Jaq Greenspon's Blog, page 75

Review: Death from a Top Hat

Death from a Top Hat by Clayton Rawson My rating: 4 of 5 stars As someone involved in both the world of magic and the world of literature, I’m surprised it took me this long to come around to Clayton Rawson’s “Merlini” books. These are widely considered classics of the “locked room” mystery genre and […]

How to Gift an Ebook

Reblogged from World Weaver Press: 'Tis the gift giving season, and a question we're getting asked by family and friends is how do you give an ebook as a gift? You can't pop it in a box and wrap it. You could give a gift card, sure, but what if you want something more personal or […]

Review: Divine Misfortune

Divine Misfortune by A. Lee Martinez My rating: 4 of 5 stars The idea of the gods interacting directly with mortals is not a new one for modern fiction. Neil Gaiman tackled it in American Gods and now A. Lee Martinez does it in Divine Misfortune – but that’s about as far as that comparison […]

Review: Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster

Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster by Terrance Dicks My rating: 3 of 5 stars I will freely admit that while I’d heard of Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor and I could identify the scarf a mile off, I hadn’t ever seen an episode of his. I came to the Doctor during the Russell T. […]

Review: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson My rating: 5 of 5 stars One of the nice things my Audible subscription is doing is giving me the opportunity to catch up on a lot of the classics I never actually read. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. […]

Two Crazy People in Tallin

So a few weeks ago my friend Monika asked me if I wanted to go to Tallinn with her. She’s a tour guide and has been to Tallinn a number of times but always with a group and there were some things she wanted to check out for herself, some places she wanted to find […]

London with Jen and The Doctor

My trip to London started on a very wet note. I was very diligent and looked up the bus routes to the airport and left in plenty of time to get to the stop and, by extension, make it in plenty of time for my flight.

Except for one thing - well, two really.

The bus stop for which I was looking actually had two places. And of course, I went to the wrong one. As the time for my bus came and went, I began to get a little panicked. I knew I could always take a cab but I didn't want to. So I started looking around and, low and behold, I see my bus driving down the street. So I followed it backwards and found the correct stop where I could wait out the next twenty-five or so minutes. And did I mention it was pouring rain at the time? Thankfully, I had my trusty new umbrella so all was good.

I got the airport slightly before the two hour mark prior to departure. As soon as I did, though, I realized I was glad I had missed my first bus and learned a valuable lesson for flying out of Kaunas International Airport - Namely the check in counter doesn't even open until two hours before the flight. So I waited patiently in queue, presented all my documents and then waited in holding pen until we were allowed to board. Kaunas is NOT a busy airport so the numbers of flights happening at any given time are relatively few, so there was only one waiting area. Finally we got called for the flight and the cattle call ensued. I was flying Ryan Air which is as low-rent as you can get for an airline. To say these guys are no frills gives "frills" some kind of lofty meaning. In order to get to the plane, we had to walk across the runway (again, thankful there weren't a lot of flights) and could then board from either front or rear. Once on the plane, you could see the cheapness continue. The seats were jammed in, with no seat back compartments or tray tables. The luggage bins had bus-like advertising signs pasted on them and the flight attendants passed around menus and in flight magazines - one for each row (great way to meet your seat mates). Then, the sleep I was trying to get on my two and a half hour flight kept getting interrupted by intercom shilling for various products and please to buy in-flight lottery tickets. Seriously, it's not a great flying experience at all. But unless I want to go to Riga, this is what I have available from here.

Eventually I landed at London Gatwick to be met by my friend Jen, who had been in London for a few days already. We hopped on the train to get get back to the center of town and decided to forego a trip back to the hostel since she had only her bag and I just had my backpack (Ryan Air charges for anything more than 1 - and 1 means 1, not 1 and a purse - carryon bag) and the hostel was a ways from where we wanted to end up. The train dropped us off at King's Cross, which just happened to be right across from the British Library...which just happened to be having an exhibit of science-fiction books and manuscripts. Talk about a great way to start the trip. We wandered around the exhibit until it was almost closing time and then popped upstairs to the permanent exhibit of important literary works in the collection. I wanted to pay homage to Mr. Dodgson's most famous piece but, unfortunately, it was currently off display. When we asked about it, we were told, by the head of security who was a bibliophile himself, that the book "was taking a rest" having been in two back to back exhibits. With a sigh of discontent we left the library and headed off to Soho.

