Our hotel room is modern and very comfortable, adapters for devices, lots of towels! As with so many large chain hotels, it features lots of wasted space and not much personality. And it most surely beats sleeping on a bench in the park. (Spoken as one grateful for plain creature comforts!)
On a bus, I later on observed several Orthodox Jewish men, one of whom tugged and twirled his luxurious side locks as he joked and smiled with his companions. Aware that Orthodox men are unaccustomed to conversing/engaging in encounters with women not members of their family, I managed to refrain from approaching them with pious praise of the Great Synagogue they were probably planning to visit anyway.
Marveling anew at the lovely architecture from 19th century or earlier as I wandered through cobbled streets (or inlaid brick) in the historic Castle District, its almost Disney-like ‘Fisherman’s Bastion’ – a sort of fort, seemingly designed to please 21st Century photographers as much as to defend (or protect from) marauding Danube fishermen – or Turkish invaders, who knows? But fun to “invade” with cameras with Great Views of the city nonetheless!
Somehow missed meeting my new Montana friends for our walk (they may have actually taken the organized tour). Walking up and down these cobblestone streets is a challenge for this easily un-balanced 85-year-old. But I enjoy the freedom to choose my own direction, rest whenever I need to, stop to people-watch or follow a bird’s flight.
Have a happy habit of stopping whenever I see a bird (in cities a pigeon or a crow) standing on the path ahead of me. Is it resting? Looking for food? Considering its options? I prefer not to barge ahead, interfering with its personal agenda! I’ve always noticed birds quickly flying off if human footsteps approach. So I take much pleasure in waiting my turn! it’s a chance to rest anyhow. Solitary walks allow for this eccentricity.
Gotta stop now (next morning 5 AM). Sunrise out my window. Beckons the day!
Later: Lois just called!! Thousands of miles away, in Wyoming! How does your voice travel so far? It feels magical to me! Like dreaming music or remembering rain under eucalyptus trees in October. How do all the sounds remember themselves in our minds? How do they stay so vivid, like Jacqueline Dupre in the next room now that she’s dead? Or fragrance from our old garden: night-blooming Jasmine in July! How suddenly it makes me wake! But I guess I digress. (Not really.)
Brilliant sunshine out my hotel window! Right at my feet, the “Fisher Fortress” swarming in new dawn light, maintenance workers like an army of ants, anonymous, and, one may hope, decently paid if not appreciated. Sweeping. Picking up OUR litter.
Later: Walking among throngs of tourists, I realize I may be the only one not holding a phone high, taking pictures. Still hard for me, born in 1940, to think of a telephone doing that! I have a disposable camera in my bag but often forget to use it. Too busy looking, listening, inhaling Hungarian air, colors, faces, losing myself in curiosity and wonder like Dorothy discovering Oz, amused at the passing local Munchkins, who do not likely realize they are tourist attractions.
Now remember being a sort of “local tourist attraction,” actually living in Wyoming and not being in a hurry to reach Yellowstone before dark, just taking my munchkins to school. Watering flowers.
The trouble with constantly taking photos: it gets “between” us and what’s going on. We miss so much! Freezing a moment while the world keeps on spinning.
It’s really okay! We can’t help wanting to do it! Memory-making. Story-telling props.
Sometimes it feels like talking with my mouth full.
The views of the Danube and all the history-laden architecture from elevated points in Budapest are often stunning. Really enjoy observing some of the historical, even graceful architectural styles, though ignorant of artistic periods, labels, etc.
Yet on the long bus ride into the city from the airport, hard to ignore the seemingly endless blocks of drab, decrepit, even derelict homes, apartments and industrial buildings, dating from the Soviet era. Many homes had bars on the lower windows, and sad-looking yards, neglected, weedy, trash-filled.
Wondered about the people inhabiting those grim environments. Fought, as always, the desire to sit in judgment on my surely jet-lagged, preoccupied fellow tourists who fiddled busily with their phones, chattered (naturally!) with each other, barely appearing to glance out the window, where the real Hungary mostly exists …
Just human, humming along Hungarian highways! Yes, I’m addicted to alliteration, too.
It’s a bit humbling to realize how much my own personal, even self-serving goals as a gawking tourist must critically serve and feed the needs of this hospitality industry on which countless Hungarians’ economic survival depends! Unfailing in their smiles and gracious hospitality, they must love and hate us till we go, while praying we return next season, bringing all “our friends and relations,” as in some great Rabbit Tale, whose name I can’t recall.
Seeing so many young (late teens, early 20s) working in the service industry’s humblest tasks — like young people everywhere. Touchingly grateful for modest gratuities, they practice their people skills, learning self-discipline and humility. Can’t but wonder how many hope for higher education, if Hungary subsidizes university, as some socialist-leaning countries do?
Beginning to regret never taking the time to learn Hungarian! ‘Koszonom’ (thank you ) brings miles of smiles, though.
Next week will surely be kicking myself for not “taking the trouble” to learn more Serbian (same as Croatian) not to mention Bulgarian and Romanian.
How could I have limited myself to Latin and French, with a Mexican-American daughter-in-law, and why not Russian or Farsi, Mandarin and Cantonese? Met a beautiful group of fellow Viking voyagers in the hotel breakfast room today. Thought they might be Japanese, but no, they were middle-aged women from Thailand, smiling warmly, flawless un-accented (American style) English, always offering to help if I stumbled or looked lost. Affable, sophisticated, elegant! I relished the opportunity to know them better.
As the days passed, we often encountered one another. With my own deep Buddhist leanings, we connected easily, exchanging “namastes” whenever we met, sharing our stories. They spoke of the floods of desperate refugees fleeing Myanmar’s chaotic, violent government to relatively welcoming Bangkok.
And how tragically ironic, now that our journey is ended (adding this note March 29th) that those women returned home to fresh, awful earthquake devastation, from Myanmar to their own homes in Bangkok! We were smiling and laughing when we parted 2 days ago. Sometimes it’s hard to be patient with the god (God?) who makes the Earth to shake in its naturally Geo-Logical fashion, like a wet dog shakes itself (and now to heck with God’s mysterious ways!) I just feel sad and concerned for my gracious and lovable/loving fellow voyagers!