Hungary - Part 2

On Sunday, we stumbled upon the "beta testing" of Hungary's first ever Starbucks:


Day 165 – June 14

Monday we took the train to Esztergom. It was a nice, new train, and the ride was really good. It rained a bit on the way, and I love trains in the rain.

When we got out of the train station, we discovered another “train” outside. It only cost $1 for it to take us up to the church, so we decided to go for it. It reminded me of Disneyland – taking the trolley things from the parking lot to the park – and that is a good feeling.

Esztergom was where the kings were crowned, so the church was pretty important…and impressive. We took a look at their treasury, and they had several things that were “the most precious in Hungary” and a few that were the most precious in Europe, or even in the world. Especially this amazingly detailed chalice that took two years to make, and even the Vatican doesn’t have anything like it. We got an impromptu tour by one of the curator/guards – he would tell us about various items, then let us wander a bit, then come back and tell us about another item, and eventually it turned into a tour from item to item, although he went rather fast, and Andrea had to translate for me.







We then climbed up the 300-something stairs to get to the dome, where we could see all of Esztergom, and some of Slovakia on the other side of the Danube. How cool – it’s more fun to see another country’s border than another state’s border (though the Four Corners does still entertain me…).

Hey, look, it's Slovakia!





We spent the afternoon walking around the town. We stopped to get ice cream, and I got a flavor of fruit that we do not know. Andrea couldn’t remember the name of the fruit in English, and I couldn’t even determine it from the taste. Intriguing.










Day 166 – June 15

Andrea and I went to the zoo today. Andrea couldn’t stay long because she had work, but we saw the flying foxes for her (she loves bats) and we saw baby prairie dogs. A lot of the animals had babies – so adorable! When Andrea left, I hung out with some butterflies for a while. Despite my colorful outfit, none of them mistook me for a flower, and none of them tried to hitch-hike out of their building, unlike in the Boston Museum of Science. Other highlights were wolves, of course (sleeping…again – they don’t know what to do with this heat, either!), accidentally stumbling upon a sea lion show, and Dippin Dots-style ice cream (huzzah!). An interesting moment was when I got to the snake house to discover they had just fed the pythons, and watching a snake slowly digesting a rabbit whole. I felt like I was IN the Discovery Channel.

Babies!

It thought it was a prairie dog, too...

Colors!

Is this really the English name?









I was walking along near the end and witnessed an adventurous attempted-escape by a turtle. Right as I walked by a bush, he came running out of his hiding place as fast as his little body would take him, straight for freedom. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough, and some pre-teens found him and started scaring the poor guy to death, picking him up and disorienting him and changing his directions. Finally a zookeeper came to his rescue…but the poor guy didn’t get his freedom.





Day 167 – June 16

A very nice rainfall in the morning. We were going to go to a park, but, alas, this year me and parks always equal rain. We did however go to drop off Andrea’s last assignment at her university, and I got jealous of all the old buildings.



Andrea then took me to the university library. When we asked for a guest pass, the woman asked Andrea where in the U.S. I was from, and when she said I studied at Boston, the woman smiled and gave me two thumbs up. She then told Andrea that she really liked Boston, especially the old city, because it was so European. I smiled and nodded – me, too! The idea of leaving Europe isn’t as hard when I think of where I’m going back to. I do so love Boston.

Being in a library really made me miss libraries. It’s been so long since I’ve just gone in and picked books off shelves. Too busy in Boston, plus I have a lot of my own books that I haven’t read yet. Still, I’m looking forward to when I’ll be able to browse library shelves and leave with about 10 books under my arms.

With Andrea at work again, when her mom came home she taught me more Hungarian. She called me a “dream student”. I guess it helps that in the last six months I’ve had the beginnings of three other languages taught to me, so I’m getting a hang of it. Andrea’s mom really wants me to know the two different conjugation types of present tense – she thinks it’s the essence of understanding Hungarian and how to speak it – so today I learned the first type. Then she brought out an English-Hungarian dictionary and chose words for me to look up and then pronounce, and then conjugate. It was kind of fun…in the weird way that somehow gets me into learning too many languages (but never actually getting fluent in any of them – which, I have resolved, is changing, and I will know at least French fluently, if not others as well).

In the evening, we met Andrea’s friend Miki at the Grand Opening of Hungary’s first Starbucks. I felt so special. The line went around the corner of the Starbucks, and took maybe twenty minutes. Shamefully, they don’t yet have the Java Chip Frappuccino…ah well. Starbucks is the one American chain that I approve of spreading. What can I say? I’d rather get fat from sugary coffee and a nice atmosphere than hamburgers and dirty buildings. Plus, I’d already introduced Andrea and hooked her two years ago in Edinburgh, and then she’d hooked her friend Miki when they went to Berlin.

The line for Starbucks - reminds me a little of 4th of July in Seward, only I was on the other side then.