Before breakfast, I went to the hotel's reception desk. I wanted to check us in to stay an extra day, because Lee and I had tickets for a day tour to Tihany and Lake Balaton (the "Hungarian Sea" and the only really large body of water in the country). Turns out that they're closing the hotel today, to prepare for the returning university students. Well, okay, this is inconvenient but not a show stopper.
So I asked for my bag from the safe. The girl at reception went to the safe and held up several bags, asking "is this it?" No receipts, no ID check, not even a check against the room number. None of the bags were mine. Then she said it's not in there, and that I must have taken it out before and forgotten about it. Not bloody likely, since the passports, plane tickets, credit cards, and cash were in there as well as my computer. Since the desk was very busy with everyone checking out, I asked her to please check again, and went to get breakfast with a hollow dread feeling in my stomach.
Lee and I grabbed another mediocre breakfast, then went up to the room to pack our stuff. I checked all through the room to see if my bag was anywhere there; nothing. So we hauled our stuff down to the lobby, and I checked with the desk again, still nothing. Now I was starting to panic. It looked like they were about to throw us out into the street without our valuables, and without a claim check or paper trail of any kind. A very scary feeling.
See the legal statement for the exact sequence of events here.
I went upstairs to talk to the hotel manager (actually, the girl at reception suggested this). It took a while to get in to speak with him, and to get him to understand that I was serious, his English was basic but workable. Once I got him to take me seriously, he called the desk worker into his office, and then another girl (who might have been working the desk when I checked the bag in, but I couldn't really tell). He spent some time chewing them out (though I didn't understand the words, I got the feeling). I wrote up an inventory of what was in the bag and its value, and signed it for him. Then he said that, while they were checking into it, he could provide a room (actually an apartment style suite) for Lee and me. So at least we weren't out on the street.
I went back down to the lobby and got Lee, and we brought our stuff up
to the room. It's really a nice little apartment, with kitchenette and
living room, probably for visiting professors. This picture shows
the view from our window, looking north over Buda and the Gellert Spa.
This made us feel a
little bit better. When I went back down to reception, a policeman
arrived to take a statement. Back up to the manager's office, I told
my story again (through the interpreter) and the cop took the report.
Then it turned out that I have to go to the police station to make an
official report. (Then why did we go through all this, I wanted to
ask, but there was no easy way to say this.) I told Lee to wait in
the room, because I figured this would take a while.
Her dad was supposed to bring his car and give us a ride to the police station. We waited (in the hot sun) for about 30 minutes before he arrived, and he did give us a ride, and they argued all the way there (sounding very much like a Jewish father and daughter, though in Hungarian).
Anyway we got to the police station. This was not a fun experience at all. Soviet era police stations are not designed to be reassuring places to hang around in. Grungy hallways and harsh uncomfortable benches, while the cops lounge and saunter around, with their big guns and clubs, everybody smoking like chimneys, and of course there's no air conditioning on a hot day. The person we were waiting for was apparently not in when we arrived (closed and locked door) and we had no idea when (or if) s/he would show up, so there was nothing to do but wait. I wrote in my journal, trying to use the time constructively. After about an hour and a half, Aniko figured out that we were waiting in the wrong place (you have to sit in a bench where they can see you're waiting). So we switched to the correct bench, and it only took another half an hour for them to get to us.
The report taker was a woman who actually seemed to care about doing a good job, and went through the facts carefully, writing up the report as she went. (I was going crazy from the heat and cigarette smoke at this point.) Aniko translated the report for me, and I signed a bunch of documents, including one which was a voucher that my translator had done her job and I trusted her to do it well. There were also vouchers for the American Embassy, stating that we had reported the passports lost/stolen so we could get new ones. So finally, after about two hours, we got out of there. Phew.
Aniko and I walked back to the Hotel (faster than dealing with public transport, she said, and I was glad enough of some exercise). At the Hotel, I talked again with the manager. He told me that one of the conference attendees had left a computer bag in the hotel safe after checking out, and perhaps he had taken mine by mistake. I looked at the computer (from Oregon Graduate Institute) but it was a old Dell, twice as big as my laptop Digital HiNote, and I didn't see any way that the guy could have not known the difference.
