate. We also stopped by a bakery (pekseg in Hungarian) we visited yesterday for a few train treats. We purchased a pastry with sour cherries, one with caramel, and another with walnut filling. All were very good. I have read that Hungarians eat one pound of lard every week and I think the pastries contained lard instead of butter. Needless to say, all were quite tasty, but I liked the walnut the best.

We then walked with our luggage to the train station. It was a nice day and mostly downhill. Unfortunately, I got a flat tire with the wheel on my suitcase. This was surprising because the wheels are solid rubber. Anyway, the wheel was rubbing and causing the suitcase to be hard to pull. Wheel trouble seems to be a recurrig theme for me. The train station was not crowded and we paid for our first class tickets and boarded the train with about 20 minutes before departure.

Despite being first class, the car was not as nice as the previous car. Most of the seats faced forward and there were no car dividers. The car had many people, but was probably 30-40% full. One exciting item of note was that the bottom valve on the train's toilet was stuck open, allowing one to view the passing track as I stood there. We sat behind a couple who also attended the conference. We chatted math and academia for quite some time. He is a professor in Canada and she is in graduate school in the US. I had assumed they were father and daughter and made a comment to that effect. The response was "we are a couple" - OOPS. This was near the end of the journey which left the encounter in an awkward state.

We arrived at the Keleti station. Having been there I knew the direct route from the train to the metro station. Well almost. We went down and back up some extra stairs. Lucky for Amy I had committed to carry the suitcases up and down. We purchased our tickets and validated them properly, zoomed down the escalator and caught our train. We switched trains and took the train to the metro stop for our hotel. We got out a bit disoriented, but using the sun I determined which way was north. I then looked at my google map that I had printed of the area. Well, there was a software glitch and the region where we were was missing. Oh well, I had another map of the area and knew roughly where we needed to go so off we went. We walked about 6 blocks to where the hotel should have been, but it was not there. We asked a nice person at a gelato stand and they indicated we had about a 10 minute walk up the road. So, off we go again under the hot afternoon sun. The wheel on my suitcase is still giving me some ocasional grief, but we trudge onward, past the gelato stands and outdoor bistros selling cold beer. We also passed some ill-kept places that made Amy wonder if we would ever get there.

We finally arrived at our hotel and checked into our room. We are staying at a another Danubius hotel, the parent company of the hotel we stayed at in Pecs. We did not know what to expect after the accommodations we had in Pecs. The hotel lobby was quite modern with no 80's music. We got our room keys (electronic) and found there was not free internet in the rooms and no free internet in the lobby. A minor setback, but we are too tired to care that much. We get to our room and find that it is very modern with some nice features like a shower and a modern toilet. We still have twin beds, but the carpet and decorations look like they are from this millennium.

We relaxed a little and then went looking around the hotel and surrounding area. One thing we discovered is that there is a much closer metro station about 5 minutes from the hotel, rather than the 20 minute walk we took. We found a nice restaurant that had nice food and cold beer. I had some Gosser bock beer that was very tasty. Amy had a lasagna dish that she said was very good and I had a chicken dish that was also good.

We then walked back to the hotel to check out the spa facilities. The have lots of massages and therapies one can purchase. We took in the free pool area. There were three pools of varying temperatures. The first was 36-38 C, the second was 32-34, and the final pool was 24-28. Hungary has many thermal water features and Budapest has many naturally heated baths. The hotel gets its naturally hot water from a nearby thermal spring on Margit island. The spa was very relaxing and we stayed about one hour.

Anyway, Tomorrow we plan on visiting the local university that hosts the Budapest Semester, one of the top mathematics study-abroad programs for undergraduate students in the USA. We will also try and take in a few of the local sights, but have not made any plans.

We are now watching track and field on TV in our room alternatively in German and English. We purchased a 30 minute internet pass and so will not be online much during our stay here, but will try and post again tomorrow evening.

We did not take any pictures today, but will try and take many tomorrow.

Last night in Pecs

Today was our last day in Pecs.  Dave gave his presentation about tilings to a packed house, which is good for the last day of a conference.  There are so many things going on connected with the conference, that there is no reason for anyone to leave before it is completely over, anyway.

