Names

Today I visited Kilmainham Gaol, a 'new jail' built in the 1790s. Over the course of Irish history, it's housed some criminals, and a lot of political prisoners and poor people . In the early years of the Irish potato famine, people who were starving would com mitt petty crimes to go to jail, because they knew they would be fed there. The British government decreased food rations to discourage this, but they also made it illegal to beg on the street, so later in the famine many people were imprisoned for begging or steeling food. Children as young as 8 years old were put in jail for crimes like stealing grass or stealing 2 loaves of bread. (Those of you who don't know much Irish history, as I didn't before planning this trip, might find it interesting that there was plenty of food in Ireland during the potato famine, it was just all being shipped internationally by the wealthy landowners, only the peasants who happened to rely on the potato as their food supply who suffered.) Anyway, while I was there I saw the cell of one of the prison's more famous occupants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Clarke_%28Irish_Republican%29

When I mentioned to the tour guide that one of the men involved in the 1916 uprising shared a name with my dad, he told me a bit more about Tom Clarke the Irish man - how he was a revolutionary politician / fighter who was quite instrumental in leading or instigating the Easter Rising of 1916. And he pointed out the cell where he was held by the Brits until his execution days after the rebels were defeated. And the yard where the executions took place, with a black cross marking where they would have stood blindfolded and faced a 12 man firing squad:
So it was interesting to learn about a famous Irishman who share's my Dad's name. (At least first and last) and I plan to buy a book recommended by one of the museum staff who declared "Tom Clarke is one of my favorite names!"

When I was in London in 2004, no one noticed my name. Here it was remarked upon first at the immigration stand when I got off the ferry from England. The guy at the booth said "Clarke?" and I said "yes, it's a British name but my family has been in America for several generations." At least one other person has commented on it as well, in the last 24 hrs. I don't know if the Irish have more of a sense of family history being important than the Brits do, or if they're just friendlier in general, but I think it's interesting. I wonder what it must be like for people who come here for the first time with truly Irish names - do they get even more questions?

The hostel is ok. I had a hot shower last night - perhaps the water is only cold in the middle of peak showering hours? And the staff directed me to a nearby pub for dinner, where I had a really quite decent green salad (at least it had more than one kind of lettuce, and I've been craving uncooked vegetables after London and Spain.) Of course I had to try my first pint of Genuine Irish Guinness, too - I must admit I like it better here. I don't know if it's actually different or if I'm just in the right frame of mind to be drinking Guinness, but I quite enjoyed it and I've never gotten into the stuff at home. I am booked on a literary pub crawl tonight (complete with genuine actors reading passages from famous Irish literature, some in the pubs the stories take place in) so I imagine I can have another if I'm not feeling up to a whiskey, which is (of course) the other Irish national beverage.

So other than the gaol I wandered about a bit today, picked up a map from the tourist office, and visited the surprisingly unhelpful bus office, bought a sim card for my phone - I can send text messages to US phones for only 15 euro cents, but I don't know what it might cost the recipient of the text message. Buying a sim card was much easier here than in Hungary - there I needed a home address in Hungary, an ID with my US address, etc. Here I just needed 10 euros - they wouldn't have even taken my name had I not used my credit card to pay. I visited the Chester Beatty Library and had a lovely lunch which included rice (another thing I've been craving) and chicken (No pork or sausage, thank you very much Spanish cuisine!) They have an interesting display of old religious texts and objects including a lot of 'illuminated' texts, the most impressive of which were Buddhist and Hindu. I plan to return to the hostel and have a snack and then I will go on the pub tour.

Not a Myth

So that old story about Irish friendliness is not a myth as of my first several hours in Ireland. I rode the train from London to Holyhead Wales, and then a ferry to Dublin. On the bus into the city I was befriended by a nice little old lady who welcomed me to the country, apologised for the (slight) bad mood of the driver, offered me a job when she found out I would be here for a whole month, encouraged me to visit Cork, and told me about her grandchildren, one of whom is lovely and one is spoiled. After getting off the bus she could tell I wasn't sure which way to go to get to the hostel, so she flagged down a passerby and asked him. (She lives in England now and wasn't 100% sure where the street was.)