The manager seemed to think that I should concentrate on replacing the plane tickets first. I thought I should start on the passports first, because they were likely to take longer, and the embassy was less likely to be open over the weekend (remember this is Friday afternoon by this point). He phoned the embassy, and it turns out if you put in an application by 16:00 Friday afternoon, you can have a replacement passport Tuesday afternoon. Else, no idea how long it would take. Yikes!
So Lee and I had the desk call a cab to take us to the American embassy. We were afraid we wouldn't make the deadline if we tried to deal with public transport. We did get there with about 20 minutes to spare, and went through the security without much incident. (The security at the American embassy exceeds anything else in Hungary, including the airport. X rays and metal detectors, and US Marines to buzz you through the huge metal door.) Fortunately I had photocopies of my passport (see the travel tips for details). Paid US $60.00 to apply for a new passport for me (Lee had a spare so she didn't need another passport) and got the procedures to follow (get photos taken, get some special stamps from post office, then exit visa at police station). The new passport will be ready on Tuesday at 14:00, nothing more to do until then.
The embassy staff directed us to a travel agent across the square, to start the process of getting replacement plane tickets. Of course they were closed when we got there. From here we decided to try an American Express office, figuring this is the best place to begin. The first few phone books I tried had the relevant pages torn out, but finally I did manage to find one, got the address, and navigated us to Deak ter and found the office. Here, Lee made a phone call to the travel agent in Gloucester, asking them to fax copies of the ticket coupon to the KLM office in Budapest and the service desk at the airport (both, to be safe). We couldn't get to an actual travel agent before closing time, so there's no more to do tonight.
We wandered over to the Vigado (pedestrian plaza along the Pest side of the Danube, with grand and glorious views of the river and Castle Hill) and found a place for dinner (recommended by my Fodor pocket guide, simple but filling). We decided to go to the folk dance concert that night, and as we had plenty of time, Lee stopped at an ATM for cash, and we walked along the river to get there.
It was a very pretty walk, along the Vigado to the Chain Bridge
(probably the most charming of the Budapest bridges, with lion statues
at each end) and then along the Buda side of the river below Castle
Hill. Lee posed for this picture in front of one of the lion statues.
When we got to the concert hall, though, it was empty and dark. No
show that night! Okay, plan B was the organ concert in Matyas
Cathedral, and we still had time to get there.
And that was when my balls turned to ice.
Oh crap, I thought, it's a setup. Two well dressed tourists talking to this slimeball, they think we're trying to buy drugs, and here I am without a passport, and Lee with a wallet freshly filled with cash. This could be very bad.
The police (if they were police) seemed rather in a hurry, but very firm. They asked to see each of our passports, and when I explained that I had mine stolen and was applying for a new one, they seemed to accept that. They asked the Cypriot if he was carrying any drugs, and how much money he had on him, then sent him on his way, and focused all their attention on us. Again I thought, this looks bad. Why did they let the greaseball go so easily?
They asked how much money we were carrying, and if we were carrying any drugs. I was desperate to appear cooperative, and I repeatedly offered for them to search me, opening my shoulder bag and so on. They didn't. But when they saw how much money Lee was carrying, they obviously refocused and gave us another verbal grilling. It was an awful and scary time, but finally they seemed convinced that we weren't a problem, returned our money to us, and explained that their job was to keep tourists like us safe (they even kissed Lee's hand), and let us go.
I guess I'll never know if they were real cops (though I suppose they were, since they did return all our money and didn't ask for a bribe). By this time I just wanted to get out of there. The whole city seemed to be turning into a dangerous and terrifying trap.
We headed for the riverside tram line. Lee started running to catch the tram, but fell and banged her face on the gravel by the tracks. I could see that her nose was bruised and bleeding, but I didn't know if she had other injuries. When I asked where she got hurt, she snapped, "Where do you think I got hurt?" I guessed that sarcasm meant she wasn't too badly injured, and we got the bleeding stopped with my hankerchief.
