Oh, gross, jetlag-jetlag-jetlag. I inteded to be up a seven. Woke up. Lay down again for a moment. Wasn't conscious again till eleven. Bleah.

I had an appointment at one, so I googled the directions to our meeting place, copied them onto paper (maybe I should have brought a smart phone) and headed out. Most of the old town area is free of grafitti, but this bit caught my eye:

It reads, "Shoot a hundred niggers!" In the Hungarian context it doesn't usually mean people of African descent. It is aimed at the most common immigrants here, which includes Turks and Syrians and other folks seeking work in Hungary. (There is also a major anti-Gypsy sentiment, but that's not unique to Hungary. You find it all over Europe.) Orban, the current prime minister, has outraged European sensibilities by publically declaring that multiculturalism doesn't work for Hungary. Essentially, Hungary should be for Hungarians. It's the same type of stuff that racist politicians do in the US in order to shore up their popularity.

Then I came across this curiousity:

It made me flash back to the ManBearPig, to my embarrassment. I don't even like South Park.

Not far was my favorite fountain of the city. Click the video to watch.

Cool, eh? The moving water emulates the turning of a book's pages. It's located near a historical university, of course.

Then somehow I got lost. I never mind getting lost in a foreign city, if my time table is not too tight, and I had left myself a decent margin for error. My landlord had provided a paper map that I was carrying with me, and that resolved the issue.

My partner in crime for the day was Oguz, a Turkish acquaintance who has a master's in English, another in Central European history, has worked as an English instructor but now has a job with an IT company in Budapest. We reconnoitered at the Starbuck's near the Astoria metro station. Sad, I know. His choice, not mine. And we started looking for a place with liquids. Found an overpriced tourist restaurant that offered chicken paprikash, the only dish that I really wanted to try in Hungary. He hydrated, while I both hydrated and refueled. Here's the paprikash.

The dish was bland, frankly. It was inoffensive, filling, especially since it had Hungarian noodles as well, essentially the same as spätzle. Sorry, Hungarians, but once again your reputation for culinary delight is failing to match up to the standards of a man who regularly goes to Filiberto's.

From there we went in search of an ice cream place. On the way we encountered this juxtaposition:

Sberbank is one of the biggest banks of Russia. To see it here cheek by jowl with an Irish Pub made me snicker.

We hung out for about 4 hours, by which time Oguz's company had become tiresome, so I begged off politely and headed homeward. On the way I stopped to get something cold to drink. Can you imagine: I actually found a café with ICE ? And lunch had worn off. To my surprise, this was on their menu:

It's a tortilla stuffed with ham and cheese and then put through a panini press. A Hungarian quesadilla. Whodathunkit? They also offered one made with cheese and corn (huh?), and one they called Mexican. I can get Mexican food at home. Don't need that here. But the ham and cheese one sounded good. And it made me think that a panini press was not nearly as useless a thing as I might have thought previously.

So I read a while, cooled off, and then headed homeward. Exhaustion. Jet lag. Yet I couldn't sleep for a while. Finally I drifted off at 8:30 p.m., fully expecting not to wake for twelve hours.