We foolishly did not purchase return tickets from Tokaj. I'm not sure why. It might have been because we thought we might have been able to buy tickets direct to Zagreb. There was no such luck, however, and we took the same train from Tokaj back to Budapest with about 2 hours before the next train to Zagreb. We spent about 40 minutes standing in a huge queue in the international ticket wing. We could have been out of there in 3 minutes if we'd bought the tickets on Sunday. We ended up with a person in 2 different queues hoping that one of them would be quick. After buying tickets, we decided there was time for a meal in train station restaurant.
That meal, improbably enough, ended up being one of the best of our trip. James and I got our chance here for a good bowl of the cold fruit soup, and it was excellent. I had the veal with pancakes (I forget the Hungarian name), and that was also excellent. And I was expecting overpriced, mediocre food. I spent most of the rest of the 30 minutes before our train attempting to call the hostel in Zagreb to let them know we'd be in about a half-hour after front desk closing. I'm not sure why it's so difficult to use the international phone cards in
Hungary, but I had problems the whole trip.
Random train yard approaching Budapest.
Lake Balaton from the train.
One might notice I'm saying little about Tokaj. Everything was fabulous. The people are friendly, the wine is excellent, the food is excellent. We weren't there nearly long enough. I hope to spend a week there in the future. We promised the proprietor of Huli Panzio we would stay there next time we're in Tokaj, but for more than one night. Some day we will make good on that, and there will be more Tokaji drunk. And perhaps we will have a way to tote out more than 4 or 5 bottles each. 
Many cranes make their home in Tokaj and are considered good luck.
Taken on the walk to dinner. 
Two rivers meet.
Tokaj station patform, looking southwest.
Tokaj station patform, looking northeast.
Tokaj, from our room in Huli Panzio. 
Rakoczi Ut. Looking north.
Rakoczi Pince. Home of Hetszolo Wines.
James was adamant that we visit Citadel Hill. We didn't have time for much of anything in Buda, but that's the one thing he wanted to see. Accordingly, we took the tram down the river and exited near the Hotel Gellert. The climb was very unkind to Liz's knees and to my general lack of good health, but the view from the hill is excellent. 
Erzabet Hid (Elizabeth Bridge) from Citadel Hill.
Budapest, looking north from Citadel Hill. I took shots in each direction from the south side of the Citadel as the sun set. Liz and James disappeared while I was shooting through a roll of film. Eventually, I packed up the camera and realized they'd gone. I walked along the road around the Citadel and saw a small bar set up in a row of food and souvenir stands. The two of them were at the bar sipping wine. I went to join them, but stopped when I saw this:
Buda Castle, from Citadel Hill.
When I joined James and Liz, they were talking with the bartender, Martin, about Budapest and the US. They were two drinks into the survey of Hungarian alcoholic drinks. We continued through the survey and when James told Martin that we had yet to experience Gulyás, we were invited to join him for dinner. He and his uncle had a pot on in the back and were getting ready to eat. We had a wonderful dinner of Gulyás and red wine (Egri Bikavér or something similar) and a couple more drinks to follow up. Eventually, we settled the bill and began the trek back down the hill. 
Pest, looking south from Citadel Hill.
Our objective the following day was to see a bit of Buda. We didn't have nearly enough time to see much of it, but we wanted to at least see a couple of things. First, we needed to visit Keleti pályaudvar to buy train tickets for our Monday trip to Tokaj. We had a bit of trouble finding anyone who spoke English at the station on a Sunday, but eventually we were able to find the train we needed on schedule, find our way to the right window and buy the tickets in very broken Hungarian. 
Arena Plaza is around the corner from the train station. We went in search of an open Tesco, but alas it was a national holiday and most of the Plaza was closed. It is, however, very important that one not take pictures of the plaza. I took this picture from the street and then a few minutes later whilst I was taking a picture of the back of the train station across the street, an Arena Plaza security guard yelled at me in German and said I couldn't take pictures. 
Following our Tesco misadventure, we hopped back on the Metro and rode across the river to Buda. This is the not-quite-the-postcard shot of the Parliament building, complete with scaffolding on the south side.
Following a bit of rest and a change of shoes, we went to Arriba! Taqueria for dinner. Arriba! is a new Cali-Mex joint in between Oktagon and Nyugati tér. The food was solid California taco stand style, better than we can get in South Florida. James remarked that it is much better than Czech Mex. The plus is better beer than similar joints in the US. I've never been much of a Mexican beer fan, so I relished the opportunity to have some good Eastern European beer with my burrito. 
McCafe, next to the train station. I think they were all called McCafe around here, but this one looks like it used to be something else, whereas the others look more like standard EuroMcD's. 
In which I attempt to get back on track uploading photos from our spring trip to Eastern Europe, before our fall trip to Taiwan.
All photos as per previous posts (Pentax K-1000, Pentax A 35-70/4 lens, Kodak Ultra Color 400 film).
Beyond Heroes Square is City Park. We spent several hours wandering through the park. As in other parts of Budapest, there is a great deal of graffiti in the park. Taggers hit the statue of composer Posa Laios, located near the transport musem.
We didn't have time to visit the transport museum, but they have a several outdoor exhibits, including these bits of farm machinery.
Cafe Waggon, next to the transport museum. While I was taking pictures of the machinery outside the transport museum, my traveling companions located the Cafe and ordered drinks. I found them half a beer later and we proceeded to spend an hour or so drinking Staropramen (or was is Soproni?)