See, the whole reason I was in London was because of David Tennant and Doctor Who. I had been chatting with Jen (who is a theatre geek like me, and who lives in SoCal) about various things and that I had discovered that Tennant, along with Catherine Tate (who was also in a season of Doctor Who) were appearing in a West End production of Much Ado About Nothing and wouldn't it be fun to go see that. Jen, who happened to have the month of August off from her job, said she had been thinking of going to London to see it. I said if she went to London, I'd join her as a last hurrah before school started.

So here we were in London.

Of course, the play itself had been sold out for months so we weren't even sure we could get tickets, but hey, we had to try, right? So off we traipsed to Soho to check out the ticket situation for that night's performances. Our though was we'd try to get returns each night and if we didn't get in at least we could say we tried. So we got in line around 6:30 for a 7:30 curtain and waited to see what would happen. As luck would have it, at just after 7 we were offered first row balcony, right in the middle. Someone couldn't make it to the show and we were going to take full advantage of their misfortune. We quickly said yes and at 7:35 found ourselves cheering wildly as the curtain raised and Shakespeare's words emerged. The production was really well done, given a modern setting and both Tennant and Tate acquitted themselves admirably.

After the show, we asked for a decent place to eat and, following the recommendation, found ourselves walking through the district in search of an Italian place. Of course, since Soho is known for gay bars and clubs the evening wouldn't be complete without a girl yelling out "Another birthday, another night at the gay club! Where are the straight men?" So, naturally, I had to volunteer to give her a hug before we continued on our way. We eventually found the restaurant and it was indeed very good. Afterwards we made our way back to the hostel and started making plans for Friday. Not bad for my first night in London after an absence of nine years.

Friday started with shopping. We headed to Davenport's, one of the oldest magic shops in London (it celebrated its centenary in '08) to pick up some souvenirs for magician friends. Davenport's is interesting in that for such a famous shop, it's tiny and located in an underground plaza at Charing Cross Tube Station. And the staff wasn't terribly friendly, but regardless, I got what I went for (and a great picture of a man and his dog sleeping out front) and we continued on our way. Above ground, we stopped in at a stationary store (I got blu-tack) and then walked down to Covent Garden. We did a lot of walking, so feel free to skip the phrase "we walked..." anytime you see it. It will continue to be included for clarity sake, but just assume almost everywhere we went, we walked, and you'll be okay. And if you really want to have fun and plot this route on a map, you'll see exactly how tired our feet and legs were by the time we left on Sunday.

Anyway, we walked to Covent Garden, which is an open air swap-meet style shopping arena, with performance space for street performers (we saw a few), overpriced souvenir stands and "original photographs" being sold by no less than four different stalls. It also hold a HUGE Apple store, where I popped in to get a bit of information from people who speak English as a native language and then it was off to lunch.

After walking for a bit (I told you!) we landed in the cozy little pub where the light fixtures were converted bowler hats and I ordered the traditional English fish and chips. Jen had Yorkshire pudding, which I'd never had before, but upon trying it found it was quite tasty. I will say, though, that as I've grown older, my adventurousness in terms of food has not grown the way I would have liked it to. Honestly, I've never been THAT adventurous when it comes to food and that's one aspect of my life which hasn't changed. So when I try something new, and like it, I like to mention it.

With our bellies full, we decided to walk to see St. Paul's Cathedral, Christopher Wren's masterpiece on the Thames. We approached it from the back and hit the catacombs (and cafe area) first. Honestly, why would you put the cafe in with the dead bodies? Doesn't make much sense to me, but what are ya gonna do? Well, we WERE gonna take teh tour and go to the top of the dome, but you know, for twenty pounds it really wasn't worth it. So instead, we walked around the outside and found ourselves in front of the Millennium Bridge and not too far from Shakespeare's Globe. Last time I was in London I hadn't been able to get inside and Jen had seen a show there before I arrived and said there was another production or two she'd like to see, so again, we went off in search of return tickets. On the way, we stopped by the Tate Modern Gallery (an amazing art museum built inside a refurbished power plant) and while we didn't go inside, we did get to see the Perigrine falcon that lives on top of it. There was a conservationist group set up to tell people about it, complete with a telescope so you could see the majestic creature perched well out of naked eye viewing. Very cool!