This afternoon I tried to go around and see all the things I didn't see over the last five days.  I went inside the Mosque of Gazi Quashim pasha - now a Roman Catholic church.  I forgot to take a photo of the outside, but it's likeness is shown in the post about marzipan.. Really.  It looks like that. It was really dark inside and there was an organ concert going on, so you couldn't use flash, so my photos are craptastic. But here they are:

Ok - then it was on to the Cella Septiphora - a UNESCO world heritage site.  This is an area that has been excavated for ruins that date to the 3rd century as well as a medieval building on top that dates to the 13th century.  Very cool.  Except I forgot to take photos!!  Kudos to Emily for having photos of EVERYTHING she does!! Dave was glad he did not go to this with me.  There are a series of interconnecting walkways and stairways that are made of grating that you can see straight through. In some places you can see down about a story or two.  It was really great though.

Then I went to the square and people-watched and finished sock #1.  There are a lot of peoplewatchers around, so I didn't stand out. After Dave was done with this meeting stuff we went to dinner.  We went back to a place we liked earlier in the week for lunch.  We went back because they were fairly quick and we only had 1.5 hours for dinner.  That's fast food, here.  And the menu was really good. They had some things on the menu that were "Michigan-style"  We weren't sure what that meant, but have started to wonder if maybe the chef studied with Mario Batali in Traverse City? I had the turkey with apples, pineapple and potato croquets. it was amazingly delicious.  One of the best meals we have had. Afterwards, we went to the Music Night to hear some mathematically-based compositions, most composed especially for the conference.  There was a piece performed by the local hand-bell choir that was really interesting. My favorite was a three-part piano piece performed by its composer, who is a professor of Math at Harvard, Noem Elskies.  He was actually the youngest tenured professor ever at Harvard  He was really funny as he was setting up his music and getting ready - he talked for about 10 minutes and ended with -"I may have made this part at the end too hard - wish me luck." 

Tomorrow we board the train for Budapest.  We are travelling in the 1st class car, for we have none of the following, that would force us to travel 2nd class:

1. A 2 meter (that's about 6 feet)  sapling, fir or ornamental shrubbery

2. A collapsible canvas or rubber boat up to 2 meters long, and it's components

3. An animal up to 20 kg, ie dog, pig, or favorite goat. Over 20 kg, passengers must have agreement of all others travelling in the car to take aboard.

We almost want to go in the 2nd class car to see whatever else people are taking on the train with them.  But the 1st class car is air conditioned, has it's own W.C. that isn't even a shelf model, and we can walk to the dining car to get fried onions and Coke Light. 

We are in Budapest 2 days, back to Paris and it's environs for 2 days, and then back to Albion! 

Kurtoskalacs

This bread was so good, it deserved its own post. I think this is the Hungarian equivalent of the elephant ear. Or the bread pies we made camping.It came in this bag and you pulled it out - it was hollow on the inside, and it was made fresh over an open-coal stove. Before and after cooking, they rolled it in sugar and nuts if you wanted. Google kurtoskalacs for more photos and even a recipe.  We need to figure out how to make this when we get home!!

I don't think this guy wanted his photo taken!!

Photos!!

Let's see if I can get up some of the photos from yesterday's posts -

Here's Dave with Erno Rubik, inventor of "the cube" and George Hart, organizer of the conference we are attending and artist/mathematician who designed the sculpture hanging at the college.

Here we are at the Hungarian lunch at the winery

Here's a photo of more of the lunch

And here's a photo of the winery owner, entertaining us, in more ways than one:

Dave thought it was cool that the instrument has a likeness of the owner's mother-in-law on it.  Great tradition. He thought the person playing might be able to whack it in the face by "accident" a few times when playing too. 

Bottles from the cellar where the tasting part of the tour was.

Some photos from the sculpture park part of the excursion.  It was in an abandoned/used up quarry.

Here's the cathedral at which the sand art installation was located (in the basement).

Here's the artist finishing laying the sand in the last corner.