After our time at the cafe, we walked over to the hot springs, which were closing for the day. We were all dead tired, and so headed to the yellow line station to ride back to the Red Bus.
At the end of Andrássy utcá is Heroes' Square. The square contains many statues of mustachioed men. All photos taken 10 May 2008, with the same Pentax K-1000 with A 35-70/4 zoom as the last batch, again on Kodak Ultra Color 400.
The view from across the street. The small number of tourists is probably attributable to it not quite being the season for tourists in Hungary.
This statue is in the middle of the square.
The building across the street, covered with an ugly banner and blocked by tour buses. I can only imagine what it looks like in July.
Another shot of the center statue.
A few tourists looking at mustachioed statues.
It was around lunchtime I realized that I needed a watch. I usually use my cell phone, but once I'd turned it off on losing the signal, I lost the time. So, I stopped in a Swatch store near Oktagon and bought a watch for too much money. To be fair, it is a pretty cool watch.
The architecture in Budapest is an interesting mix of styles. There isn't much in the way of really tall buildings, and many of the modern wars in the region didn't affect the city. A lot of the pre-WWII buildings are still standing, and there aren't a lot of examples of Communist-era blocks of flats in the city proper. Nor are there a lot of newer buildings. However, there are quite a few examples of mixed-styles from previous centuries.
Terror House, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
Sign, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/500, f/5.6, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
Building detail, Kodaly Korond, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 70-210/4 (~100), 1/500, f/4, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
Building, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
Andrassy Hotel, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
We spent our first full day in Budapest walking across Pest. James wanted to walk to Heroes' Square, so following some wandering in the neighborhood around Red Bus, we made our way to Andrássy utcá, one of the main thoroughfares in Pest. Andrássy utcá is home to a number of landmarks, including the opera house (above), Oktagon, Terror House and at the end, Heroes' Square.
Karoly ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
Opera House, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
Phones, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (45), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
About halfway up to the square, we ducked down a side street looking for lunch. We found it at El Greco Hungary, which was running a Sunday lunch buffet. The food was mostly decent Greek with some Hungarian mixed in. James had his first cold fruit soup. If I'd realized that's what was in that crock, I would have had some as well. Instead I had a random meat soup that was pretty good. 
Statue, Nagynezo ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4, 1/500, f/11, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
This was also the first day of our serious car watching. The best cars we saw on this day were a splatter painted SmartCar, a yellow Lotus, a monster truck(!) and a random car with a Florida license plate. 
Lotus, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/4, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
Traveling to Budapest was fairly traumatic. First, we had problems checking in. We were a few minutes late, so Liz went alone to check in. They wouldn't help her at all until I finished parking the car. Once I arrived, the ticketing agent couldn't figure out the system. She gate checked our bags, and then spent five minutes printing the wrong boarding passes. We noticed on the way to security and returned to the ticketing counter. She spent a couple more minutes fighting with the computer, then gave us another person's boarding passes. She finally called for assistance and a second person managed to tell her how to print the right passes, once they scanned our passports again.
Upon arriving at the gate, we saw the last people boarding. Another 20 minutes later, we were seated waiting for some other seat assignments to be sorted out. Delta had canceled our flight, then reinstated it, losing everyone's seating assignments. We ultimately took off an hour late, with me losing my window seat to an aisle at the back of the plane where I was continually hit by flight attendants and people walking to and from the lavatory.
Upon arriving in New York, we claimed our baggage and re-checked it, then went back through security and waited. And waited. As we were waiting on the transport to board, the first officer announced that one of the ground crew had hit the wing of the plane with the portable ladder and broken it. They would have to find another plane. Amazingly enough, they did and we were off only three-and-a-half hours late.
We landed at Ferihegy Airport, breezed through Customs and waited 30 minutes for our luggage, which never came. We filed a claim with the airport baggage service. They very nicely called our hostel, as we were going to lose our reservation if we weren't there by 14:00. We were scheduled at 10:30, so I didn't give a credit card to hold the reservation, but between the delay and the luggage fiasco, we had about ten minutes before we lost the room. The hostel agreed to hold the room for an hour and we made our way to the taxi stand.
The drive out to Red Bus Hostel took about 40 minutes as The airport is out on the edge of the suburbs. We checked in and waited for James to arrive. Once he did, we set out to explore the neighborhood.
Building on the corner of Muzeum korut & Rackoczi ut, Budapest, Hungary, 9 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4, 1/250, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
We wandered down toward the river, stopping for gelato. After much debate, we took dinner at the Corso Etterem. We had our first taste of Hungarian beer, Soproni, which is quite good. James had his chicken paprikash. After dinner, we wandered toward the Erszabet hid (Elizabeth Bridge), and took some pictures of the Danube. 
Danube River, by Erszebet Hid, Budapest, Hungary, 9 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/250, f/11, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400
It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in an internet café in Budapest. Flyers are down 1-0, One of our two missing bags has turned up (I'm the one who got to wear clean clothes today), and I'm having trouble finding the Y and Z keys on this keyboard.
In short, Delta bites, I forgot three rolls of film, everything is closed on Sunday in Budapest, but otherwise everything is quite lovely. We walked the length of Andrássy útca yesterday. I'm two and a half rolls into my film stash, but since I left two rolls of 400 home, I'm probably going to need to stop at a store to get more. Hopefully, I will have time tomorrow before we head to Tokaj. There are two stores by our hostel. We walked by one of them and I saw Kodak Professional film in the fridge, so I should be in good shape if I can get there before opening.
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