At the Globe, the show which was on that night wasn't one we wanted to see and Faustas, starring Arthur Darvill (who plays Rory in the current series of Doctor Who - sensing a theme here?), which we DID want to see, was on Saturday night AND was sold out. Ah well. We went up to the gift shop anyway, picked up a few trinkets (and I got a really cool knit cap for the upcoming winter) then walked BACK across teh Millennium Bridge (stopped in a Starbucks for WAY too long trying to write postcards and figure out their wireless system) then back to Soho.

See, we had figured we'd see what shows were on that we could maybe get half-price tickets for. There were a number of interesting shows happening, any of which I would have loved to have seen. They had Wicked playing, Shrek, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, lots of good things. But then, as we were passing one of the discount shops, there was a poster for Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which has long been one of my favorites. Jen, who actually keeps up with these things, didn't know there was a production happening so our first thought was it was an old playbill and the show had closed. Upon further examination, though, it was indeed playing (closing the 20th of August) and it looked like we could get 8th row, on the aisle seats for a ridiculously low price. How could we pass this up? Short answer? We couldn't! So off we traipsed to the theatre where, it turns out, they were having a Trevor Nunn season (that is, every show they were doing this season was going to be directed by Nunn) and the show following this one is going to be The Tempest starring Ralph Fiennes. But this production was spectacular. The sets were awesome and the two leads (along with the Player) were great! I was a little nervous about the guy playing Ros. as it started but he turned out to really be able to capture things perfectly.

After the show, since we were already in Soho, we went to Ed's Diner and had burgers and fries whilst discussing theatre and film. The discussion continued as the closed the restaurant around us, on the tube and back at the hostel. Again, a great day and the trip was only half way through.

Saturday involved a bit more logistical planning as we were going to be meeting up with my friend Sharon from my Groundlings days (she had been the stage manager then and had been living in London for the last twelve years). We were going to meet up to go to the Doctor Who Experience together.

This was the second reason I had come to London. The Doctor Who Experience was touted as having an interactive, multi-sensory adventure as well as a standing exhibition of various artifacts. It was also on a timed entry and we had left it too late to book tickets in advance so we were going to have to hope we could snag some same-day entries. We were supposed to meet Sharon at 11:00 in the morning and go from there.

I swear we left the hostel in plenty of time. But then, as the tube approached the stop which leads to Abbey Road, Jen asked me if I wanted to see it. Of course I did. We'd been talking about it every time we passed the stop. So I asked Jen how far it was from the station. "Just up the street," she responded. Jen's neighborhoods are huge! Up the street wasn't far, really, only about 7 minutes walk, maybe 6 or 7 hundred meters, so no problem, we could go, see the studio, walk across the zebra crossing \ and make it back t the station and not be too late to meet Sharon.

But nothing ever goes as planned, does it? Nope, instead of a simple photo op there was an actual photo op happening! Four lookalikes were re-creating the famous scene, complete with parked VW, as we walked up. So instead of the 30 seconds we had been intending to spend, it was more like 10-15 minutes watching the four lads trying to get the foot movements right and snapping a few shots of our own before got out of there and back to the station. A tube stoppage delayed us even more so by the time we finally arrived, it was 11:45 and Sharon had been waiting. Introductions were made, hugs were exchanged and we headed in, hoping to get tickets.

This turned out to be no problem at all. We asked for tickets and got them. When we asked what time they were for, the guy slightly rolled his eyes and pointed towards the entrance "Whenever you want," he seemed to say. No… that's exactly what he said. So off we went to experience the Experience.

The first half was indeed an interactive show, with Matt Smith (the current Doctor) guiding us along as we rescued the TARDIS, then flew it to rescue him from inside the Pandorica (if this makes no sense to you, find Doctor Who on whatever DVD service you use and catch up!). It was a cheesy little show, but there were Daleks and Weeping Angels and in the end, we helped save the universe, and saving the universe is cool!