And here's the performance girl to swirl around and obliterate the designs they spent 5 days laying out on the floor.  

In contrast, here's the sculpture made by conference participants of zometool components, and donated to a school for permanent placement.  But, they may take it apart and make something different, who knows!

Hungarian Culture

Yesterday was "Hungarian Day" at the conference and today was our excursion day. Both allowed us to appreciate more of the local culture.

The talks yesterday morning were all from Hungarian speakers. One notable speaker was István Orosz, who creates artwork with impossible objects and other visually interesting themes. Another interesting talk was from a local speaker about the artist Victor Vasarely, who was born here in Pecs. Vasarely is known as the father of op-art. This morning we went to a local museum where he donated many works. One of his famous works is shown below.


The highlightg of yesterday was the talk by Enro Rubik. He talked about a little puzzle he created in the 1970's. Here is my picture with Rubik.

In the afternoon there was a family day where people from Pecs were invited to participate in hands-on mathematical activities. Amy learned how to make the paper "flowers" seen in the previous post.

We shared a pizza at a local place. We then went to see the music/light show. We were either at the wrong location or it was changed. We ended up listening to an interesting band from Russia called something like Russkaja. It was a cross between heavy metal and traditional folk music: electric guitars, violin, horns, drums, keyboards, and vocals. It was quite theatrical, including an appearance by a caped person looking a bit like Dracula. The concert was located in from of a very large local cathedral. There were probably 1000 people at the concert and many in the nearby park. Most were drinking beer or wine. This is not what we would likely see back home on a Monday evening.

This morning we started our excursion day by visiting the Zsolnay porcelain museum. It was interesting and they had many objects from the company's 150 year history in the Pecs area. The company produced many architectural details for buildings. The historian indicated that the company always made 2 copies, just in case the first had a problem. Since most firsts were usually good, the company amassed a large collection of pieces for a museum.

We then went to the Vasarely museum and saw more than 50 of his works. Many were quite interesting. A version of the zebras shown above was in the museum as a tapestry that was about six feet across.

After we left the museum we took a bus to a large local school. There was another large zometool sculpture build again this year. It was donated to the school. It shows the interaction between a regular 3D lattice of points (shown in black) and planes with 5-fold symmetry (colored). Each colored section was designed to look like an Islamic tiling design.

Then we went to wine country! Hungary has several large wine regions, one near Pecs. Our tour bus tooks us to a small winery where we had a traditional Hungarian cold plate meal. It contained several meat choices: spicy salami (very delicious), regular salami, cheese, ham, bacon (uncooked), prosciutto, and a salami/head-cheese combination. There were also hungarian peppers, tomoatoes, onions, and bread. And also bottomless pitchers of wine, a red and a a white. The red was too dry for me, but the white was very good. I drank a glass or two. Maybe more. We had some local music with one person on keyboards and the winery owner playing percussion. His instrument was comprised of two tambourines on a pole with some other cymbals and a voodoo-like head on it. I think Amy wants one for Christmas, so let me know if you see one while you are shopping. We then went down a long flight of stairs to the cellar for wine tasting. We sampled three wines in one chamber and three in another. They were more of a vaulted hallway than a room. The walls had a heavy moldy-sticky patina several mm thick. There were many coins stuck all over the walls. The owner said it was good luck, so I placed a 10 forint piece. There were many casks and many bottles of wine.

We then went to an outdoor sculpture park that is located in an old quarry on the side of a hill. There were many interesting works. Several artists were there carving new works.

We then traveled back and went to the basement of the large cathedral near the concert venue. There was a performance art piece where someone spent several days putting naturally colored sand from all over the world on the floor in polygonal shapes. We arrived as the piece was being completed. A dancer then went through the piece, mixing/sweeping all the sand together towards the center. We were then invited to take an envelope of sand home with us.

We then went out and had some kind of street bread we saw people eating the other night. It is made by rolling dough into a long roll, like spaghetti except not as thin. It was then placed on a conical form and cooked over a charcoal fire as it rotated in a rotisserie style. Once cooked, it was covered with a cinnamon-nut mixture. The dough contained lemon zest. It was yummy.

