Paprika, gulash, Rubik's cube

Wow, Budapest is pretty cool.  Big city - over 3 million, spreads over both sides of the Danube.  The Hungarian plain is on the "Pest" side (these were 2 separate cities, Buda and Pest - until  bridges were built in the 1800's followed by union into a single city) and that side of the city is very flat, but on the Buda side it is very hilly with cliffs, caves, and thermal springs.

It's been a turbulent existence for Hungary and Budapest - Hungarians moved in from western Asia in the 800's and founded the country.  Then, battles back and forth between Austrian (Habsburg Empire) and Turks (Ottoman empire).  Brief conquest by the Mongols - Attila the Hun.  Turks out, Austrians in, joint venture (Austro-Hungarian empire), WW I with Hungary on the losing side but becoming a separate country, WW II and Hungary losing again and Budapest being pretty totally trashed - all bridges down, most buildings destroyed, lots of history lost.  Then, the Soviet Communist regime that decided that those non-socialist, bourgeoisie artsy things weren't worth saving - so lots of reconstruction of historic buildings but without the art (sometimes, apparently intentionally destroyed).  Then, another battle with the unsuccessful revolution of 1956, then the more successful fall of Communism.  Ongoing attempts to reconstruct the historical beauty of the city - seems pretty successful to me, though not on a scale comparable to Paris, Regensburg, Vienna - where the city center looks very medieval.

Because of the origins of the Hungarian (Magyar) people in Asia, there is no commonality between Hungarian language and any other European language except for Finnish.  Not even with Slavic languages like Russian.  So, until now there were recognizable (at least we could guess at meanings) words in French, German, and even in Slovakian.  Hungarian is totally foreign and unrecognizable, except for recent imports like "Diszcount", and of course, McDonald's.  But, lots of English spoken in the tourist areas, so easy to get around (30 languages on the free audio guides on the river boat trip - and hostesses that seemed to speak most of them - took a while for the hostess to go through the welcome comments in most of those 30 languages).

For reasons that escape me, paprika is used to flavor everything (including potato chips).  And, goulash seems to be the most characteristic Hungarian meal - kinds like a super-charged Dinty Moore beef stew.

Did I mention the traffic chaos?

Now, lots of historic looking reconstructions of buildings, some spectacular stuff that did survive and has been successfully restored, new bridges, new performing arts centers, day markets, night markets, river cruises, traffic (did I mention traffic - chaos), restaurants.

Major financial center, national per capita income about half that of the US, but also much less disparity between rich and poor (less than half the GINI score for any economy geeks).

In the 1800's especially, Budapest was a major technology leader - lots of the electrical inventions came from here - although we think of them as Western European developments, in the 1800's Budapest was more developed than much of Western Europe.  More recently, home to the inventor of Rubik's cube.  OK, so not all invention is progress.

Money is on a bit of a different scale here - I'm carrying 50,000 florints around in my wallet.  That will buy me a couple nice dinners.

All the (reconstructed) historic buildings and bridges are lit up at night, so Jean & I did a river cruise last night - quite spectacular.  

Yesterday's bike ride left the Danube to cut diagonally across a big loop and was pleasant riding through wooded hills, fields, small villages - reminded me of Pennsylvania.

Bucsu until later.