But the part after that… that was where the real fun began. They had costumes and props and monsters and The Face of Boe and all sorts of stuff to put all of us into geek heaven. Sharon thanked us for inviting her along since she had wanted to see it, but felt silly as a grown woman going by herself. No fear there, she was among friends! The gift shop was overpriced, but still made off with a good bit of our cash (I got a Van Gogh "The Tardis Explodes" print and a Tardis mug).

Lunch followed at the William Morris pub while we all talked and caught up generally enjoyed our afternoon. Eventually, Sharon had to get back to her puppies and we had more sightseeing to do so we said our good-byes and we headed back into town, not sure of what we wanted to see but knowing we wanted to see it! One of the things which had been on our radar was the Tower Bridge which had recently re-opened for tours so we decided to check it out. Sure enough, it was open AND it was on discount, so up we went into the tower, watched a short animated film about the building (which featured the world's slowest boat heading down the river as the bridge was being completed) and then walked across the upper causeway. Great views of London and some pretty cool history of bridges awaited us. Down the other side we got to see the engine room (not actually in operation any longer, but how they USED to draw the bridge) and the gift shop (naturally!).

Of course, this put us back on the same side as The Globe, so again we walked down to see about returns for that night's performance of Faustus. They had none at the moment, but we were invited to wait in line, just in case. As we took up our position, a guy approached us, asking if we wanted tickets for the show. He had groundling tickets (standing on the floor of the theatre) for five pounds (cover price). Naturally, we jumped on them and successfully acquired tickets for three shows in three nights of being there, and three shows we really wanted to see as well!

If you ever get the chance to see a production at Shakespeare's Globe, I highly recommend it. More so, I recommend getting the groundling tickets. Not only are they cheap, but the experience is remarkable. We met a great family, who were celebrating a birthday, and ended up right in the middle of the action when the actors left the raised stage. Sure, you're standing for 3 hours, but honestly, you're so caught up in the action the time flies by. This production was really cleverly staged, with a minimalist set (when there was a set at all) and ended with a musical number. Honestly, this might have been my favorite show of the three… and I loved the other two! For theatre going, this trip scored a huge hit!

Dinner was a late night pizza place on the banks of the river and then the last train of the night back to the hostel. This was our last night in London.

Sunday morning we packed everything up, Jen dropped stuff in a locker in the hostel (she'd be back in a few days time) and we headed off into town before heading to the airport and back to Kaunas. We decided to have another look 'round the British Library before we left (it was right by the train station so why not). We got there as it was opening and decided to have a quick bite to eat before hitting the gift shop. Of course, as we were eating Jen pointed out that we were really close to Platform 9 ¾ (again, "really close" is a relative term) so we decided to go take a look at that first. And look is what we did. See, the station itself is under construction so they moved the site outside and there was a queue about 30-40 minutes long to put your hands on half a luggage trolley so we looked and went back to the library. We looked around a bit, I hemmed and hawed about buying things and we left in plenty of time to catch our train. Of course, our train wasn't leaving from that station, not on Sundays. So instead, we had to find our way to another station, then find the train to Gatwick, then decide which if the two trains would get us there quickest AND was still served by our tickets. Always an adventure but we did, in fact, make it to the airport, and the airplane and back to Kaunas, where it was still raining. So we come full circle and a great trip was had by all. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't change a thing!

Brasov and Bran Castle

Being this close to Transylvania, a trip to see Dracula's Castle was a mandatory experience - I even read the book to prepare! That said, I really didn't want or need to spend a lot of time in Romania so I decided to make it a bonzai trip... and I enlisted Erika and Sanyi, two fellow English teachers, to go along with me! What we decided to do was catch the overnight train to Brasov, then spend the day exploring the city and the castle then catch the overnight train back.

Erika booked the tickets for us and got us a sleeper cabin for the way down, which was fun. I'd never been in a sleeper cabin on a train before and volunteered to take the top bunk (of three). There were two other people in the cabin with us, Adam (remember him, he'll come back later) and some Australian doctor, who was already asleep when we boarded at 10pm.

We dropped our stuff and then headed to the dining car to grab a drink and hang out before hitting the sack. Adam came out and joined us after a bit. He's an English bloke on holiday before he joins the Royal Navy and gets put on board a submarine. He had been in Budapest and was going to spend a few days down here in Romania before heading back. Eventually we all went back to the cabin and went to bed.

