In Budapest
Hm, Livejournal makes me sign in twice in order to be able to post anything. Odd.
Two days before I left I had to deal with a major plumbing issue, which happened to fall on a weekend and despite all the plumbers advertising that they have emergency services, few return phone calls before the weekend. One did and came out on a Saturday, but could not fix the problem. He said it was possibly tree roots. What he did was leaving an awful mess that took me a few hours to clean up. That left me little time to pack--which next time I will not leave to the last minute-and so I forgot a few things, one among them a comfortable pair of walking shoes.
But I arrived without any travel woes, which is always a relief because on such a long trip delays could cause missed connections and lost luggage. Since then (almost a week), I've been busy seeing friends and doing important things like eating delicious food and pastries and cakes. The first few days have been wicked hot, in the 30+ C, and now for the past two days it's cool and sunny.
We went to see the Body Exhibit on Kiraly utca (King Street), which is only here until August, and I didn't want to miss it because the one in Florida is in Miami and I don't like Miami, or south Florida for that matter. Besides, now it would be too long a drive, something like 270 miles. The exhibit in Budapest is large and varied (told by a person who'd seen one in the US), so it was worth seeing. We were not allowed to take pictures.
We also went to the Szemmelweis Muzeum, located in the house in which Szemmelweis used to live and later turned into a doctor's office. Taking pictures is not allowed here either, but they'll let you if you donate to the museum, which is operated on a small government funding. Some displays here were disturbing, mainly the very large medical instruments they used to use in the late 1800s. They're more like torture devices than instruments of healing, and I don't want to imagine the pain their use must've caused to the patients. But I suppose it's better than dying.
Here's a scale used for disabled persons.
Representation of a human torso, made of wax (graphic image)
My favorites are the Apothecary jars
I took so many pictures but it takes forever to upload them here.
Today we went to Gundel for the Sunday Brunch. The food is so delicious, traditional Hungarian dishes as well as international cuisine. And the dessert selection is out of this world.
Me walking to Gundel
Then we took a short walk around Hero's Square and the Museums and finally to the Old Metro, which is the oldest in Europe.
Me again, making a face
And now I have to get some sleep (it's 1AM here) because I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow. We're off to Istanbul.
Two days before I left I had to deal with a major plumbing issue, which happened to fall on a weekend and despite all the plumbers advertising that they have emergency services, few return phone calls before the weekend. One did and came out on a Saturday, but could not fix the problem. He said it was possibly tree roots. What he did was leaving an awful mess that took me a few hours to clean up. That left me little time to pack--which next time I will not leave to the last minute-and so I forgot a few things, one among them a comfortable pair of walking shoes.
But I arrived without any travel woes, which is always a relief because on such a long trip delays could cause missed connections and lost luggage. Since then (almost a week), I've been busy seeing friends and doing important things like eating delicious food and pastries and cakes. The first few days have been wicked hot, in the 30+ C, and now for the past two days it's cool and sunny.
We went to see the Body Exhibit on Kiraly utca (King Street), which is only here until August, and I didn't want to miss it because the one in Florida is in Miami and I don't like Miami, or south Florida for that matter. Besides, now it would be too long a drive, something like 270 miles. The exhibit in Budapest is large and varied (told by a person who'd seen one in the US), so it was worth seeing. We were not allowed to take pictures.
We also went to the Szemmelweis Muzeum, located in the house in which Szemmelweis used to live and later turned into a doctor's office. Taking pictures is not allowed here either, but they'll let you if you donate to the museum, which is operated on a small government funding. Some displays here were disturbing, mainly the very large medical instruments they used to use in the late 1800s. They're more like torture devices than instruments of healing, and I don't want to imagine the pain their use must've caused to the patients. But I suppose it's better than dying.
Here's a scale used for disabled persons.
Representation of a human torso, made of wax (graphic image)
My favorites are the Apothecary jars
I took so many pictures but it takes forever to upload them here.
Today we went to Gundel for the Sunday Brunch. The food is so delicious, traditional Hungarian dishes as well as international cuisine. And the dessert selection is out of this world.
Me walking to Gundel
Then we took a short walk around Hero's Square and the Museums and finally to the Old Metro, which is the oldest in Europe.
Me again, making a face
And now I have to get some sleep (it's 1AM here) because I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow. We're off to Istanbul.