Our Last Week in Budapest
We got back from Paris on Sunday, and immediately Zoey, my mom, and I went to see Die Fledermaus. We bought the cheap tickets (only $6 a piece!) but the auditorium was pretty empty, so we moved down to the floor for better seats. So did everyone else, but we still had great seats with a good view.
I had forgotten that Die Fledermaus was an operetta, meaning there is speaking along with the singing. When they started the speaking parts Zoey was confused. She asked where the music was and why they weren’t doing the singing! This was hard for her because she had to read the dialogue from the prompter, and she reads slower than the words would go by on the prompter.
On Monday JonPaul and I went to the Széchenyi Thermal Baths, the most popular thermal baths in Budapest. I can’t believe we hadn’t done this yet, and we really wanted to make sure we got here before we left. The baths are in the large city park and are really large and beautiful. We got there around 9 am so it was still pretty quiet. It was freezing, so the warm water hitting the cold air made it misty. Unusual for Budapest in the winter, it was sunny without a cloud in the sky; a perfect winter day. It was so cold outside, but we had to run between pools and had to go outside if we wanted to go to the inside pools or any of the saunas/steam rooms. Luckily it was nice and warm in the pools. The outside pool had some bubbles that came up from the ground and a flow circle that pushed you around in a circle. You could bounce around with the current; it was like a really fast lazy river. We were supposed to bring flip flops, or bath shoes, but forgot. So we had to buy them there for $10 a pair, and JonPaul’s broke halfway through our stay! Not cool.
The outside pools were warm, but we wanted to see what was inside too. There were several cool/cold/room temperature pools inside and a few warm pools. The pools didn’t really have a big filtration system, and the warmest pool was sort of gross-looking. We went to the saunas; there were several ranging in temperature. There was also a salt sauna room and a light sauna room with uv light therapy (I think). We tried to go in the steam room but I could only stand being in there for a couple minutes before I had to leave. It felt so hot and I felt like I couldn’t breathe and JonPaul said I was beet red. When we went outside after being in the saunas it didn’t feel as cold. The outside pools got busy quickly. When we left they were pretty full during the sunny, cold winter day.
After the baths we went to the Hospital in the Rock, another thing I had been wanting to do before we left. This is over in the Buda side and a hospital bunker built in the cave system under Buda. It was in use during WWII and in the 1950’s/60s periodically. The hospital doesn’t allow children, so we couldn’t go until we had someone to watch them. Thanks mom! Anyway, the museum showed the history of the hospital with lots of wax people alongside the displays of hospital artifacts from the 40s through 60s. The old equipment left over from when the hospital was operational is for sale, including these gas masks. We bought one for Ronin; they were only 3,000 forints ($10) and included a heavy-duty canvas bag. It was a neat experience for sure.
The next day my mom and I went to the Rudas baths. These were over on the Buda side right by the river. We had to go on a Tuesday because on that day the Turkish baths are women only; on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday they are men only. We went first to the Wellness side, which had several pools of varying heat. One was freezing cold and one was scalding hot. We stayed in these pools for a long time and I was surprised that there were men and women in there since I thought it was just women. However, as we were getting ready to leave I saw a map on one of the walls and noticed that there was a whole other side to the baths! I was wondering, because I was told the Rudas baths were the ‘real’ Turkish baths and the Wellness center definitely didn’t look like that. We made our way over to the other side, and these were beautiful old baths. Here is where it was women only, and because it was single gender clothing was optional! We wore our suits but plenty of others (about half) did not. Young to old, small to large, it didn’t matter. We also tried several of the saunas. We were here for several hours, but we could have stayed the rest of the day and been just fine.
We walked back across the bridge to go to the Great Market once more to get the last few things to take home for gifts. With the unusually bright sunshiny day the shadows were making long shadows on the sidewalk, which made for a great picture.
There were a lot of things we did this last week along with packing up everything. We had to get rid of a lot of stuff, including a bunch of rocks and buckeyes the kids had collected, paper crafts they had made, pictures they had drawn, and random stuff collected. We still kept a bunch of rocks, which is one of the reasons are suitcases were so heavy coming back! We also ate at our favorite restaurants one last time and made sure we got some last chimney cakes and our favorite Hungarian foods and cakes. I will be so sad to leave!
When we were in Győr on the Fulbright trip we had a wine tasting during the gingerbread decorating class. One of the wines they gave us was the Széchenyi Tokaj Aszú wine from 2008, a year with a drought so very few bottles were made that year. This wine was so sweet and thicker than typical wine. We ended up buying a bottle—number 31 out of 200 for the year. It was $35, which is a lot for a bottle of wine, especially considering we are able to buy a good bottle of wine at the store for $3-4. But tonight we drank our bottle and it was totally worth it!
Before we left I knew I had to meet with my colleagues from ELTE one last time. I first had coffee with Gabi Pajor and Szilvie Fodor, two of the school psychologist faculty. I hope to be able to continue conversations with both of them and Zsuzsa Kaló, the department chair. I am sad to leave, and want to make sure my work continues to be international and include my new colleagues!