And that brings us to the hostel. . . I was lucky they had room to have me for a couple nights, since my plans to visit Wales on my way from London had to be abandoned. And it's a lot cheaper than anything else I might find in Dublin. And the check in guy was really nice. But. . . my roommates tell me there is no hot water in the showers, and they seem to be planning a late and noisy night (they are college students studying in England and traveling on their 5 week April break.) So I think I'll be happy to move on to Elish's (my Irish hostess) on Saturday. But I'm sure it will be an experience staying here, and probably mostly a fun one. I don't really have to shower until tomorrow morning, right? :) I think I'll set out to find some food that's not extremely expensive and hopefully includes some uncooked vegetables of some kind, and then I'll call it an early night as most of my decent sleep may happen before my roommates get home.

London

I arrived safely in London. I had a suitable welcome to the British homeland when I chatted with the man behind me in line at the airport cafe about how you can't get a decent cup of tea in Spain. (He's even tried to teach them, but it doesn't work. It has something to do with their not having boiling water, although I suspect there is boiling water somewhere in Spain) Anyway, I got to do laundry in a machine for the first time in 3+ weeks and the friends I'm staying with also have a dryer! It was an excellent morning in. This afternoon I bought my sail/rail ticket to Dublin on Thursday, and then I got a pasty in the train station, which I felt was appropriate. Tonight I may check out a pub quiz at a pub near my friends house. This computer has a USB port but my card reader won't fit into it because whatever is next to the slots is too big. So no pictures today either.

Hasta Luego!

Tomorrow I leave Spain for a couple days in London and then on to Ireland. If anyone has things in London they absolutely love, let me know because I´m feeling a bit uninspired about touristing there right now.

Today I went to the Syphony in Bilbao. It was an excellent symphony, and quite different from what I am accustomed to. The major difference was that there were NO violins on the stage. They seem to have replaced what would be the violin section in America with clarinets, which there were 13 of, plus some bass (tenor?, anyway bigger) clarinets, at least two of them. There were two cellos, but no string bases. Maybe I´ve never gotten over my childhood exposture at montesorri school to Suzuki violin classes, (which seem to consist of a tremendous number of very small children torturing violins) because I was quite pleased with the absence of violins, and I´ve never understood why there need to be so many of them anyway. I don´t know if it was just the pieces they were playing today, or if they always have fewer violins, but I liked it. They had 7 percussionists - one of whom was a soloist on the first 2 pieces who was in town for this concert. There were 3 tenor and 3 alto saxes, 2 bassons, and 2 base basoons. 2 small and 4 large tubas (?) four trombones, 5 trumpets and 3 french horns rounded out the brass section nicely. The music they played was relatively energetic, one might even say jaunty, and other than the longish introductions in both spanish and basque, I thoroughly enjoyed it. At the end of the percussion solos, the conductor brought out a basque beret for the soloist and put it on him. The theater was a sea of red velvet and white and gold paint, almost over the top. I wish I could post a picture of it, but this computer is so old I´m just happy I´m not having to pedal something to use it, so needless to say there is no USB. But I did take a picture at the end, so if people want to see a really fancy theater it´ll be available eventually.

After the symphony, I rode the funicular up to a lookout spot with lovely views of the city and surrounding mountains, which are quite impressive, athough you can´t really see them from most parts of the town because of the hills. I think if I lived in Bilbao I´d want to live on top of a hill so I could see the mountains.

Yesterday I went to San Sebastian / Donostia which is a famous beach town. It finally stopped raining, so I am glad I waited to go. The beach is considered one of the best public beaches in the world because it is seashell shaped and protected from the open sea by hills on either end of the horseshoe plus an island in the middle of the opening. It was quite scenic and looked like a nice beach, although it wasn´t warm enough for me to test it out. I did see people surfing and parasailing in wetsuits on the other side of the town where the waves are bigger. Although I would love to learn to surf, I´m too much of a wuss to do it somewhere I need a wetsuit to get in the water. So I walked all the way around the beach and rode the funicular to the top of the large hill on the western end, which has great views of the beach, the town, the mountains behind it which are beautiful, the coastline of the Bay of Biscay extending east and west, and of course the bay itself. I didn´t buy a basque beret in the old town because I already have a black beret, and I don´t think I´d use a red one, but it was a hard decision. On my return home last night I visited the grocery store at El Corte Ingles (the large department store in Spain) and bought some packaged arroz con leche, (rice pudding) some olive tapenade, and half a bottle of Rioja wine, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly for a picnic dinner in my hotel room. I plan to do something similar tonight when I´m done at the internet cafe. So it´s be a good last few days in Spain, and I´m looking forward to having a home of sorts for a few weeks in Ireland before I return to MN, I think I would be grumpy if I had a lot more hotel hopping on the horizon with my ton of luggage.

