Budapest - Day 1
2010-09-23
Hello From Budapest,
Current Internet access is on the slow side, so these will be pretty brief and with only a couple of pictures.
Budapest at one time was the capitol of a very large empire. A couple of world wars and several decades of Russian occupation have taken their toll, but you can still catch glimpses of past greatness.
In case you don't know, Hungarians have different roots and therefore are different from anywhere else in Central Europe and indeed, anywhere else on the planet. Their language is not related or even similar to any other European language, except distant relations in Finland and Estonia. They are in the process of adopting English as a second language, but the two have many more differences than similarities, so the process will probably take a long time. As you would imagine, most older folks have no English at all, and so opportunities for casual communication with locals is rare.
One thing that's hard to get one's mind around is the money. Transition to Euros hasn't really happened yet. The local currency is the Forint, which is worth about a half cent. Where the difficulty comes in is that there aren't any larger denominations, so paying for something worth say, $5, takes 1,000 Forints. Our first ATM transaction was in 20,000 Forint denomination bills! To get your mind around the big numbers, you have to drop the last 2 digits and then divide by 2 to get a rough estimate of the price in dollars.
Included are a few snaps taken on a walk about the neighborhood yesterday. Hungary does have distinct architectural and artistic styles, and the pictures are an attempt to give you a glimpse of that.
Take Care