After all this, we finally managed to get to the furnicular, which is like a slanted elevator that takes passengers up the side of Castle Hill to the tourist area. This is actually a fun little ride, with quaint 19th century brass fittings and woodwork.
We made it to Matyas Cathedral just as the concert was starting. The cathedral is ornate and beautiful (as I wrote last Wednesday) and the music was very nice, including several choral works as well as two Bach fugues, and the acoustics of the space are fantastic, rich full notes resounding through the Gothic vaulted ceilings. But I was not in a good mood to enjoy it, after all that had happened. After the concert, all I wanted was to get back to the hotel without anything else going wrong (which I did).
I didn't get much sleep that night. I kept going over the events of the day, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, how I could have prevented all these accidents from happening, was I being punished, why did all this have to happen to me, and so on. Lee noted later that I tend to cooperate with negative circumstances: when the world is done beating up on me, I dutifully take over and start beating up on myself. Put that way, it seems pretty silly, but at the time I spent a pretty sleepless night.
At the airport, we found the KLM service desk, and they even speak reasonable English. The faxes we'd requested from the travel agent had not arrived, as far as we could figure out. Okay. Without all the ticket information (we had the itineraries, but that's not enough), we couldn't get actual tickets. So we had them send a request to NorthWest (KLM's affiliate Stateside) for them to send the information. Then grabbed some breakfast at the airport Sbarro, which was surprisingly not bad: scrambed eggs and muffins, and even orange juice. I also tried to make the phone calls to cancel my lost credit cards, but I could not get the public phones to work (after repeated attempts, gradually learning what the different bleeps and tones mean).
Shuttle bus back to the hotel, where I tried again to make the phone calls to cancel the credit cards. No soap. Some of them might be broken, but I don't know if that was all there was to it. Finally I went back up to the room (it was early afternoon by this time) and tried to rest. I couldn't. I had been dealing and managing and working for the last day and a half, and it was okay as long as I was busy. Once there was nothing more for me to do, my Iron Man act fell apart and I broke down in tears. Lee was very kind and soothing, and helped me through this very well.
Finally, after the emotional storm was over, we decided it was time to enjoy one of the spas that Budapest is so famous for. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of thermal springs and public baths. We went to the Gellert Hotel spa, one of the biggest and most famous, and close to our hotel too.
This was great fun. The hotel and spa complex is huge and ornate,
with loads of bathing beauty statues and mosaics and similar
decoration, real Old World elegance. Much to my relief, they have a
simple but effective security system for the lockers: they give you a
little metal tag with a number on it, and write the same number on a
little chalkboard inside the locker, then you put your stuff in it and
the guard locks it up. When you return, you only have to remember the
locker number (the one on the outside) and if your tag matches the
chalked number inside, you're golden. Very reassuring, after the
fiasco with the Summer Hill safe!
The spa itself is great, justifying its fame. There is one big
outdoor swimming pool, with wave action sometimes (10 minutes out of
every hour) and one big hot tub nearby, with hefty jets of hot water
that you can sit under. I spent most of my time swimming in the big
pool, with occasional trips to the hot pool, which is more of a
lounging experience. The best fun is when the waves start in the big
pool, lots of people get in and play in the waves like lunatics. I
showed some German kids how to body surf on the waves, banged into a
couple of people, and got banged into a few times, but everyone was
laughing and having a great time. This was just what I needed to get
myself out of my funk, and I ended up feeling refreshed and relaxed,
except that my heat rash was being really bad, looking like eczema.
We crossed the river and had dinner at another place on the Vigado (different, but similar to last night's place), again enjoying the panoramic view of the river and Castle Hill. We had a bunch of flyers and concert announcements from the tourist agencies, looked them over to see what shows were happening, and chose a multimedia show at the planetarium.