Bilbo

I suppose I should have known that a city who shares its name (in its native language) with a Tolkien character would be good, I suppose.

I arrived on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday I visited the tourist office and the theater box office (where I purchased 2 Euro tickets to the symphony at noon on Sunday, which is in a nice old theatre.) My last day in Sevilla, my only pair of jeans developed a hole in the butt, and I happened to run across a thrift store so I replaced them with a pair of blue-green corduroy jeans from Mango, a popular chain in Europe. And I visted the market where I bought strawberries, clementines, a red pepper, some carrots, and some manchego for snack dinners. In the afternoon I visited the museum of Basque history, which was all in Spanish and Basque, so I don´t feel I really absorbed all that much. I think I learned more from the guide book, but at least I´m supporting the local institutions, eh? The basque do have an interesting and very long history - they´ve been here so long they have no migration story which is rare even in Europe. On wednesday I visited the Museum of Fine arts, which has some nice impressionist paintings by locals, along with the requisite religious art from the 1400s-1800s. They also had a temporary exhibit of portraits of famous Spanish people throughout history, but I didn´t spend that much time in it because once again, I couldn´t really read the captions, and I don´t like portraits that much.

Yesterday I took the commuter train to Guernica, which has titled itself ¨city of peace¨although it is famous for being the Nazi´s practice run for the bombing of cities during WWII. I visited the peace museum which documents the bombings but also has a lot of stuff about peace and human rights in general, which is probably quite interesting if you can read it (once again captions in Spanish and Basque.) (I´m not trying to whine about how the whole world hasn´t yet been translated into English yet, I´m just saying I would have gotten more out of the museum if I was fluent in one of the languages the displays, quotes, etc were in.) But all in all I think the peace museum is a really cool idea and I´m glad I got to visit it. I went on to the Basque history museum, which also didn´t have much in the way of english descriptions, but had nice visuals of traditional costumes, games, dances, food etc. And then I saw the remains of the oak tree where the basques have been practicing a form of democratic government for hundreds of years (when they were alowed to by various conquering kings etc.) I thought that was pretty cool. Too bad I didn´t learn about it earlier when I spent a year in High School studying democratic forms of government - maybe ETA prevents Americans from teaching about the Basque, or maybe there just aren´t enough of them? Anyway, a visit to the tile relpica of Picasso´s ¨Guernica¨and a late lunch at a local restaruant rounded out my visit to Guernika.

On my return to Bilbao, I felt inspired to do some shoe shopping in the old town. (I want a pair of traditionally spanish looking dance shoes) But instead what I found was the Mango outlet store, where I bought another pair of corduroys for 2 euros (New!) two more pink skirts, one corduroy (2 euros) and one velvet (4 euros), a pair of capris/long dress shorts which are really popular here (4 euros) and a fake fur collar (3 euros, why not?) I think I can now say that I have a well rounded, and possibly complete, selection of pink skirts, having also bought a pink corduroy skirt in Budapest. I didn´t find the perfect shoes but I´ll keep looking.

Today I moved hotel rooms - after some confusion in booking I ended up on the 1st floor of the building in the Hostal Begonia for the first 3 nights and will be in the Pension Bilbao on the 5th floor for the last three. Then I headed to the Gugenheim museum which is one of Frank Gehry´s masterpieces. It rained off and off, often quite hard, all day, but I tried to see it from as many angles as practical despite the rain. It is a really beautiful building, from the outside particularly, but also inside. I also had a delicious lunch in the cafe which is known for basque neuvo cuisine and does a fixed price lunch. I had leek soup with some sort of fish cream concentrate the texture of tofu in it (sounds gross but it grows on you) and bulls tail cannelloni with some sort of squash puree, and delicious arroz con leche (rice pudding, which I have been craving.)

Tomorrow I´ll check out San Sebastian / Donostia. No pictures because this comute doesn´t appear to have USB capabilities.

My Faith in Humanity (Especially Spaniards) is Renewed!