There's this to say about sleeping compartments in trains -- they are NOT the most comfortable things on the planet. In ours the overhead light could be dimmed but not eliminated and the beds are not terribly comfortable but at least we could all get a little sleep. As it was, I was up, along with Sanyi, at just before 7am, looking out the window at a fog covered landscape. It was perfect for going into the heart of gothic horror! Where you could see the countryside, it was green, with scattered sheep and the odd car parked in the middle of an overgrown field, but even so, the tendrils of mist gave everything a nice, mysterious atmosphere.

Eventually, we pulled into Brasov, which is the town nearest Bran Castle, at 9am and headed off to find our way to the heart of the beast, saying good-bye to Adam as we went.

Turns out, it's a simple bus ride... IF you can figure out the bus system. Now this is what I don't understand about smaller European cities and less developed countries - if you're going to promote something as a tourist attracting, you should make it relatively easy to find and get to. Just saying. We found our way to the bus station, but it took all of us asking locals and making big sweeping, pictionary-style gestures to find the right bus (which wasn't labeled in any way for the village we wanted to get to). But okay, we found the bus, and sat tight for the 25 minute ride to the place.

Unceremoniously, the bus dropped us off in Bran, where the Castle loomed large on a hill in the middle of town (see above photo and yes, it was in black and white, deal with it!). We walked up to the castle yard, where the street vendors were just getting set-up. Everywhere you looked there were Dracula souvenirs (mugs, shirts, steins, puppets) as well as a lot of native items. We bought our tickets and started up the cobblestone paved hill. Sanyi made friends with a dog on the way up and we entered the main building with a mix of excitement and trepidation and horror.

And that was about as far as that feeling went. For the most part, the castle, which started construction in the 13th century, is dedicated to the memory (and furnishings) of the Romanian monarchs who lived there. It turns out there is only a tangential relationship between the castle and Vlad the Impaler, who may (or may not) have been the real life inspiration for Stoker and there's no evidence Stoker even knew of the castle (it's a fair distance from the Borgo Pass). And yet, they market the place as Dracula's Castle. Again, if you're going to try and brand something, you ought to at least make an honest attempt to pander to the fans you're trying to attract. Here, there's one room with several large banners giving a brief history of Bram Stoker and the vampire myths and legends. A large marketing opportunity has been missed. Were I asked to help out, there would be a "Dracula Tour" and some of the rooms would be set-up with torture devices and half empty coffins. Whether or not it's historically accurate, if you're gonna sell something, then sell it!

That said, we did have walking through and seeing all the stuff, and it was certainly worth coming down (if we hadn't, we just would have wondered - at least I would have). When we were done with the tour, we decided to have lunch and see the rest of the village before heading back into Brasov. While we were eating Adam (remember him from the train?) joined us. He'd realized there wasn't a lot to do or see in Brasov and so came down to the castle (which originally was going to wait a day for him) and then was going to take the same train as us back to Budapest. So we palled around for the rest of the day. This started with trying to find the museum where they stored whatever wasn't still inside the castle. We missed it the first time we went looking but eventually found it. We also found out that the MOST popular phrase in Bran is "Inter-war Period." Seriously! You'd be amazed at all the things which happened in the castle and village between the various wars. So much happened between the wars, in fact, I have a feeling that during the wars themselves, the town was put into a stasis field and held, unchanging, until the wars were over just so they could get back to the "Inter-war Period."

We eventually made it back to Brasov proper where we spent some time looking for a mall with a movie theatre (which we never found) and ended up deciding to go into the old town city center for a coffee before coming back for our train. Getting to the city center was a bit of an adventure as well. It's about 3km from the train station (our point of departure) and we were all pretty tired so we decided to take a cab. The cab driver charged us 5 lei a piece to take us and then dropped us off at the end of a long walk street. found a place to sit and have a drink and then wandered a bit. We walked around the famous "black" church (named for the soot covered exterior, not some sort of hidden evilness relating to the nearby Dracula associated castle) and listened to some jazz. Heading back to the train station, we realized we'd been taken for a ride by the first cabbie as our entire bill to get TO the train station was 8 lei total. Ah well, you live and learn.