The planetarium is outside of the downtown area, but the Metro goes there and it's no difficulty to navigate to the right place. The show was a combination laser show and slide presentation, set to Orff's Carmina Burana. The theme was "the forces that shape mankind" or something like that, but you don't really need to know that, and as the vocals are in Latin, they're much more understandable to me than Hungarian (besides, I know the Carmina Burana well). Fun show, many montages of images washing over (covering the gamut of birth, death, food, drink, sex, war, you name it) and good laser work.
On the way home, taking the tram over the bridge, I saw fireworks! So we got off at the riverside to watch. The fireworks were upriver, by Margaret Island or so, but it was still fun to see them. I never did find out if it was a holiday or festival or what.
We grabbed falafel sandwiches and orange juice on the way out, took the tram to Moskva Ter, and transferred to another tram to get to the cog railway. This is a pleasant train (part of the city transit system, so our passes work, no tickets necessary) that took us up the hills to a pretty overlook, at the beginning of the Pioneer Rail.
The Pioneer Rail is a narrow gauge railway run by the Pioneers, the local equivalent of the Boy/Girl Scouts. All engineers, conductors, and station staff are scouts. Rather than ride the train, we started walking along a trail that was parallel to the tracks. Since we didn't have a map (there were several vague ones posted around the station), we kept to the trails closest to the train tracks as we tramped along.
This turned into a beautiful and relaxing day of hiking along trails that mostly ran under the forest canopy, cool and damp and green, and occasionally led across sunny spaces that got very hot very fast. There were campers with small fires in a couple of places, long stretches of idyllic parklike fields, tiny farms with flocks of chickens, and gentle ups and downs.
The high point (literally) was Janos Hegy, the highest point in
greater Budapest, topped with a dramatic Romanesque castle tower, with
several levels of battlements and balconies to look out over the city
and surrounding countryside. Best of all, there were at least a dozen
parasails and hang gliders and ultralights, graceful curves of bright
fabric, wheeling and drifting against the azure sky. This makes me
want to try flying again, sometime soon!
Here, Lee and I pose against the majestic views from Janos Hegy tower.
We had ham sandwiches and Eskimo bars at the roadside stand. There
was also an inflatable "moonwalk" ride and a trampoline, and we
considered trying them but didn't indulge (crowded with kids).
We continued on the trail, still trying to follow the tracks of the
Pioneer railway. Remember we didn't have a map, and there were no
signs in English. We only got slightly lost, once or twice. After
some backtracking, we found a reasonable trail and followed it down
hill. We found a great blackberry patch with lots of ripe berries,
and ate until our tongues were purple!
The trail was not very crowded. Once or twice some mountain bikers
came flying by, we did our best to stay out of their way. One woman
with kids rattled a question at me, I could only shake my head and
say, "nem Magyar" (no Hungarian). A big troupe of high school girls,
maybe a scout troop, passed by, giggling and chattering.
After several more switchbacks, we found the next-to-last station on
the rail line. (We had come perhaps 11 kilometers, with about 1 km to
go.) So we waited for the next train (only five minutes) and took it
to the last stop.
The Pioneers are very well behaved scouts, but very
stiff and proper in their little uniforms, and they take their
roles very seriously. Each start and stop of the train is accompanied
by the ritual of flags and whistles, and all the scouts line up and
salute the train as it passes. This is all kind of cute, with all the
little kids in uniforms, but also a little bit creepy (at least to me)
in its quasi military overtones. The older boys tend not to salute
with a sharp 45 degree angle, they raise one palm in a way that
reminds me of Nazis. Perhaps it's just me.
Tomorrow we're back into the maelstrom of administrative hell, trying to get the plane tickets, so early to bed.
Around 9:00, Lee and I set out to take care of as much business as possible. First stop was the tourist office at the Hotel Gellert, to get new public transport passes (ours had expired by this time) and a telephone card. No problems. Then to the KLM office in the downtown area, to try to get the replacement airline tickets. Turns out they had not received the faxed coupons from the travel agent, nor had NorthWest responded to the validation request we'd put in on Friday. So we put in another validation request to NorthWest, and we hope they will respond by this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
From there we went down to the Elizabeth Bridge, where I found a photo shop and had pictures taken for the new passport. While we were waiting for them to be developed, we walked along the Vaci and found some rows of vending booths, and I did a little gift shopping (this is myfirst chance to buy tourist stuff!) Got some T shirts, baseball caps, and so on. Looked at some very nice chess sets for cheap, but didn't end up getting any of those. Then picked up the pictures, they look fine.
