In a couple of brief email messages, Ron has reported that he arrived safely in Budapest, and that the apartment is satisfactory, especially now that folks from the agent came to bring light bulbs and get the gas started for the stove and hot water heater. He now has Friday and part of Saturday to check out Budapest before our friend Ned arrives late Saturday afternoon.
Ellen
2nd report from Budapest, distributed by email 11 September 2000 On 7 September Ron said:
So far I like Budapest, but still finding out how to get around. By the time you are here I will be a qualified guide. I have not been able to re-set my watch to local time, so I have to keep adding 6 hours. At least I know what time it is back home...but not for sure if it is am or pm.
[He hasn't said anything about his watch since, so I don't know if he managed to reset it or not!]
Message on Sunday 10 September:
Hi Ellen,
While you were on the phone looking for your email messages [he was right -- that is what I was doing!] I tried calling you on the Internet and left you a message. The rage here in the Internet cafe is using a program called dialpad to make long distance calls.
No software needed, all web based.
You can use it by going to www.dialpad.com and registering to get a username and password. I am using someone else's.
Ned arrived yesterday almost right on schedule, earlier than I thought he would get here. Last night we walked along the main walking street and then along the Danube for a ways. Found a spot with what appeared to be a high school band and a group of majorettes with twirling batons. Right out of the 50s.
We stopped for dinner along the river walk at a upscale place for the many tourists and I ordered a salad, soup, and a fish main course. Ned ordered a deer stew. We shared my salad, Ned's bread, and then my potato soup. We waited and waited and waited, then we decided we had had enough anyway. As we stood up, twice people came up and said "one minute"...then the bill arrived. They were quite surprised that we never received the main entrees, so we just had them deduct them from the bill and we went on our way.
...
Tried calling again...but the number was busy and I left a message. But the answering service sounds different. Let me know if you got a message.
Ron ========================
Note from Ellen:
I did get the message from him, and he called again later. The quality of the call was pretty good -- sort of like talking to someone on a speaker phone, where there is a tiny lag or dead spot before the other person talks.
He said that he and Ned had tried a buffet dinner on one of the many restaurant boats on the river, but had been disappointed: all meat and potatoes, no fruit or salads.
There is an underpass he and Ned go through frequently, and there is a street musician there who plays a recorder, sometimes alone and sometimes with someone else. Since he is very fond of recorder/pan flute/flute, Ron stopped to talk to her several times, and after several interchanges she gave him a tape of her music. The first acquisition of his music collection from this trip.
Ron has been trying to contact the Hungarian cousins of a friend of ours, but, despite help from various people, has been unable to get the phone number he has to work. So he has asked our friend for address and other info.
They are enjoying Budapest. Ron has bought a bike map, but hasn't gotten out the bike yet because there is so much to see on foot. They are still planning to leave Budapest for Pecs on Wednesday morning.
Ellen
Lady Pickpocket, Mr. Inspector and The Pigeon (distributed by email 13 September 2000) Hi Ellen,
Monday morning after a late sleep I gathered a few things together for the day's adventures: the map book I had bought, the card with Bob's cousin's name and phone number, the camera, and the pack of pictures of family, pets, home, snow, etc. to show Bob's cousins. But as you know there was some problems with the numbers and I could not make contact with his cousin, so we continued to have a fine day exploring the area on the Budda side of the Danube.
On Monday we explored Gelieri-hegy (Gellert)Hill looking for the tram as we walked all the way up. Then we visited City Park and played in the kid's area like Busch Gardens and got to the zoo after it was closed.
Tuesday we continued to explore the different high spots and someone had told me to check out the Labyrinth of the Buda Castle when we visited the palace. After checking out the castle and church we finally found the entry into the Labyrinth and went down and explored around the interesting passages underground. One section was called the Labyrinth of another world where they had a fossil imprint of a human foot dated back 38 million years ago. It looked just like a nike shoe print to us. Then later we saw imprints that looked just like a keyboard and monitor. The signs said they were from the period of Homo consumus who visited here. There were a couple of tricky places in the Labyrinth, but we figured them out. But when we exited and got outside, we were completely lost, so I guess the joke was on us since the exit we used was nowhere near the entrance we came in. After walking for a ways, we backtracked to the exit and re-entered to find and exit the entrance we entered.