The train back was a slightly different situation than coming down. We didn't have a sleeping car this time, just general population seats. Remember what I said about the comfort level of the sleeping cabin? 4 star luxury compared to trying to sleep in a regular seat. Eventually, I curled up on two seats side by side and got a little rest, but my neck ended up hurting for three days. Still, the entire gonzo trip was worth it and if I had to do it over again, I would in a heart beat.

Szeged

Szeged is located along the southern border of Hungary, just above Romania, and is home to Szeged University, one of the best schools in the nation. I had absolutely no reason to ever go there except to see it. My colleagues at school had spent some time there while attending university and kept telling me how beautiful it was.

They were right!

I took a Thursday and headed down to check it out. It is a beautiful little city, centered, like most European cities, around a river. I got off the train and took a tram into the city, getting off in front of the Dom Ter near the main cathedral. I looked at the map to get an ida of my bearings and then started walking. The other thing about European cities is that maps lie. What appeared to be a considerable distance, in the actual walking of it turned out to be a much shorter distance than at first perceived. So I wandered.

Among the main sights to see are the central walk street with lots of shops which then abuts directly into large, green park area -- a perfect college town. Plenty of places to eat and study! The walk street has some really cool sculptures (including a two part piece, with a young family on one side watching a clown/musician across the way). There's also a water tower which looks amazing but unfortunately wasn't open for tours when I was there.

After wandering and sight seeing, I went into the tourist information office and asked for an inexpensive recommendation for lunch. They recommended a restaurant where I could get the cuisine Szeged is famous for - Fish stew. For a land-locked country, Hungarians put a lot of stock in their fish stew (in all senses of the word). So I went to the place, called Roosevelt (yes, after the President), and was going to order the fish stew and a salad. Looking at the prices, I thought it was a bit expensive but okay. Then the waiter looked at me and after a brief discussion, decided to wait on the salad, that the soup might be enough. I figured I could eat more than a bowl of soup, but then again, I could also order a salad if I was still hungry.

There was no chance I'd still be hungry.

What came out was a six litre bogrács, filled to the brim with a red stew that smelled wonderful and a basket of bread. This was enough soup for a family of four to have a meal and leftovers and here I was, about to try and eat it myself. I was able to finish about 2 and a half bowls before admitting defeat. Yes, this left more than half of the stew still in the pot, but what could I do?

After lunch, the rain which had been threatening all day finally decided to come down so I headed back for the train. The train ride back was interesting in that I spent the entire first leg of the journey (to Orosháza, where I had to switch trains) talking to an inquisitive 10 year-old named Martin who was with his class coming home from a day trip to the Szeged zoo. Martin could speak a little English and we must have gone through every word he knew as he asked me every question he could think of in English. It was a little tiring, but fun nonetheless.

All in all, a nice way to spend the day and see a part of Hungary I'd been hearing about since I got there.

Hungarian Weekend

With my time in Hungary rapidly coming to an end, my friend Enikö took it upon herself to make sure I didn't leave without seeing some of the best parts of the country. She'd already taken me for s day to Lake Balaton, which is the largest lake in Central Europe and known as the Hungarian Sea. During the Soviet occupation it was a prime tourist destination for a number of German and other Eastern European nationals and has retained a lot of it's "seaside" flavor. Along the north coast are a number of really good wineries and intimate hotels as well as sightseeing stops and plenty of places for water sports. This time, though, we decided to go to Pécs (pronounced Paych) which is a beautiful city to the south of Balaton. It is also where Enikö grew up.

The first thing to see in town is the Mosque of Pasha Qasim. This is a former mosque which has been converted into a Christian Church. It is pretty impressive both inside and out. Inside they have taken the existing architecture and adapted it to a more western usage. Outside, it dominates Széchenyi Square, the main square in town.

The square is beautiful. It's a wide open area, with well placed statuary and a couple of water features which, on this warm May day, found themselves filled with barefooted high school students taking the day off. Enikö joined in and even got me to take off my shoes and splash for a few minutes.

From there, we had a bite at a horrible little sidewalk cafe which looked good from the outside but was really crap food wise (so bad Enikö sent her soup back - which is NOT something Europeans generally do... EVER!) I had some sort of poultry dish which was edible... but that's about all I can say for it.