On the way back to our hotel we passed a large water bottle sculpture. The sign said it was illuminated at night. We just snacked for dinner and are hanging out at the hotel tonight.

Unfortunately, I am unable to upload pictures. We will try to get pictures up tomorrow.

Pecs

Ok - so here we are in Pecs.  Dave is attending conference sessions and I tag along on the group stuff.  Yesterday it was raining and everything was closed because it was Sunday.  I knitted on my sock (I am around the heel and onto the foot, for those that care about that sort of thing), watched the end of the Tour de France, in German, and did some window shopping on my way to meet Dave for dinner and evening activities.

Firstly, there are a ton of public programs going on here, since Pecs is a European Capital of Culture for 2010.  They agree that they are cool and host a bunch of stuff to attract Europeans to come to their city.  There are 2 or 3 cultural capitals each year.  Another for 2010 is Istanbul, but I digress.  So, there have been some circus people about for the month of July and they have demonstrations and games in the public square.

There are also public concerts, and craft type fairs in the evenings.  Our conference is also participating by having some of the events open to the public.  Last night we went to a modern dance performance that was very well done and the troupe is putting on a workshop for the conference about math and dance.  Maybe Dave will decide to get into that, but since he can't even polka, I doubt his ability to be successful.

Since the conference is all about the intersection of Math and the arts, there are a lot of different ways people express themselves. Here are a few of the cooler items from the art display:

These are origami pieces done with ribbon.  This wold be very cool if done as a wedding bouquet, if you were mathematically inclined. 

Some photos from Pecs - the city square, from one side, showing the water feature, which also has lights at night, that numerous children have been playing in.  Also, note the Turkish mosque in the background - it is now a Roman Catholic church.  

This is a detail from the Zsolnay fountain - Zsolnay is a tile and porcelain manufacturer in Pecs, known for their amazing glazes and art nouveau details.

A few words on the music playing in the hotel - for some reason they are always playing 80's pop.   Lionel Ritchie, Mike and the Mechanics, etc. Maybe it's helping me gear up for my 25th HS reunion, which is coming up in August.  

And laundry - we discovered yesterday that laundry is available here.  But the Hungarian tradition is not to do one's own laundry.  It is always sent out.  There are no laundromats, but a service in which you leave your stuff in your room in the laundry bag, they wash and iron everything, and put it back in your room the same day.  Rush service is if you need it back to wear that day.  Otherwise it will be ready by 3:00 or so.  We have dutifully filled the bag and will see how it works out.  

Last, but not least, the one sightseeing thing I did yesterday was to visit the Szabo Marzipan Museum.. Come on - if there is a museum of marzipan it demands a visit, don't you think?  It was a very small shop on floor 0, with delights on the first floor up, including a scheme of Harry Potter done in marzipan. 

From what I understand, marzipan is an almond paste that you can use like modeling chocolate or other edible  confectionery stuff.   Like on Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes.  But these things are all totally made of marzipan.  There were wedding cakes, clcks and story land scenes, etc.  

This is the mosque/church in the main city square. 

But the greatest thing ever was the life-sized ELVIS.  Made totally of marzipan.  Imagine . . . . it was definitely worth the price of admission, which was 350 HUF, or about $1.30.

Hungarian Shenanigans

Well, we are in Hungary, and it was really, really hot and now it isn't.  Kind of like Michigan.  It's raining today, but is supposed to clear up later.  Pecs is a really nice small town, 160,000 people, which is much smaller than Paris, but way larger than Albion.  People spend a lot of time walking in the pedestrian areas downtown. There are fountains and water features for children to play in at the main square and in a few other places.  Pecs is over 1,000 years old and there is a water feature to commemorate that.  There is also a lot of Turkish architecture, which makes us think of Emily in Istanbul.  I will try to take some photos to post - there are a lot of ruins that make Pecs a UNESCO world heritage site.