So I have been kind of crabby the last couple days in Sevilla because of what I percieved as a negative attitude about and general rudeness towards tourists in Andalucia, particularly Grandad and Sevilla. I know that they probably get tired of tourists, but it´s low season and they also make a lot of money off of us, and my family tries to have a small tourism ´footprint´if you will. We try to speak spanish in restaurants, ask questions in spanish, etc. Once in a while we need something repeated but usually not more than once and we haven´t been asking everyone we meet ´habla engles?´we only try to speak english at the tourist bureau, etc.

But my arrival in Bilbao has renewed my faith in humanity. The woman who sat next to me on the plane saw me looking at the bus schedule and showed me where the stop was at the airport. Then she and another stranger decided what the best way for me to get to my hotel was (they asked where I was going) and she had me follow her on the bus and then the metro to a stop that was less than 3 blocks from the hotel. She was getting ready to walk me to the hotel but I thanked her and told her I had a map and would be OK. But it was the polar opposite of the experience in Andalucia, where no one ever stopped to ask if we needed directions, even if we were clearly trying to figure out where we were, and much of the time they didn´t even make room for us on sidewalks, etc. So hooray for Bilbao, and thank you nice lady who helped me find my hotel. I would have found it anyway, but it was really nice to have someone want to help me and be kind to tourists. My flagging vacation enthusiasm is renewed as well.

If I´m inspired and the hotel lets me have more than one free half our of internet, I´ll post some pictures later.

Sevilla

We are in Sevilla today. We tried to find a hotel by e-mailing various places listed in the lonely planet, which has worked so far on this trip, but it seemed everywhere was full. Finally our hotellier at the Hotel Gonzalez in Cordoba just called the Hotel Simone. It had gotten mixed reviews on tripadvisor.com, so we were reluctant to book there, despite her recommendation, but it seems we got one of the good rooms. Here´s a picture:The window has a balcony and the rooms are around a lovely enclosed courtyard. And I have my own separate closet room! Anyway, it was a relief to arrive with a reservation, and then even nicer to have it be a nice place, after all the stress of unsuccessfully trying to find a place over the last 2 days. I better get started on my hotel in Bilbao tomorrow!

We had dinner last night in a lovely restaurant the ¨Meson de Luna, ¨ and here is a picture of my mom and I at the bar:
We were less than completely happy with our celebration dinner thursday night, despite the restaurant being pricey and listed as one of the top three in Cordoba in both the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, and being recommended by our hotellier. So we decided to try again last night and hit the jackpot. Despite speaking no English, the bartender (not in this photo) gave us several tastes of local cured hams and other ham-related products (delicious!) and explained where they were from and why they were the best, plus we also got some very tasty olives, all for the Euros 3.60 we paid for three glasses of wine. We headed into the restaruant for dinner, which was also very satisfying. We started with mixed veggies (marinated and cooked) some truly delicious grilled mushrooms, russian salad (a variety of potato salad that incorporates fish- not my favorite due to the mayonaise) and gazpacho blanco. Then we had ¨rabo del torro¨tail of the bull, a local cordobese specialty, ¨Supresa Ibierco¨which was a delicious iberian surprise (we´re pretty sure it was beef) and beef tips. We ended the meal with ¨Leche Frita¨which I had been wanting to try since our arrival in Cordoba when I saw it described on a menu as ´fried pudin.´ It was puddingesque and seems to have been fried significantly prior to its arrival at our table, as it was cold, but it was tasty. I have to give the spanish props for the tremendous variety of pudding avalable here - I´ve seen at least 6 or 7 distinct types, often with several pudding options at a restaruant. Another gastronomical highlight of Cordoba was the fried eggplant with special honey sauce we had on our first night. But overall, for dinner in Cordoba, I would recommend the Meson de Luna wholeheartedly.

This is a picture of a clan of stray cats my mom and I found earlier in the day yesterday. (There are 6 cats in this picture, see if you can find them all!) A couple of them were actually pretty friendly, and two were tortise shells that looked kind of like Marmalade (But skinnier) so I was pleased to make their aquantance.
Tonight we will try to see some Flamenco in Sevilla. I don´t think we need to be worried about being kept awake with St. Patricks day revelry.

Alhambra, etcetera

It seems I took 183 pictures at the Alhambra on Wednesday, so I´ll start with one of the most important ones, the cicas of the Alhambra:
These three cats, one adult and two kittens live in the Nassarid palace (the fanciest and best preserved part of the Alhambra) in one of the first rooms you enter. This courtyard is their home:

And people think I spoil Marmalade!

