Budapest with Gabi - part 1

one of my colleagues (i call her "spanish teacher gabi") invited me to go home with her for the ski break. *note: there were two days off - thursday and friday - for students to go skiing. schools have the option to give these days off or not, my school did. how freakin' sweet!* gabi was born in raised in budapest, so that's where we went. i was even allowed to bring xander!

the first night we got home, ate lunch (goulash!), and took a nap. then we got drinks with one of her friends and returned home for a relaxing evening - since this was vacation after all.

the next day we went to parliament. i didn't even attempt to take pictures of the outside because i'm not that great of a photographer and there are a million pics online. here are a few good ones:
then inside i took a few of my own. it really was very impressive in there. the building has been badly damaged twice in the past hundred years, but has been rebuilt by who i am convinced are the most resilient people on earth: the hungarians.
anyway, here are some shots of the inside:


right when you walk in there is a replica of the parliament which is 125x smaller than the real thing, to scale. even that is impressive... but also... it's made of matches. 100,000 or something.

here i am in the main entrance. red carpets, marble, real gold on the ceilings, frescos, scupltures, arches, chandeliers... these people ain't messin' around.
there are statues along the halls depicting regular hungarian jobs (baker, painter, teacher, doctor, etc) to remind the representatives, the prime minister, and all of the 2000 employees of parliament that they work for the people.
i really liked those statues. there are 88 of them, if i recall correctly. detailed, realistic, yet funny.

here i am in the room where all the history happens. (US equiv: congress)


the CROWN JEWELS! ooh, ahh! there isn't a king any more, but if there were, this would be his stuff. these pictures are zoomed because this area is roped off and in a big glass case.

we somehow missed the english tour (though we arrived early) so we had to take the hungarian one. i didn't mind, since i'm used to blocking out/snatching random words of hungarian from conversations all day, but poor gabi had to translate. AND this was like her 6th time on this tour.
THANK YOU, GABI!!! sorry i'm a pain and don't know hungarian - yet.

in other news:
last week one of my colleagues invited me to the theater/theatre. the show playing was a hungarian favorite called "Pál Utcai Fiúk" ("pal oots-eye fee-yook) which is something like "the paul street boys." i went to the theater and lo! about 1/4 of my school was there! there were a ton of students and teachers i recognized right away. actually, i saw one kid i thought was one of my students. i thought he was balazs. i stared at him a while, keeping with the hungarian norm, until i decided he wasn't my student. then i chuckled to myself as i thought about how funny it would have been if i had gone up to him and said, "oh balazs! good to see you!" i chuckled because i thought to myself that his name probably was balazs and he would be freaking out because i knew him and he didn't know me. anyway, my facination with him dissolved as i was busy looking around at other potential students. as my colleague greeted me and whisked me away, i heard that balazs-looking kid's friend come to him and say in hungarian, "hi balazs!" of course that was his name.

anyway, i loved the play, though i think i only understood about 10% of the actual hungarian. since it was acted out, i could grasp the concept pretty clearly. it was about two groups of boys who are fighting for an empty lot (for a playground, sort of) in 19th century budapest. it's based on fact, the streets and boys are/were real. in the play, however, allll of the boys were played by girls. and rather well, i'd say. there were a few scenes i didn't totally understand, so i asked aniko' at intermission. she gladly filled me in and equally as gladly laughed at what i thought i had understood. :::rolls eyes:::

in budapest, i told gabi that i had seen the play and liked it. we stopped in a bookstore and she bought me a copy of the story in ENGLISH!! woohoo!! when we got back to her parents' place (the place where she grew up) she even showed me her very own copy from when she was a kid. yay! i'm turning hungarian... sort of.

mine and hers

thank you for a great time in your city, gabi!