Buda & Pest

So, I find myself quite tired from a whirlwind of a weekend in Budapest. I had about 40 hours between my arrival to the Le Meridien hotel on Friday evening at 9:30 and my departure from said hotel on Sunday afternoon; to be brief, I spent all but a few of those hours awake!

Both Buda and Pest are charming places to explore. In Buda, the castle, with its subterranean labyrinth was one of the highlights, as were the baths at the Gellert Hotel. On the other side of the Danube, Pest provided most of my meals and my Saturday evening stroll, as well as a couple of tasty morning breakfasts of coffee and pastries! Of course, the Elisabeth and Chain Bridges across the Danube provided some of my favourite views of both the Castle on the Buda side and the Parliament on the Pest side.

I should say that Budapest was surprisingly full of tourists and more expensive than I would think. At first glance and compared to what I had previously heard about the city, it seems that Hungary's capital city is making strong advances in its efforts to catch up to the rest of Europe in wages and wealth. I should also say that Hungarian is a bloody difficult language!

The Hungarian word for "thank you" is cursurnurm. Somewhat to my surprise, all Saturday long, every time I attempted that word on servers or others, I received no acknowledgement. Of course, I have to admit that I would hate to think of just how severely I butchered the language. Nevertheless, just this afternoon I finally heard a Hungarian say what I presume meant "you're welcome" after I said cursurnurm.

In other language fun, my guidebook spoke of a dish called "fatanyeros." Coincidentally, if you pronounce that dish in English with just one syllable modified, you would say a phrase that describes what might result from eating a predominantly Hungarian diet. In any case, today for lunch I asked if they had any "fatten your oss". Unfortunately, they didn't, but, thanks to my sometimes juvenile spirit, I now will likely never forget the name of that Hungarian delicacy, even if I already forgot what mix of meats, sausages and potatoes it comprised.