Here´s a picture of the Alhambra palace complex from the Generalife - the gardens and summer palace:
And here´s one of one of the gardens and me: (the gardens are very formal but beautiful)
So the Alhambra was obvioulsy very impressive - I´d upload more picture but it takes a long time, and I´m sure there are better pictures out there by professional photographers.

After a week + in andalucia, I have come to the conclusion that the Muslims were actually a really positive influcence on southern spain, at least compaired to the Christians who came after them. Their buildings are far more beautiful, and the Chrisitans often came along and destroyed part of a lovely islamic building to erect a run of the mill baroque church. (These are pretty too, but not nearly as, and there is one in every decent sized town in Europe.) The Muslims also allowed the Jews and Christians to live and work in their cities and towns (although I think they did charge them higher taxes.) When they regained power in the reqonquista, the Christians after killed or drove out all the Muslims and Jews they could identify, starting the spanish inquisition. (Although I do have to thank the Christians for the large quantity of bacon and pork served here in spain. Pork is the dominant meat on most menus, I think because historically you ate it to prove you were Chrisitan.) So while I may be tempted to think of modern day Islam as a somewhat backwards and violent religion, it seems it was not always practiced that way, and may have been better for everyone in Andalucia than Christistianity was.

Anyway, after the Alhambra, we rode the bus to Cordoba, where we are now. Yesterday we saw the Mesquita, which is beautiful, and would probably be even better if the Catholics hadn´t torn out the center of the mosque to build a large cathedral. Even Carlos the first, the spanish king who authorised the building, admitted that it had been a bad idea, because they´d destroyed something unique in the world to build something you can find anywhere (a baroque cathedral.) We also wandered around cordoba yesterday, seeing one of 3 surviving historic synagogues in Spain - it was used as a hospital for ´hydrophopes´- people with rabes - during the most anti-Jewish times in Spanish history. We saw the old city walls, some nice gardens, and a lovely display of large sculputures by a current Spanish sculptor in one of the squares. I bought myself some espadrilles, and I found the star earings I have been looking for to complete my Madonna costume in the Spanish equivalent of Claire´s. I was tempted to buy Pancake some tiny polkadotted flamenco heels, but since they were 15 euros I resisted. (And since Pancake is a boy.)

Last night I was able to check where I matched to - the Univeristy of Minnesota Internal Medicine program - my first choice. (Hooray!) So now I can start looking for new apartments in Seward or Prospect Park. If any Minnesotans reading this hear of good apartments in those areas, pass the info on to me!

Today some museums and possibly shopping in Cordoba, and on to Sevilla tomorrow!

Granada

On our first whole day in Granada, we rode up to the Alhambra entrance on the bus and walked back down along the walls. Then we wandered through the Albayzin, the oldest quarter of the city and supposedly the sight of multitudes of crimes against toursits at the hands of gypsies and druggies. We were not victim or witness to any crimes, but all the warnings did make us a bit more alert I suppose. We got a later start due to the celebrating last night.

Last night we started with a half bottle of champagne at a bar with free tapas of chorizo and cheeze. Granada has a "free tapas culture" which means that at most bars you will get a free tapas with the first drink you order. This is an excellent idea, and Minnesota could really benefit from importing it. :) Anyway, we moved on to a second bar and had some calimari and salad as our second free tapas, with red, rose, and white wine de la casa. We ended the evening at what is supposedly one of the hippest and most interesting new tapas bars where we all had a third glass of wine and the tapas was some kind of tasty ground sausage with mushrooms and sauce. On the way back to the hotel, my mom decided we should sing something "really western" (We have frequently been awakened in Spain by drunken singing.) So she did a small rendition of ´yippie ti yai yay get along little dogies´although it was probably to early to wake anyone up. But it was a good way to celebrate hearing that I matched somewhere.

I´m not uploading any pictures today because the connection at this particular internet cafe is really slow - I feel like we´re sharing a single dial up connection, but I´m probably just spoiled. My parents are not happy with our hostal here in Granada - the shower was not consistently warm this morning for my dad, (mine was fine but I left it on the hottest possible) and there was no TP in the bathroom until after our celebratory excursion, so in Cordoba, where we go tomorrow after the Alhambra, we hope to stay in a Hotel that is a converted 16th century mansion near the mezquita.

