Fungary

I wish I could claim credit for knighting Magyar/Hungary with the great nickname of "Fungary," but the honor goes to the publishers of the fabulous tourist brochures we were given when we checked in at easyhotel.com. The brochure offered tips on things like "How to get hammered" and other coaching that was somehow omitted from our guidebook(!). Shocking. We avoided the spots suggested in these brochures, which may be why we didn't stumble into any of the "hen" and "stag" parties that Budapest attracts. Nuts.

It was another typical ho-hum week for Andrea and Brian. Kicked off with a bicycling tour of Budapest that included stops at Heroes Square, the castle, City Park, the Chain Bridge, etc.

Our guide was a skilled instructor, and would approach most city sights by saying things like "OK, now ride your bike in this direction, keep your eyes open, look at some of the statues, then come back to me in 5 minutes over under that shady area and tell me what you've learned." Needless to say, there was no slacking on this tour.

Some of the important things we learned are: 1. If you want to be a Hero in Hungary it's helpful to have a bushy mustache, 2. A speedo is a wonderful chess playing costume (especially in the city baths), and 3. By count of the friendly and seemingly successful Kebap dealers downtown, the Hungarians and Turks have resolved any pesky misunderstandings they might have had in the past. I didn't see much goulash in Turkey-- clearly this is a missed market opportunity that should be exploited ASAP.

While sometimes a bit too oily, the Goulash supply was unlimited, and despite many samplings we have not gotten our fill. TV programs were all in Hungarian -- so when the tube was on we turned it to strong man competitions that can be understood with little commentary. "Ugh; Errrrrrrgh!" translates well across dialects. If you haven't realized it by now, Central/Eastern Europe produces a lot of strongmen for these competitions. This makes for many fine fitness centers, which Brian enjoys visiting although he spends an inordinate amount of time taking massive weight plates off the squat and bench press bars.

From Budapest we zipped by train northeast to Eger - a small town famous for producing many of Magyar's Olympic swimming and water polo champions. The massive lap pool is much more fabulous than it has any right to be for such a small town, and as you might expect we enjoyed a fantastic afternoon there. Andrea and I "split" a lane which means we didn't have to keep tapping on people's feet to pass them, and Andrea had the fun and excitement of searching around the building for the woman in charge of the locker keys at the end of her swim. There were three other women waiting along with Andrea; she got many approving nods from the natives.

We arrived in Eger to find that our visit coincided with the annual festival celebrating Dobo's victory over the Turks during the 16th century. This was super timing because we got to enjoy natives in medieval costumes, young burly guys swinging swords at each other, flag twirlers, jesters, people on stilts playing instruments while walking around the "old town," barmaids, historic goulash, and of course *very* authentic 16th century kebab.

Running out of clean clothing at the end of our trip, we checked into university dormotories located on a hill outside Eger to use their free(!) washing machines.

As the gentle reader can appreciate, it is tough to find a reasonably priced way to keep our stylish clothes from smelling *quite* ripe. It's lucky we aren't traveling with a dog, because dog washing machines are even more difficult to find.

Staying in "the dorms" brought back a flood of memories from our undergraduate years - but fortunately without requirements to study any microeconomics, eat the cafeteria's ratatouille, or endure uproarious behavior from current students since they were all gone for the summer.

We tried very hard to get enough Hungarian food, but eventually had to leave anyway -- heading for the hills of yet another country that promises to speak an even more difficult language(!) -- yipe!