don't call ME a tourist!

for our 6-month wedding aniversary (yes, we're dorks), my husband and i trudged through the snow, across the liberty bridge, to the st gellert medicinal baths. we spent nearly three hours soaking and thawing in the steam baths (yes, the ones that require swim suits). Dz went into the cool pool a couple times, but by the time i walked from the hot one over to the cool one i was already so cold that i hurried back to the steamy one without even employing the chilly one.

the baths were very relaxing, as long as you didn't actually look at the water and what was floating in it. also, i'm pretty sure that the old men don't come to the baths 'cuz they want to be clean. eww. anyways, there are these dragon head things that shoot out warm water--yeah, baby--it's like a massage! they actually offer real massages, too, and mud baths and pedicures and every other indulgence you can imagine. we stuck to the budget option, but weren't disappointed!

we found a new cafe, a block from home. there is a huge camel mural on one wall, and inlaid stone on the ceiling and other walls--gives a very funky atmosphere. it was just us and a bunch of hungarian university students. this cafe takes the prize for "best melange ever"--the melange is our new favorite espresso drink, discovered here in budapest. has anyone heard of it? i hadn't, but i am going to require my favorite cafes in the states to add it to the menu! it is a layer of honey, a layer of steamed milk, a layer of espresso, with foam on top. SO GOOD! i formerly added honey to herbal tea ONLY, but i am a new woman: honey in a latte is much cheerier than mass-produced torani syrup!

the day after the baths/melange heaven day, we explored the great market hall. it is an enormous, two-story building chock-full of hungarian necessites. the building has very interesting lighting inside, due to its many windows, large openings in the 2nd floor that allow sunlight to flow down to the 1st floor, and its unique location next to the danube with the buda hills just on the other side. we arrived in the late afternoon, just as the sun sank low enough to stream out over the city from beneath the low-lying clouds, and the clouds simultaneously released a heavy rain. i quickly took some pictures of the rain and crazy sunlight in the street (with the liberty bridge in the background), then took a bunch more inside the market hall--the light was awesome on the bottles of tokaj and piles of lace.

i'm usually very shy about taking pictures of people. i guess that makes me an unlikely candidate for portrait photography, but i'm trying to get over it. i admire the work of one photographer (i've forgotten his name) who spent days/weeks/years just photographing people on the streets of manhattan from the window of his apartment, with a long lens and black&white film. the expressions on people's faces are very interesting: some people are merely thoughtful, others look plain mad. so i've been meaning to embark on a similar project, by sitting in a main city square and just photographing everyone. i especially want to photograph people on buses as they go by (there's something about buses and trams that make people retreat into their own pensive world). i have a particular affinity to old ladies. not like that. elderly women (especially in this part of the world) have seen so much, put up with so much, learned so much... and black&white photography really captures expressions, thoughts, and wrinkles.

today we rode the yellow metro line, which happens to be the oldest subway in all of continental europe. it plays a cheerful little tune as it enters and leaves each stop. the stations themselves are lined with beautiful tiles and have lovely old woodwork. we stepped off at "Heroes Square", also the sight of the fine arts museum where we saw a bunch of van goghs last week (my fav part of the whole museum was a hippo skull with mummified grass still between its teeth). we walked around the Pest castle, through the city park, admired tons of cute dogs, and looped back past the carnival, another medicinal bath, and the zoo. we hopped back on the metro and went to szent istvan church to see his mummified hand.

we're back home, about to eat the gulyas i made yesterday... there's enough to live on for a week. it tastes pretty authentic, with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, celery root, chunks of pork, mini egg/flour dumplings, and a spicy paprika broth. we have another delicious loaf of hungarian bread--we're gonna miss that stuff--some sheep cheese, and another inexpensive bottle of wine (a decent wine here runs about $2). dessert is just down the block-- 50 cent pieces of baklava from the gyro stand. mmm.