Hooray!

I am in Granada and I matched somewhere! On Thursday I will find out where. We rode the bus here this morning. This is a 14th century merchants hotel we saw this afternoon:
And pictures from yesterday at the Alcazaba in Malaga, you can blame the sangria for my silly expression here:

Yesterday we rode the commuter train down the cost to the beach resort town of Fuengirola which is basically a beach with as many hotels, restaurants, discos, british bars, and souvenier shops as possible next to it. Interesting to visit once but not a lot of character. We got back to Malaga around 1 and rode the bus up to the Gilbralforo, the fortress part of Malaga´s alcazaba, where we had a snack and then enjoyed the sun and the views.

Malaga

More Pictures:
My Mom and Dad with their churros con chocolate (A very Andalucian breakfast)
The Jardin:
The beach, la Malagueta:

Antequera

I found a computer with a USB port that was accessible:
The view from our lunch spot:
The view from inside a dolmen:
The beautiful hills around the town:

Buenos Tardes!

I wanted to post some pictures of the beautiful weather and scenery, but this computer doesn´t have a USB port in the front, and I doubt they would be pleased if I took it off its stand to get to the back. It is wonderful here. The weather is perfect - I was comfortable in khakis and a long sleeved shirt most of the day today, but I did brave the beach for an hour yesterday afternoon in one of my new bikinis. (There will be no pictures of that, and I think the sun was too low to really get started on my tan.)

My parents arrived on Thursday afternoon after a 90 min delay at the Madrid airport. They managed to be awake and pretty functional untill 11 Thursday night and we went to the Picasso Museum and rode the bus to a famous local fish restaurant on the beach, which was a tasty adventure. While I don´t usually agree with Morissey, I think Pablo Picasso may have indeed been an asshole. I didn´t enjoy many of the works in the museum, but he was born here in Malaga, and supposedly these are some of his best works, so I´m glad I went. He definitely would have failed anatomy, hehe.

Yesterday we visited the Jardin Botanica de la Concepcion - supposedly one of the best botanic gardens in spain. It was pretty, and I hope to post some photos. We woke up late, so after the Jardin we only had time for the beach and some tapas for dinner. In between the beach and tapas, my parents spent 2 hours finding the train station where they decided they didn´t actually want train tickets.

This morning we slept in a bit as well, and then we caught a bus to Antequera where we saw some dolmen built about 6500 years ago by stone age peoples, which were pretty cool. It´s really amazing that they managed to move such large rocks, and even more interesting that they were inspired too. After the dolmen we climed up to the alcazaba - the requisite local muslim fortress - but it was closed, sadly. So we had lunch at a cafe in front of the alcazaba walls and sat in the sun on the patio. The town was beautiful - hilly and all white washed with red tile roofs, so I´ll have to find a computer with a convienient USB port soon!

Leaving Budapest

Leaving Budapest is going to kill me one of these days. It seems I am unable to have an uneventful departure via airplane from the city. Last time, I accidentally left my passport at our appartment, so when I got to the airport I had to take a taxi home, wake up my roommates (it was very early in the morning) and take a taxi back - very stressful. Yesterday, the airport Minibus service called me at 7:35 (They were scheduled to pick me up at 7:40) to ask what my street name was. After a couple minutes on hold, the woman from the serivice informed me that her colleague had written my address down wrong and they would not be able to pick me up. Instead I should call a taxi. Of course it was rush hour, and my host family lives in a suburb of Budapest so I had no idea how long it would take a taxi to arrive. Thankfully, Agi´s mom was home and she called the taxi for me. It arrived at 7:55 - within 15 minutes of calling, and once we made it across the river into pest, which took about 45 min (My flight was at 9:50) the traffic abated and we actually got to the airport with enough time for me to complain to the minibus service and at least get a refund for my return ticket. (Although the taxi was 6000 forints and the refund was less than 2000, plus I tipped the taxi driver 1000 forints because he really seemed concerned that I get there on time. He drove in the bus only lane whenever possible, and he capped the fare at 6000, although it would have been more if he hadn´t turned off the meter.) But it was a much more stressful airport arrival than I would have liked. At least it wasn´t my own fault this time. Of course my luggage was 13 kilos overweight (apparently the limits for flights within Europe are much lower than the transcontinental ones) so I had to pay about 200 dollars extra to ship it. Even if I had removed all the liquor from my bags, though (2 bottles of wine from Agi and Zsolt, and 1 liter and 2 half liters of Unicum,) I think they still would have been overweight. I guess I should stop packing shampoo?

