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Today is Daniel and Julie's 19th wedding anniversary: sadly, Julie's not here, so we found a stand-in.
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First stop on our tourist agenda today was Heroes' Square, a 19th-century monument to Hungarian Nationalism located just across from Gundel, the restaurant with the fiddlers and goose liver.
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Hungarian Heroes All Have Mustaches.
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Very impressive.
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Maggie thought so too.
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Right behind Heroes Square is a beautiful woodland park in the middle of Budapest, which features this make-believe castle,
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and this statue of "Anonymous" (Daniel says: "he did his best work in the 19th century...")
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More castle: lots of great decorations over the doors.
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and Daniel and Maggie, next to anonymous.
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A closer look proves that anonymous is Not a Happy Guy.
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Daniel, however, is, as we have lunch at the Anonymous Restaurant (Daniel had Pork Barbecue--a rather different dish in Hungary). Tomatoes here are GREAT, by the way.
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Yet more castle, from another side. Reminds us of Disneyland...
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On the way home, we notice that American Culture (in the form of a two liter bottle of coke) has infiltrated Hungarian culture.
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After all this sightseeing, we had about half an hour to make the train--a close call (it takes a while for three people who don't speak Hungarian to negotiate tickets out of a person who doesn't speak English). We made the train (what platform is that on? eh?) about five minutes before it left--for Debrecen, we think.
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Daniel, as ever, is completely unflustered--already he's won the respect of Hungarians everywhere. The Imperturbable Pitti, they call him here.
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As we pull out of the station, we notice a lot of Soviet railroad cars, and we wonder briefly whether we might be headed for Vladivostok.
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But after Budapest, which is somewhat down-at-the-heels in many places, it's nice to be out in the country, where there are great fields full of sunflowers,
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and lots of farmhouses.
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That evening, in Julie's honor, we ordered up the best string band in Debrecen, and had them play love songs...
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for Daniel and his bride.
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