Next we headed to the ConTours office (the booking agency for the EuroSpeech conference). I was hoping for a refund for the tickets to Lake Balaton that I didn't get to use on Friday (because I was dealing with the police and the embassy). They would not give me a refund (84 Euros), but I did get the address and email of the guy who left his computer in the hotel safe. It seems possible that he got my computer by mistake and left without noticing (I looked at his computer, a big Dell, and I doubt that he wouldn't have noticed the difference, but maybe he was in a hurry and half-asleep). They have already emailed him about this, and are hoping to hear from him soon. So am I!
All this time, I've been getting pretty comfortable with the public transport system, transferring between buses, trams, and the Metro frequently, and starting to feel like I really know what I'm doing.
Back to the Bela Bartok street and then Lee and I had another adventure: we went to the supermarket! It's got most of the stuff we want, but it's small (would only be a moderate sized grocery store in the States) and incredibly, insanely crowded, almost like the Metro at rush hour, with shelves. We found out some idiosyncracies, like you have to have someone weigh your fruits and vegetables and print out a little sticker before you take them to the register (oops!) but not to bad. The queues at the register are long and slow and crowded, no surprise there, but we made it through. Then we had lunch at the cafeteria, with big beers, and toted our purchases home.
After a shower and a little rest, I went down to the hotel manager's office to check in with him and find out if anything was happening. Turns out he was gone for the next couple of hours, but the KLM office had called and said the tickets were ready. (The secretary spoke little English, so this was a very crude communication!) She gave me a telephone to plug in for our room, with Soviet era jacks, ancient and huge. No messages at the front desk.
Lee and I went to the KLM office to get the tickets. Unfortunatly we
got on an express bus by mistake, missed the stop, and had to find a
local bus going the other way to backtrack, and by the time we got
there, they had just closed (at 16:30, which seems rather early to
me). So we went back to the hotel, and found that it was just after
17:00 so the hotel staff was gone and the manager's office locked up
for the night. Arrgh! So we had a little dinner of wine, cheese,
bread, and apples in the room. (Lee took my picture while I was
finishing up!)
After the show we wandered down the Vaci, looking for a place that serves Guiness (I had the thirst on me). Finally we found the Fregett (frigate) Pub, not far from the Peregrinus where we stayed the first night, and ahd a very enjoyable time. It's a real Irish pub, friendly without being rowdy, cosy but comfortable. We had some poultry dishes for dinner, and excellent Guiness.
Then finally we made it back to the hotel for a nightcap. I really hope we get the paperwork done tomorrow, otherwise we'll miss our connecting flight in Prague and have a whole new set of headaches.
With lots of food in hand, Lee cooked us a wonderful breakfast in the kitchenette. What a pleasure! Eggs soft boiled, bread, cheese, orange drink (it's not really juice) and Earl Grey tea.
After breakfast, I went to meet with the hotel manager. They're still trying to contact Oregon. I looked at the computer that had been left behind, and verified that it does belong to the Oregon lab. With his permission, I took it up to the room and used it to write up a statement of how I had checked my bag into the hotel safe and what I had done to try to check it back out. Then I took the computer back to his office and printed out several copies of the report, signed them, and left them with the hotel manager. He is obviously concerned about this whole affair, and wants me to talk to the hotel lawyer and help call the Oregon institute and so forth. I don't blame him. I still don't know if I'm going to sue them or what -- we will see.