But I arrived safely in Malaga eventually, found my hotel with only slight difficulty, and did a bit of wandering around before having some tapas for dinner. The wind is crazy here right now - the landing and take off in Madrid and the landing in Malaga were unpleasant. (In Madrid the plane was actually rocking back and forth quite a bit due to wind while we were waiting on the runway) But there are flowering plants and it´s warm enough that this morning I am wearing only a long sleeved shirt and a vest, no coat, hat, gloves, etc. Now I am waiting for my parents to arrive. Apparently their flight from Madrid is delayed 90 minutes, although the Iberia website is still claiming it left at 9:50.

Viszontlatasra!

Tomorrow morning I leave Budapest for Spain. This has been a wonderful (and educational) visit, and I am sad it is ending. This evening Agi and Zsolt and I had some goodbye wine. Last night we went to Trofea, an all you can eat and drink restaurant. I had salads, fruit, 4 kinds of pate, sausage, 2 grilled meats, roast duck with purple kraut, dumplings, croquettes, and noodles. I also had 4 deserts - a kind of bread pudding with poppy seeds (finom!) and chocolate sauce, a chocolate mousse, a strawberry and vanilla cake, and a vanilla and citrus cake. I also had a glass of Hungarian red wine and a glass of champagne. I tried to pay for dinner as a thank you, but Zsolt saw me and wouldn't let the waiter take my Visa card. Sainos. So now I am even more determined to host some Hungarians in Minneapolis!

Weekend Excursion

This Sunday Zsolt and Agi and I went on an excursion to Slovakia, to a spa town just across the river from Esztergom in Hungary. I finally got a picture of Zsolt and Agi:
We set out between 10 and 11 and were at the spa at 11:45. Crossing the border was slightly delayed becasue of my American passport, but it still didn't take more than 5 or 10 minutes. The spa only had one warm water pool (36 degrees C) but it was a pleasant outdoor pool, so Agi and I soaked for about an hour and a half, while Zsolt went to the swimming pool periodically. After the spa, we had lunch. We tried to go to a restaurant Zsolt's brother had recommended, but it was closed for 'technical reasons' so we went to a restaurant / pizzeria down the road. I had traditional slovakian dumplings with sour cream made from sheep's milk and bacon. They were delicious. I told Zsolt and Agi we have a dumpling shortage in America. Then I had a palacsinta, and of course I had to have a Zlaty Bazant, (Golden Pheasant) the most popular Slovakian beer. It wasn't particularly impressive.

Here's another picture, without Zsolt and Agi, looking from Slovakia across the Danube to the cathedral at Estergom in Hungary: (This picture doesn't really capture how BIG the cathedral is)

Zsolt and Agi offered to take me to the cathedral, but they had been recently and I was there on my last trip to Hungary, so we skipped it and headed for the outlet mall, which Agi loves.

A picture of the border crossing from slovakia into Hungary:

The outlet mall closes at 8, so we were home by 8:30.

On Saturday, I tried to go to the Museum of Fine Arts to see the regular collection (not the Van Gogh show that is ending soon) but the line was out the door and down the steps and I would have had less than an hour after getting through it, so I went to the 'American style' California Coffee Shop' which is new here. Supposedly there will be a Starbucks opening soon though. Hungarian style coffee shops are different in that you sit down and order from a menu and a waiter takes his own sweet time in bringing your coffee, cake, and bill. It's nice if you have all afternoon. But anyway, the California Coffee Shop seemed to be pretty authentic, even though it's really owned by an Austrian company. (As an aside, there is a Starlucks in the Mammut (mall) at Moskva ter. I'm not sure if they're trying to pretend they're a Starbucks or not, but it certainly didn't fool me, hehe.)

Agi called me at about 5 and we went to the other outlet mall which had a store where I could buy a bikini - in fact, I bought two, plus some presents for Pancake, all for less than 25$. So I'm all set for the beaches in Spain. I'm lucky Agi knew about the store, because all the other swim suits I've seen have been 50$ or more.

On Friday, I went to work with Zsolt in the morning, and did some home visits with him in the afternoon. Then I went to the Luckas baths, so I have now been to 4/6 baths listed in the Lonely Planet, plus the one in Slovakia, which is pretty good for a 3.5 week trip, I think.