After lunch we headed off to the Necropolis of Sopianae, an underground series of tombs and catacombs which are being excavated. The site is inside a building, with scaffolding and walkways around it so you can see things from all angles. It was very interesting, even if most of it was written in Hungarian. We still ended up having a great time and laughing a lot. Seriously, there's a lot to make fun of when walking through an ancient tomb (and where were the bodies? There were no bodies!)

A quick stop at Tescos (a large supermarket chain, kinda like Target's with food) and I picked up a swim suit and a pair of sandals and I was ready for whatever else the weekend had to offer. On the way back, we stopped in a beautiful little village with a small lake. That night we went back to Budapest, met up with Zsolt (Enikö's boyfriend) and had dinner before crashing.

Saturday morning arrived bright and early and we all went to Enikö's mom's place, where we were having lunch... and I was to cook! Well, not cook exactly, but I had been volunteered to make an American dessert for several English students who would also be joining us for lunch. I chose Chocolate Chip Cookies and found a recipe online. Of course, then the problem was finding all of the required ingredients at the local store. Brown sugar was an interesting problem. In the end, though, we ended up with a sheet of one huge cookie (I had spooned the dough with plenty of room to a side, but then I was berated that the dough wouldn't spread and badgered into placing more dough in the in-between spaces of the lumps I had already placed - my consolation was I got to say "I told you so" when the singular, massive cookie came out of the oven). On the plus side, though, it was delicious!

After lunch, several of us, including Antal, who met up with us, took various forms of public transportations to get to the big bus station to catch a ride to the Etyek Wine Festival. Etyek is a town about 20km from Budapest, known as the Hollywood of Hungary as that's where the big film studio is. It also shouldn't take more than a half hour to get to. Unless, of course, you're part of a huge queue to get to a parking area. Which again, wouldn't be so bad if we were sitting in an air conditioned car. But when you're standing on a hot bus for 90 minutes, with a thunderstorm's worth of humidity just waiting to unleash itself, the ride was not comfortable at all. We finally arrived at the site and the driver let us out... about 3 km away from where the action was actually taking place. So we walked and got in line and finally got our wine glasses and plastic card with our "wine credits" and were finally able to go and taste some wine!

Unlike festivals I've been to in the states, which are confined to specific areas with the vendors in nice neat rows, this one took over the entire village. There was lots of good wine, though, and lots of great conversations. The wine was mostly local so it was nice to get a sampling of what was going on in the country around me. And I was hanging out with Antal most of the day, which was handy. Yes, I had taken a wine class at the Freakin Frog and knew a little bit about what I was drinking, Antal was an "amateur" connoisseur and he really knew his stuff. I generally deferred to him and was not once steered wrong. By the end of the night, we were all feeling pretty good.

Naturally, the bus ride home was the same situation only this time, Antal and I ended up near the front of the bus where a VERY drunk guy was trying to talk to the driver. We finally got him to leave the driver alone and instead got him singing very loudly. It was a fun ride to say the least.

I took myself out for dinner when we got back to the city, but was so tired, I was literally falling asleep while waiting for my food. Needless to say, I crashed out and slept very fitfully that night.

Sunday morning, I had coffee with Antal, who is studying to be an English teacher and had done his student teaching at our school in Mezötúr, before meeting up with Enikö and Zsolt and Judit (Enikö's mom) and heading off to the Szechényi Bath & Spa.

Hungary is known for its spas and thermal baths and Szechényi is one of the more popular and touristy. The other is Gellert, which I never made it to. And it was a special favor to me that we went to Széchenyi since normally, Budapestians don't go there as it's overrun with out-of-towners and foreigners. As a Las Vegan, I understand the concept of avoiding the tourist spots, especially on a Sunday, so I was very appreciative of the afternoon.

The facility itself is huge. There are actually medical facilities on-site for patients to make use of the hot water in a healing way. There are three main pools in the atrium area and then a number of side pools, hot tubs, spas, saunas and steam rooms. There are permanent chessboards in the water so you can bathe and exercise your mind at the same time. It's incredibly relaxing and a perfect way to end a very Hungarian weekend.