Around 11:00 Lee and I set off for a very busy day of errands. At the
KLM office, we got our replacement airline tickets. Then at the Mulev
office (Hungarian Airlines), we got the tickets for our connection to
Prague. (All this is accompanied by the usual hassles of crowded
public transport, navigating the city by handheld map, and waiting in
lines at offices.) With a bit of extra time before the passpor would
be ready, we had a very nice lunch in Vorosmarty ter (pretty much the
tourist center of Pest) and Lee took this picture, looking over my shoulder
to the central memorial. We also did some gift shopping at the Folk Arts
Center nearby on Vaci.
On the way to the Metro, I took this picture of Lee in front of the
Parliament building, which is overwhelmingly ornate and majestic.
We went back to the hotel, stopping to buy more cheese and orange juice
(and Eskimo ice cream pops) at the supermarket. I would have liked to
go back to the Gellert from here and do some swimming, but the manager
called, very urgent to make the call to Oregon and find out the status
of my bag. So I made a couple of calls, left messages, no humans
available yet (16:30 our time, 7:00 am on the Pacific Coast). I
promised to get the receptionist to let me in to his office and try
again later.
So I wandered around and found the security guy, who was talking on the phone in another office. He sort of waved at me to indicate I was all set, and went on talking. But I wasn't quite comfortable leaving the manager's office open, so I hung around by the door, waiting for the security guy to come lock it up.
When the manager's phone rang, I figured it just might be Charlene from Oregon calling back, so I went in and picked it up. Lo and behold, it was Charlene, with by dad on a three way line! Turns out he was the one who was calling the American embassy in Budapest! I reassured him that I was okay and on my way home, with all paperwork taken care of. He must have been terribly worried, he was calling my research advisor at MIT as well. I can't imagine what kind of waves are being kicked up in the States.
Anyway I got my dad calmed down and assured him that I was okay and on my way home. Then I made arrangements with Charlene to ship my bag from Oregon to my home in Boston, late enough that I'd be there to pick it up, and told her to contact the hotel manager about shipping the Oregon computer (still in the hotel office) back to them.
All in all it's been a very busy and productive day! Lee and I had a quiet snack of wine, bread, cheese and fruit while packing to leave tomorrow morning.
Mentally I heaved a giant sigh of relief when the passport control officer handed my passport back to me. Up until then I was still bracing myself for the possibility that the exit visa wasn't right, or something else was wrong. I've never been so happy to have paperwork go smoothly!
The flight to Prague was uneventful (just 50 minutes) with a very nice little breakfast served. We took a cab to the hotel, which was supposed to be close to the airport, but turned out to be on the other side of downtown! So much for reserving ahead through travel agents. Anyway we got there, it's very nice, got settled into the room and rested a bit, then headed out to explore Prague's Old Town. A few blocks walk to the Metro, and a pass purchased at the tobacconist next to the station, is all it takes.
Prague is difficult to describe in detail, so I will focus on the
general feel of Old Town (the tourist area). It is absolutely thick
with historic architecture and tiny medeival streets. There are so
many buildings with sumptuous decoration and artwork that it sort of
blends into one huge live-in museum. This picture is in Wenceslas
Square, looking more-or-less east to the national museum.
After Budapest, Prague seems very commercial and Western, with loads
of money changers, street vendors, and mobs of tourists. I have a
feeling Budapest is about five years behind Prague in its
Westernization, and that soon the Eastern flavor will be all eaten up
by McDonalds and Taco Bells. There are also MOBS of tourists, and no
difficulty at all speaking English exclusively, in fact I didn't
manage to learn more than one word of Czech ("tek" means "thank you").
Mindful that we had only one afternoon, we took a three hour bus tour,
which is a great way to see lots of tourist stuff in a short amount of
time. From Wenceslas Square, it took us to Old Town Square,
the Jewish Quarter, all around the little streets of Old Town, and
then across the river to the Castle Hill. These pictures are in Old Town
Square, showing one of the numerous churches.
The Castle Hill complex is extensive, with this carillon at the
beginning, which played a nice little tune, and the President's Palace
overlooking the city.
There was
a ceremony going on when we arrived, with an honor guard of soldiers
and a brass marching band, that might have been a sendoff for some
indignitary, but definitely included a welcome for the Irish foreign
minister (Andrews, the Irish couple on the tour said, and they
recognized the Irish national anthem, even before I recognized the
flag being raised). So we killed a little time on the ramparts,
enjoying this fantastic view over the city.