There are gelato stands about every 100 feet or so and lots of restaurants, mainly Italian.  There are Hungarian dishes available at every one as well.  Last night I ordered the 4 cheese pasta and a house mixed salad.  I'm not sure which 4 cheeses were in the pasta, but I am positive none of them were cheddar.  Smoky Gouda was in there, and proabaly Gruere - it was pretty salty.  The salad was not the typical iceberg, tomato, cucumber salad, but sauerkraut, pickles and beets.  Ummmmm - so Dave ate that.  Dave is enjoying the food, I am pretty reserved about it all.  Dinner here is similar to Paris - an all-night affair that takes 1 hour if you are in a hurry and up to 3 or 4 if you are not.  We have not really become accustomed to all this starting at 8 or 9 at night.  We tend to eat at 6:00 anyway, as it is less crowded and we are not interested in 5 course meals every night.

Breakfast is a buffet at the hotel - very nicely done with eggs, pastries, meats and cheeses, cereals, and juices.  The egg yolks here are dark orange - I'm not sure why.  Maybe a different variety of chicken?

Like I said, today it's raining and Sunday, so most shops are not open, but some museums are.  Not really sure what I am going to do this afternoon, but I am meeting Dave for lunch at a nice cafe we found that had delicious coffees and a covered porch to sit at.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - oh my!

I knew Dave had a day like this planned, but was not acknowledging in my conscious state that it was really coming.  We rose at 3:00 am to take a taxi to the Orly airport at 4:00 am.  Dave was sure he had ordered the taxi for 3:30, but I was there, and I know he said 4:00.  Anyway - it was a VW mini-van that was very clean and the driver didn't speak much English, so we didn't have to make conversation, what little there is at 4:00 am. He took us to Orly in a jiffy, at 120 km/hr, kind of fast, since the speed limit as 90 km/hr.  There was no traffic, surprise!  Check in at the airport began at 4:40 am.  We were flying EasyJet, a discount British airline, located in the basement of the airport.  People began queueing at 4:30 and the attendants kept making everyone move back.  When we finally checked in the attendant was a cheeky young man who made comments about why we didn't know much/any French.  Whatever. [We shall comment here that Orly is the local airport serving mainly short flights throughout Europe and there are virtually no signs or announcements in English.]    I was surprised they didn't make us drag our own luggage out on the tarmac and load it into the plane.  We eventually boarded, the flight took off, and we made it to Hungary at the appointed time.

Here's where the fun really begins.

We wait for our luggage, an unusually long amount of time, for whatever reason, and head for the customs line.  When we entered France, we had to stand in a non-EU member line, for the stern woman to scan our passports, stamp them, thrust them back at us and dismiss us with a clipped, "Au Revoir."  We expected something similar in Hungary.  We had nothing to declare as we entered, as we haven't purchased anything we need to declare, so we got in the "Nothing to Declare" line and followed everyone else as we pass an empty desk.  That was it - no one stamped our passports, or even looked at them.  We probably went through the wrong line and will get arrested as we return to France.

I go to use the airport bathroom.  Nothing out of the ordinary, except that there are 2 workmen in there.  WorkMEN. In 2 of the 3 women's stalls. Yikes!!  Very odd.  But the toilets are normal, my fine friends.  but don't worry.  Toilets will get more interesting later in the day.

From here we use the ATM to obtain Hungarian Forints, as they do not use the Euro here.  [Note - it is cheaper and a better exchange rate to withdraw money from you own bank account than to exchange cash. Just make sure you are using a VISA and have cleared it with your bank.]  We then proceed to purchase tickets for the city train and check our itinerary with the customer service woman.  I should have known we were in for a treat when she raised one eyebrow and said "You CAN do it that way." and shrugged.  Dave asked if there was a better way and she admitted that there wasn't.

[Note to our smug selves - the signs in Hungary are in Magyar (Hungarian) and English.  Our crass French friends from the plane are now struggling to read the signs, as they know neither Hungarian or English.  Hummmpf to them!]

Ok - so we head for the train station across the street.

