Artist colonies, child operated trains, and the like

It has been a few days so let me recap:

Thursday and Friday I don't remember doing much of anything of note besides going to my two classes on thurs and just relaxing on fri. Actually, on Friday my roomate Dan's friend Kevin arrived.  He is backpacking through eastern Europe, and we offered him accomodation to use as his home base on his travels, and I may even be accompanying him to Croatia at somepoint.

On Saturday, the API group took a day trip to the town of Szentendre, approximately 25km north of the city center.  The town has become somewhat of an artists colony, and you cannot walk around a corner without seeing one of them set up with all their artwork out on display.  There are also many contemporary and non-contemporary art galleries located sporadically around town.  An open-air exhibit is also very popular, and is located just outside the town limits.  This is from its website: "The aim of founding the Szentendre Open Air Museum was to present folk architecture, interior decoration, farming and way of life in the Hungarian language area from the 2nd half of the 18th century to the 1st half of the 20th century, through original and authentic objects, relocated houses arranged in old settlement patters. The more and more elaborate settlement plan appropriates the relocation of more than 400 edifices into the museum, arranged into village-like regional units on the basis of ethnographical considerations. Within the units buildings are fitted into the traditional system of peasant households, supplemented by sacred, communal and outbuildings which used to be integral parts of traditional villages. Dwellings and farm-buildings represent the typical houses and outbuildings having evolved historically in each region."  Basically it was a trip back in time to see what typical Hungarian villages were like in specific time periods.

The town was very laid back and you could walk around the center in about 15 minutes and see everything.  The Danube also runs right along side it so it made for some very nice views from up top and down below.  Food wise, we snacked on what might be my new favorite thing in the world.  It is called a Langos, and is a deep fried flat bread topped with sour cream and cheese and rubbed with garlic butter.  It is the greasiest, most garlicy, most delicious thing I've ever had, and oh my god was it a heavenly experience.  For a lunch, we ate at the most well known restaurant in Szentendre, called Rab Raby.  My roomates have yet to really been adventurous eaters, and both ordered goulash.  I on the other hand ordered a crispy goose leg with red cabbage and potatoes...soooo good.  It was between that or goose liver and caviar, but I've decided to go back there soon just to have it.  Kevin and I are actually thinking about biking back to Szentendre on Wednesday just we can eat there haha.

Hannah's friend came to hang out Saturday night with one of his buddies.  She knew him from home, and he is now playing basketball for a team in Hungary after playing for UMASS for four years.  Now, I consider myself a pretty tall guy, but you can imagine what I was thinking when I only came up to this dude's shoulders.  I think he said he was 7 feet tall.   But he said it was nice for them to come and interact with other American's, because I guess where they play not a whole lot of people understand or speak English.  We all enjoyed drinks together and ended up at a bar called Szimpla later that evening.  All in all it was a good night, and we all promised them that we could come and enjoy one of their basketball games sometime soon.

We had a free morning on Sunday, and most of us took advantage of this by sleeping in.  In the afternoon, the API group, Kevin, and Erica's parents who were in town met up for an afternoon excursion in the Buda Hills.  We took a cog rail train up one of the hills, which really was nothing special as it was no different from the regular trams I take everyday except for the fact that it went uphill.

At the top, we walked a few minutes over to the entrance to the Children's Railway.  It is operated almost entirely by children, except for the driving of the engines.  It was started back in the days of communism, and was called the Pioneer Railway.  It was initiated to help children get acclimated to the railroad network, but today is more of a boy/girl scout sorta thing.  The children are under close watch by adults, but they mainly are in charge of ticketing, the gates, and for lack of a better word, 'watchmen.'  We road for a little while, winding around the tops of the hills, until we reached what seemed to be nothing in particular.  Reka told us we had to hike up to the top of the hill to where the lookout tower was, and it was quite the hike! But wow it was well worth it.  At the top was Elizabeth Tower, a newly fashioned building that sort of looked like it was part of a castle.  Stairs led us to the top, and WOW...I will let these pictures describe the type of view I was looking out on...

Yesterday started up another week of class, and besides my little biking excusion back to Szentendre on Wednesday with Kevin, nothing really exciting will be happening until the weekend.  So peace out girlscouts!



Future travel plans:  This weekend, I am heading to Cologne, Germany to meet up with a German friend I have met here in Budapest.  I am leaving Thursday night and coming back Saturday night, with a possible 4 hour stopover in Munich to get just a taste of Oktoberfest before I go next week.  Sunday the API group is going to the Danube bend to visit the towns of Visegrad and Esztergom to explore the castles and take in the scenery. I am looking forward to it.