Városliget

I valiantly located two English-speaking churches on the Buda side, and then wimped out when it came to puzzling out the bus schedule and figuring out how to actually get there. It seemed to be a project that required more familiarity with Budapest's public transit system than I'd acquired in three days. I didn't do much new on Sunday in general. There are a lot of Italian tv shows dubbed in Hungarian on TV, or at any rate on Sunday afternoons judging from the glimpses I got. Sunday evening there was a concert on TV. I think Eva was telling me that the soloist violinist was the first chair of the Hungarian/Budapest symphony. At any rate, he was quite good.

Monday I decided to visit the City Park, Városliget. At the last minute I decided to send an e-mail out to the people I knew were already in Budapest to see if any of them wanted to meet me there at three, although I wasn't expecting much since I knew Tyler, for one, was having difficult getting internet access. I left that morning with a picnic lunch. It was a really pretty day; "szep napot" was Eva's comment as I headed out the door. Getting to the park was far easier than I had expected, given my experience with finding the language school. The main thing that helped was that I finally figured out where the signs explaining what stop you are at are. It probably should have been obvious previously. Ah well.

The park is large, with plenty of open space to throw a frisbee around, although probably people will be more interested in that once the weather warms up somewhat, and we find more of a routine. And actually learn how to get in touch with each other. In the meantime, part of the pond has been drained and turned into a skating rink. I haven't been out there yet, but I would like to. Speaking of ice, almost all the fountains I have come across so far are turned off. There was one in the park which was. Sort of.

I wandered around a fair bit, mainly locating places such as the Zoo, the amusement park, one of the city baths, but didn't actually go inside any of these. I ate lunch by the statue of George Washington, which was funded by Hungarian immigrants to the United States.

I also walked through the Vajdahunyad Castle which displays different periods of architecture in one building. It was initially built for the millennial exhibition out of cardboard and wood, but it was rebuilt out of stone due to it's popularity. I've heard good things about the agricultural museum the castle houses, but again did not go inside.

By this time it was past noon, but with a couple hours yet until three o'clock, so I decided to get back on the metro and try to locate the International College. I made it to the metro stop directly outside the train station without difficulties, but got completely turned around by all the construction. I got a rather scenic tour of that area of the city, which consists of some very lovely old buildings mounted with large metal and electric advertisements for such things as Burger King and HBO. Particularly in the square directly outside the train station. I finally found the square where the school was located, but wasn't entirely sure which of the large old buildings was the college. I headed back to the metro station and went back to the castle in the park.

To my surprise, I saw two people wandering around, one of them with a map exactly like the one I'd been issued at the airport by Anna. I hailed them, and while we were standing around making introductions a group of three other BSM students approached having heard us speaking English and seen Andrew's map. It turned out that Andrew, who was one of the people I'd e-mailed, had passed the message of the meeting place on. The six of us explored the park some more, including some corners I hadn't stumbled across yet. Then we went down to Heroes' Square.




After this we stood around talking for a bit. Joseph, Jon and Min-Soon all shared an apartment near the train station, within about fifteen minutes walk of both schools. Because of this, they hadn't been automatically provided with transportation passes, but they decided that they were going to want them anyway. To do this they wanted to get some stuff from their apartment, so we decided to split up, and meet up on Tuesday on Margaret Island around one o'clock. Andrew, Bobbie and I took the metro back to the metro stop closest to where I lived. Incidentally, the escalators in the metro stations are really long (it takes about a minute to get up or down some of them if you're standing still, and they are not slow moving). Also, the hand belt things move at a different speed from the actual steps. I've never noticed that anywhere else, although I don't know that I've ever been on such long escalators either.. Anyway, by the time we get off the metro, it was dark, despite being before six. My metro stop is directly across the Danube from parliament. We ate at a pancake/crepe place at the station. The square the station is at is pretty, especially with the church. I have no idea what church it is.
After eating, the Andrew and Bobbie showed me Mammut, which is a giant shopping mall a couple of stops down on the metro line. Afterwards I returned to the apartment, while the two of them headed off for McDonalds where they could get free internet.