When the ceremony was done, we could go in to the several courtyards,
seeing the President's Palace, St Vitus Cathedral, and numerous small
chapels and suqares and such. This picture shows the mosaic (under
restoration) on the south transept of St Vitus Cathedral.
We saw the tiny houses of Gold Street,
including Franz Kafka's house, the Toy Museum, and more ramparts and
squares.
This tour was given by a white haired old guy in a black shirt, who
talked like a vampire and was very knowledgable and helpful. There
was also a thin brunette girl with a lovely singsong voice, but she
took the German speaking group instead (who were on a shorter tour,
apparently, so we didn't see them again). Would have been nice to
listen to her voice some more.
Then we went back to Old Town Square, because it was almost 17:00 and we wanted to see the town clock strike the hour. We sat in an open air cafe right across from the clock, and enjoyed the show. Little windows open in the tower, and a succession of apostle statues come by and sort of look out the windows, while other figures on the tower are animated in various ways, nodding and bobbing and wiggling around. Great fun. We had dinner there in the cafe, chicken in wine sauce with spherical potato balls like french fries, and watched the clock again at 18:00. I enjoyed the heavy bock beer (Grumallein?)
From here we wandered through the Jewish Quarter, admiring the various
eras of buildings all jammed together, and crossed the river to see
what's over there. More fun little streets, but the best part was
taking the Charles Bridge back across the river. This is a real old
medeival bridge with barbicans at each end, and statues and stone
carvings all along the way. It's pedestrian only, and during the day
it is full of street vendors of all kinds. They were packing up and
leaving by the time we crossed, but we got to see several tour boats
cruise by underneath, some with jazz playing, some with dancing.
There was one string combo playing folk songs (who were very good),
and one guy with a collection of medeival instruments, playing one
after another (who was not very good, but we took his picture anyway).
I was expecting more street
music, though, and found several places along the bridge that would be
perfect for an a cappella act like
Soundstage 7
or similar. In the darkening twilight, Castle Hill is all lit up from
end to end, making a stunning fantasy image of a majestic edifice
floating over the murky city.
Not much to say about the return home. Got up way too early, caught a
cab to the airport (we had arranged with the hotel the day before to
call one, which makes it cheaper), and did all the airport stuff.
I did some qi gong while waiting to board the plane, and Lee took
these pictures of me. We got on the plane and waited on the
runway for an hour, flew a short hop to Amsterdam. As before, we had
several hours of layover in Amsterdam, and almost got on the train to
go downtown and wander around again, but I bailed. I didn't feel like
getting lost and missing our flight home, and I wasn't sure if the
Amsterdam visa in my Hungarian issued passport would attract undue
attention when entering the States. So we hung out in the airport,
wandering for a while, bought some gifts (mostly chocolate!) and
caught up on journal writing.
I had noticed a newspaper that headlined Hurricane Floyd, but since it was talking about damage in the Carolinas, I figured it wouldn't concern us. Wrong again. We did land, finally, after some very bumpy air, just a bit past 17:00 (which was just about the peak time of Floyd hitting Massachusetts). On the roller coaster approach, I realized that worse things than losing your passport can happen while traveling! When the plane finally touched down, all the passengers applauded!
Then came the usual mess at Logan. Almost all flights were cancelled because of the weather, and our checked luggage got lost, so we had to go through the process of filing the claims in the baggage office. While there, Lee left the grocery bag with our Amsterdam gift purchases at a pay phone, and it was promptly scooped up by airport security and taken to the bomb squad or something. I was just about ready to scream. But we finally found it, got a shuttle to the T, and found that some subway lines were closed due to flooding. Fortunately our routes were okay (Lee went to North Station for the commuter rail to Rockport, and I to the Red Line). I got rained on walking home, and my rain gear and umbrella were in the luggage that got lost, but at this point, after all I'd been through, I barely noticed the rain!
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