Then we visited the palace and the 20th century exhibit in the museum. Afterwards we visited Margit-sziget Island, which was large with lots of people doing many different activities: bike riding, tennis, soccer, various games with balls, and walking which we joined in for quite a ways.
When we got tired of walking in the park on the island we caught a very full bus back to the end of the park to catch a tram to the other side. There was a woman behind me and I felt her pressure so I brought my waist pack to the front and rested my right hand on the camera inside the pouch. However, I few minutes later I felt something and looked down to see a lady's hand leaving the front of my pouch. Her hand looked empty but I looked at my pouch and found it zipped open. But I could feel my camera and there didn't seem to be anything missing. We got off and I watched the lady leave with her little boy.
We hurried back to eat at a restaurant we had tried to eat at the night before but were turned away from because we didn't have a reservation (so we had a pizza at the pizza parlor across from our apartment). Then we rushed to the Vigado to see if the lady there had managed to save us two no-show tickets since they were sold out when we tried to make reservations in the afternoon. I had given her a shiny new penny for good luck (explaining to Ned it was for our good luck), so of course she had two tickets for us at a price of around $20 each (which if we had known in advance we might not have decided to go). The performance was something between a good symphony, an opera, a musical, and comedy, and a bawdy dance hall. All in all it was fantastic and well worth every penny.
Later last night I thought about the envelope that Bob had given me to give his cousins, telling me it contained $100 for them. I had already reorganized my things and packed my small back pack for the journey to Pecs when we had planned to make it on Wed, but we decided to stay another day, and leave on Thursday instead. I had seen the envelope when I repacked, then I remembered that I had put it with the pictures, so I looked for the pictures...then I remembered that I had put them in my pouch on Monday. It took a while to bring back the memory but now I am convinced the lady with the small boy must be enjoying getting to know her victim through looking at the pictures she had lifted from my pouch. It must have been a real disappointment to her to find a set of pictures instead of something valuable, but if she didn't throw them away and continued to look through them she would have found and opened Bob's envelope and found the $100. I hope she really needed it and educated her son well.
Today getting off the metro the inspectors wanted to see everyone's ticket. I had bought a 7 day pass, and Ned had a three day, and today bought a new one day pass for the extra day. What I didn't know was that you were supposed to print your name on the front of the pass, and the instructions to do so were in three languages written on the back of the card. He said my card was not valid, and he would keep it, and I had to pay a fine of 1,300 Fts. (about $4.50), and if I didn't we would call the police and I would have to pay a fine of 3,000 Fnts. Well, I didn't like being treated that way, felt it was not fair, and kept trying to find a better resolution. He said his brother was in New York and they arrested people for the same kind of things. So I guess he had an ax to grind, so I finally worked a compromise where I paid the fine but he returned and let me sign the 7 day pass. I felt this was the second time I was robbed.
Then later a pigeon flew over and dropped all over Ned's white t-shirt.
Later, on a tram to the western hills of Budda (the rich new suburbs), we asked a lady, (who turned out to be a writer with a PhD in Philosophy and who had traveled and taught in Iowa) on the tram for some directions and she invited us to her house for coffee and a discussion of the map of the area. After some discussion we walked to visit a beautiful church surrounded by trees where miracles were performed, and then to a church sitting in the middle of a large open field that was a 1000 years old and locked up tight. Too bad the miracles had not happened at the old place.
Tomorrow we finally leave Budapest for Pecs with the train tickets we bought today for a mid-day train so we can sleep in a little in the morning. The landlord said that no one was renting the apartment before I would be returning so I could just leave the bike and suitcase there. It feels very secure and makes it easy.
So...from the city of pigeons, metro inspectors, lady pickpockets, phone numbers that don't work, an abundance of meat and potatoes (we did have an excellent fish dinner tonight in the Budda Hills), and to all the ladies that walk up and down the "mall like" street Vaci suggesting we join them for a drink, which I understand can become very expensive when a little French cognac is added ...we say good-bye for now and look forward to more exciting adventures in Pecs.
Ron PS: Ellen, could you prepare and bring a new package of pictures? Bob, got your message with company name and address tonight, but it will have to wait for my return to Budapest. You gave the same number, which our Budda Hills friend tried and also said something was wrong with the numbers.
Modified: 2002-05-25
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