Sunday

Got up @ 7:30am, got ready for church.

Had buffet breakfast down in Peppers! Restaurant and ate sausages, fruit and yogurt, mini pancakes.

Church was all in Hungarian. There was a girl there who would translate but she would whisper so only those immediately around her could hear. I was too far away. There were three speakers. I was rather bored. The music though was cool. Sang High on a Mountain Top and others that I knew, but again it was in Hungarian so I just hummed. A woman behind me tried talking to me in English. She was very smiley and happy, but I couldn't understand her English very well at all so I just smiled back and nodded like a fool. I gave her one of the king size candybars that Cathi brought with her.

We did alot of tours:

1. The Parliament Building - we ran by this building the night before. We waited shortly outside while Vonda gave us some history of the building. We had a special tour and it was very beautiful inside. There was a model of the building inside, which we were told was made out of matchsticks. Then the stairs going up to the main hall was very extravagant. Here is a video of the model and stairs. We had to go through a security checkpoint and had to wear these bracelet things with a metal tag on it. We went up the Grand Stairwell and took video of the awesome hall. The tour guide said that during WWII the stained glass windows were removed and put in the basement to preserve them from possible bombings. Here is video of the main hall. The video doesn't really represent how magnificent it was. It was breathtaking!
   
   Then we went into the main rotunda where there were lots of "No Flash" signs. Apparently flash on a camera can degrade the quality of certain items. The royal crown of Hungary was displayed. There was a guard there in full traditional uniform as well. Here is some video of the crown, although the lighting was bad, and obviously couldn't use flash to lighten it up. The statues of the kings were around the crown looking at it, except one king who was looking at one of the women. The party behind us had someone who took a picture of the crown, but apparently forgot to turn the flash off and got nasty looks from everyone and the tour guides all said "no flash in this room!"
   
   After we left the rotunda I whispered to Becky and Cathi, "Did you see the cameraman after he took the flash? He jumped!" I told them that the bracelets were to shock anyone taking forbidden flash pictures. They both thought I was serious until I started laughing. Not a bad idea though.
   
   Then we went into the North Wing which was where politicians would vote on things. I can't remember the branch that met here, but the branch of government was disolved (Senate maybe?), and the wing is empty and can actually be rented out for special conferences. Here is video of the voting room..
   
   Then we went to the North East portion of the Northern wing and waited in the Hall for the rest of the tour parties and left. We sat on these old benches in the hall.
   
   When we left the building we had to hand in the bracelet things and some Low people were slow exiting so the party got mixed in with the non-english speaking people. When we left someone from the other party was taking pictures where someone was sitting on top of the old Ice powered Air-Conditioning blocks that were on the grounds outside the building on the North side. After they left, Bill Jr. started walking up there to take pictures when immediately one of the tour hosts tried getting Bill's attention. "Sir, Sir! Hey! You! Halt!" He then yelled at Bill to get him away from the Air Conditioning structure. Back in the day when the Parliament building was built, they didn't have electrical air conditioning, they had to use ice. Which would flow through ducts. The ice was put into these structures that were then lowered down into the ground. Kind of like a well I guess. Anyhow, they're old and I guess not to be climbed on. Too bad he didn't catch the first people though. It is in a pretty part of the garden and I think Bill thought it was a good picture.


2. Fisherman's Bastion - Cathi and I raced up the stairs. Stephen joined us in the race. There were alot of stairs. Stephen stopped (I think to wait for Cathi) while I finished the last set.
   We saw the statue of King Stephen I, and the St. Mathias Church, which had beautiful stained glass windows on it. We took lots of pictures of the city from the towers of the Bastion wall. This album has all the pictures we took from that day. Too many to display here. One thing that we quickly learned is to time your "technical breaks" as Vonda would call it. It is rare to find a free bathroom (or WC, Watercloset). You have to pay a certain amount. So when you are close to having lunch or dinner, or going back to the hotel you get to pee for free.
   


3. We had lunch at a good restaurant, Restaurant Fekete Holló. It was goulash in a wheat bread bowl. It was yummy. There were a couple of musicians who played Gypsie music. The guitarist though was terrible. He was strumming like a newbie and didn't sound very experienced. The violinist did great though and quite animated. You can watch some video of the music here.
   
   The violinist took some money out of his pocket and put it in the neck of his violin and gestured towards us that he wanted a tip. That ruined it for me. I realize this is a different culture and people are tipped all over the world, but I wish it weren't so. It would be much more pleasant if money wasn't the driving factor for everything. Bill gave him a tip of course, but many of us didn't have the appropriate currency yet (since it was Sunday) or in my case, didn't have an appropriate amount. I wasn't about to tip him with a huge bill. I needed to get some smaller bills.
   
   Back to the subject of urinating. Cathi got up to use the restroom between courses when all of a sudden I hear her squeal "Oh Becky! Come look at this sign!", and she asked me for the camera and took pictures of the boy/girl bathroom signs.


4. Liberty monument - we then took the bus to the Liberty Monument and took lots of pictures. Very good view of Pest from that point. Steve and Bill took pictures next to the side statues. The thing about Bill's statue was that the guy is naked so coming from the backside, you see everything and the size of the statue's package is about the size of two softballs. Makes every man feel a little inadequate and question their tiny role in this big universe.
   

For dinner we ate at the Trófea Grill Restaurant which is a fancy buffet restaurant. It was so good! I ate lots of rice and veggies, Duck thigh, pasta.

When we got back to the hotel I felt so guilty about overeating. I still didn't have any desert although there was a huge desert selection, but I went for thirds on main course. I did 2 sets of 60 pushups and then 100 siteups. Looking forward to long run tomorrow and went to bed early (2100). Will get up at 0500 tomorrow and run with Cathi.