We take the city train to the subway station.  We figure out how to buy tickets.  Encounter people left over from the cold war era checking that we have validated our tickets correctly, a step we have not yet encountered on other subway systems. We haven't. We go back to try to figure out what to do next, because this woman isn't going to actually tell us how to validate them.  That would be giving it all away.  And ehr job is to check that the tickets are validated, not to be helpful.  We get past her the next time and enter the fastest moving escalator I have ever seen in my life.  I almost fainted - which isn't hard to imagine, right?  I know I have escalator issues, but this one was going about 50 miles an hour and was about 2 stories long going down!  And I had my luggage with me!!  OMG!  

Ok, so Dave realizes at this point that we have been traveling for about 6 hours and have quite a few left to go before we get to our hotel.  And it's about 100 degrees in Budapest. We get on a subway train and go three stops and get off.  We look at the directions to get to the next train, double and triple checking that we are indeed going in the direction we intend to go.  Because all we need at this point is to go the wrong way. 

Fortunately, we end up in the right place.  The next train station.  We must look like we know what we are doing - hard to imagine - because a little old busia about 4 feet tall comes up to us to ask us a question.  We say "Anglu?" to her and she waves her hand in disgusting dismissal.  

We wander through the next train station, asking at the information desk where to buy tickets, and get in line for inland tickets.  The other ticket booths are for international tickets.  We work with a woman who has minimal English - why should she know english, she's working the domestic booth - and buy two first class tickets to Pecs.  Thank God.  On a train that's leaving in 30 minutes. Thank God again!

I decide I should try to use the bathroom, at this point.  Uh - no.  I find the women's side of the bathroom and go up the few steps.  The women's door and the men's door are leading to the same room.  I see men, a cash box and the toilet paper all in the same place.  I have no money and now have no desire to try to use the facility.  I go back to Dave and say - we might as well move on, because there is no way I am using a bathroom with men in it.  And paying for toilet paper.  

Ok - we get on the train.  We have first class seats, so we have an air conditioned car and a bathroom. Phew!!

I don't know if the toilet in the train emptied out onto the tracks, sorry Mom.  I DID watch, though.  It seems to go into a tank.  

We got to our hotel, seeing the busia at the station who asked us the questions in Budapest, so seemingly she is here in Pecs, whether that's where she intended to go or not. 

Our hotel is ok.  Yes, we have a Hungarian shelf toilet in the bathroom.  Yes, it is the most disgusting thing I have ever used.  No, I have not taken a photo.  Maybe later.  It is hotter then h-e-double hockey sticks here. Unusually hot, in the triple digits.  And they don't have air conditioning.  Yikes.  It is a little cooler today, since it rained in the night. 

Ok - so there we are up to now.  Here is the view out our hotel balcony.  

Hope every one is doing great and we will post again soon!!!!

Paris in a hurry! Part 2

We hopped on the Metro again and headed to the Champs-Elysees, all the time looking at the preparations for the last stage of the Tour de France bicycle race which ends there on Sunday.  Too bad we had to leave for Hungary, because Dave would have loved to see it!!  We walked all the way down the C-E and took lots of photos.  We didn't go in many stores, though.  Imagine!

The Arc de Triomphe - we thought we would try to put up some photos with us in them, to prove we are really here!

Louis Vuitton - there was a line outside to get in.  There are 101 suitcases in the window, because their address is 101 Champs-Elysees. Huh. 

Yes, this is a photo from the middle of the street.  Tricky to get, and risky, but worth it, I guess!!!

A view going the other way, looking at the Place de la Concorde.  I took this one!  

The Obelisk from Luxor at the Place de la Concorde - the covered seating to the right overlooks the Champ-Elysees and will be prime seating for the last 10 laps of the TDF!

The fountain - very pretty!

The Tuileries Metro Stop

This photo is for Liz and Shane - we didn't make eye contact with anyone in the Metro Stops.  If anyone else wants to know what I am talking about, rent or borrow a copy of the collection of short films known as Paris, Je T'aime.  They are all done by famous directors, writers and actors about their favorite parts of Paris.  There is one set in the Tuileries stop starring Steve Buscemi, one of our favorite actors, and we thought about it every time we went through this stop. 

We can't resist talking about the money we have encountered.  The Euro is very pretty and comes in many forms.  Ok, the next day, yesterday, now, we traveled to Hungary and I will blog about that in another post.