Thursday I went to Hatvan - one of the rural hospitals - with Dr. Varga - where Dr. Varga told me to give my expert opinion on how to set up their ER (they currently don't have one.) I'm pretty sure he was pulling my leg, but I did go to the meeting with the planners, the Hospital Director, and Dr. Varga's fellow consultant. I'm not sure I contributed anything useful, though. Then I went to a meeting where the colorectal surgeons, nurses, social workers, etc, were working on establishing a protocol for post-op care of colorectal surgery patients. It was interesting because apparently no one's ever asked the nurses or other support staff to be involved in planning or decision making, so they were initially reluctant to contribute. (Usually the doctor just tells them what he or she wants.) But by the end of the meeting everyone was speaking up and seemed to be interested in the idea of having a protocol, so I think that part of the changes here will be successful, at least.

Tonight I have a farewell dinner with Dr. Varga and his family, and Zsolt and Agi and Orsi, so perhaps there will be more pictures of the group to post. Wednesday morning I leave for Spain.

Pecs 3

Not to be mean to those of you suffering some sort of crazy blizzard in MN, but it is spring here. This is the little white church atop a hill that overlooks town, and as you can see the fruit trees around it are in bloom. Very scenic. The church was built as a sort of "Thanks God!" in 1691 after the town was spared the plague.
And in this picture, taken on the way down the hill from the church, you can see the town wall separating the old and new town. I spent most of my time in the old town.
What did I do in Pecs besides take pictures? On Tuesday, Agi and I went to the Zsolnay porcelain museum - I was sceptical about the interest potential of a porcelain museum - but they made some truly spectacular pieces with bright colors (Lots of pinks), a variety of artistic styles, and a good amount of iridescence, so it was definitely worth the 2 dollar admission. Probably luckily, they had no Zsolnay green cats on sale at the store. We also went to the Csontváry museum. Csontváry is the "Hungarian van Gogh" complete with schizophrenia. His paintings were quite nice, though, and some of them are truly huge - probably 15 feet tall and 20 feet wide. Unfortunately, he really only painted in his signature style for less than 10 years before he deteriorated mentally.

After the museums, Agi and I had cake, and then she went to give her presentation. I bought a couple books by Hungarian authors at the Corvina store and went back to my hotel for a little while. I had dinner in a Croation/Serbian restaurant - roast deer with wild berries and croquettes. I ordered "cucumber salad" which turned out to be pickles - given the amount of pickles we eat at home, I should have known. That part of the restaurant at least was Hungarian. I also had a glass of red wine from Villany, nearby, which was quite tasty.

On Wednesday, I went to both branches of the Modern Hungarian Art Museum - 1850-1950 and 1950-Present, which was interesting. I also went to the Ferenc Martin museum, a sculptor and painter born in Pecs who's work I quite liked. Some what similar to Kandinsky, but with less going on in each piece. I also went to the bizzare Erzsebet Schaár museum and the Vasareli museum. And I climbed up the hill to the little white church.

Pecs 2:

According to the local guide Agi and I spent about an hour with, Pecs has the longest city walls in Europe. I am unconvinced. However, it does have some nice sections of city walls, and here they are:
The only remaining Bastion with the governors palace in the background:
Inside the walls, another stone wall:
The basilica, which I did not go into, but which is quite impressive from the outside:
Near the basilica are 2 tomb sites that are supposed to be interesting - one early christian and one roman. However, they were closed for the winter so I'll just have to go back another time, saijnos.

Pecs 1

On Tuesday, I went with Agi to Pecs where she was giving a presentation about health care in the European union. Pecs is in southern Hungary and has been selected as a "world heritage" site for one of the upcoming years. It's know for having the most intact Turkish structures in Hungary (most were demolished after the Turks left).
A view of the town:
And a picture of the "mosque church" the dome and front part of which were a mosque, and the catholics added a dark, unpleasant square part to the back. Inside, the domed area is beautiful, with lovely multicolored stained glass and a lot of light let in by the dome. Some of the original fresco of the Koran can be seen in areas where the plaster has come off or been taken of. It is in the main / largest square in town:
Another smaller square with a sculpture, and the quaint city streets radiating from it:
The remains of the roman bath. Interesting to think people sat on the benches 2000 years ago: