Soup

Today for my last day in Budapest I went to the Kazinczy Orthodox Synogogue.  I was the only one there until a family and their guide came.  It is beautiful, but no one visits.  Connected is a girls school, a boys school, apartments, and a Kosher resturant.  I got a private tour from the main guy as I was the only one.  Afterwards I had lunch at a Jewish resturant known for being vegetarin-friendly across the street.  I had Cold Strawberry Soup and it was amazing!  I could taste cinnamon, but I dont know what else was in it.  For my main I had Saffron risotto with vegetables and fresh grated parmesean cheese.  Oh so good!

Then I tried to find the flea market in the park and got lost.  Wandered in the park for an hour and a half before somehow finding myself back at Heroes' Square. 

Yesterday I spent the day being Jewish.  I went to see the Dohany Street Synogogue, so named for the street name which means Tobacco.  So the Tobacco Synogogue.  I kid you not.  It is the second largest synogogue int he world, after New York's Temple Emanu-El.  But this one can actually seat more than the one in NY.  It is gorgeous, too.  It is too modern for the orthodox because they use music and let men and women sit together except on High Holidays.  Otherwise, the services are the same as Orthodoxy.  But they are considered liberal.  I could have laughed. 

Out back is the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park.  Raoul was the Swiss Embassay dude during World War II and he issued thousands of fake ID papers for Jews to help them escape the Holocaust.  I took some gorgeous photos there.  And my favorite part of Jewish Budapest?  JEWISH STAINED GLASS WINDOWS!!!!!  Yes, Meredith, Lilia and Melissa, I finally own photos of awesome Jewish stained glass not just lots of Jesus window pictures!  So stoked.  Took a ton of photos.  There are windows at Dohany Street's Jewish Museum that depict all sorts of Torah stories in detail.  I took massive amounts of photos.  I also saw the coolest Sedar plate ever. 

Budapest is shockingly metropolitan.  It was massively bombed at the end of the war and so every building is new and very citylike.  In fact it is like ever other major city excpet I dont speak the language.  Nothing sterotypically Eastern European about it.  It is modern.  Except smoking.  People still smoke everywhere, even around their childrena nd pregnant women.  I was eating dinner alone somewhere (it was the only place open besides McDonalds) the other night and a couple asked if I wanted company and moved to my table.  The woman, Hungarian and pregnant, and her boyfriend, Welsh, were so nice.  They are having a girl in a few months.  When the woman was in the bathroom I asked Mike what he thought of the smoking around children and he was just as shocked as I.  He said he would not be above telling people to smoke away from his kid.  But they are raising the kid in Hungary because in Hungary women are gaurnteed TWO YEARS OF MATERNITY LEAVE and can sue if their employers give them a worse job or less money when they come back.  I SHIT YOU NOT!!!!  It was three years before the last election. 

I went up to the Buda Castle last night to see Pest lit up (thanks Randall!) and found a group of about 25 people Tango dancing on the balcony of the palace with some speakers.  I watched for an hour.  It was magical.  I wrote a poem about some girl's ass.  She danced like Christine.

The other day I treadted myself big time to a 20 minute Swedish Massage at the baths, which I sat in for 4 hours.  It was amazing.

In two hours I am catching a night train to Bucharest Romania.  I splurged for the sleeper car (a whole 40 Euros more) since it looks like Istanbul to Athens and maybe even Bucharest to Istanbul will be bus rides.  Fucking flood washed the lines in Romania out and Greece is still ahving all sorts of strikes.  So that will be an adventure. Ugh.  Night train.  Got a middle bunk.  No bottom ones left.  But at least not a top bunk.  I guess I will see if I get all dizzy like last time.  I think I will take a tour out to the countryside one of the days are go see Bran and other places that are only remotely related to Dracula at all.  But if I go, I promised to find something terribly tacky for Gabe.