My brother Jim and I walked around Budapest like crazy today. Here are some of the highlight pictures. The descriptions precede the pictures. Oh, and I suppose I should warn you that I allowed myself a bit of adolescent locker-room commentary.

On the Buda side of the river is Gellert Hill, at the top of which is a statue to freedom. I wanted to go there. Note the trees along the hillside that are blooming yellow. They are beautiful up close, but I haven't figured out what they are called yet.

James and I figured that the two old buildings are an old train station. The newer structure that interpenetrates them is called the Balna Center, a commercial, cultural and entertainment space. I've seen all sorts of music performed here, and it's just a block from the Grand Market.

My newest t-shirt

A closer view of the freedom statue. I like this one because of the framing.

Here are those yellow trees again. I have to figure out what they are called.

My brother in front of a tree with Seussian blossoms. These trees are also all over the place. I should learn their names, too.

Another framing of freedom

This is a sculpture to the side of freedom. On this occasion I carefully position myself so I could get the nice gap between the right arm and the head, otherwise the shot would have been entirely unaesthetic.

Hungary was an ostensibly Christian kingdom, hence the cross. I remember another sculpture where angels were taking a mortally-wounded warrior to heaven straight from the back of his horse.

By this time of day my blood sugar was crashing and I insisted on lunch. Jim wasn't so crazy about the idea, but he ended up ending a plateful anyway. One good thing about Hungary: they give you a man-sized plate. None of those wimpy "small plates" that leave you hungry half an hour later like cheap Chinese food. Jim had roasted duck with roasted vegetables.

Me, I had a veal schnitzel with roasted vegetables.

By childhood habit I sometimes call my brother "Jamer." Here is Jamer in front of some building, whose name I'll have to figure out later.

Some years ago my mother took me to a presentation where a professional photographer discussed framing pictures. He commented that strong angles make pictures dynamic. I like this shot for how it incorporates the bridge on the right. I didn't manage to make the picture dynamic, but it pleases me to demonstrate that I was at least thinking about what he said, and indeed on the whole my pictures have improved since that presentation. One only improves by taking risks and practicing, and this photo is part of that process for me.

If you follow the right bank of the Danube northward from Gellert Hill, just past the next bridge you will see a hill crowned with the Citadella, which of course is Italian for 'small city.' Note the double set of tracks leading up the hill, which guides two funiculars. I was frankly delighted when James said the word out loud. I think previously I had only seen it in print. Needless to say, as we rode upward I intoned, "We are having some fun now!", a phrase I learned back in Missouri from Mary Jo (née Allen) Tucker, who was born in Arkansas, which, as you know, is the only state mentioned in the Bible: "Noah looked from the Arkansas land." At ride's end Jamer intoned, "That was parTICularly fun." Although truer words have been said, punnier ones have not.

Now we have some shots from the Citadella.

I'm not quite sure why, but Jim really liked this particular horse sculpture.

This is Jim from the top of Citadella. My camera was in auto mode here, and it choose "portrait mode," which focuses on the face/body of the person and slightly defocuses the background, although the day's haze was sort of doing that as well. Really nice result. I think our mother will love this picture.

She won't like this one so much, but I again like it because it demonstrates the camera's portrait mode effects.

Parliament building: note how the framing makes the shoot much more interesting than a simple head-on shot would have.

I like this one as well, and somehow the angle makes it more interesting for me than a straight head-on shot.

Tree and steeple shot: I'll leave it to you to determine why I took this one.

This is candied pomelo which I bought at the Grand Market. Very tasty snack.

Jim had recently completed a stint on the boat that captains alternatively with another mariner. Having left the boat, he visited Sardinia and Porto Cervo, flew to Prague, trained to Linz (Austria), rented a motorcycle, and then drove through Slovakia to Budapest because he wanted to take me to dinner. This is precisely the kind of sibling everyone should have. He took me to Bangkok Thai, a restaurant that serves Mexican food. (Yes, that was sarcasm.) Here is Jim at the restaurant.

Me, I ordered frog legs in chili-coconut sauce. (No, that was not sarcasm. I am serious.) The dish was tasty, but of course even ebola-weeping corpses would taste good in chili-coconut sauce. Frankly, all the little bones were more irritating than the meat was worth. Next time I'm ordering a prime rib.

Deichmann... this store blew me away. I had no idea a Mann could be a Deich.

This really should not be in Budapest: I'm an Arizona boy, and I can assure you that no one should eat Mexican food east of Santa Fe or Albuquerque, and yes, I'm including Texas with their disgusting Tex-Mex food and irritating Eastern accents.

What an unfortunately named restaurant... the "s" in Hungarian is pronounced like "sh" in English, and this word strongly resembles the Russian word "kakaesh," which means "you poop," so I took one look at the restaurant and could not avoid interpreting it as "you poop plus..." ("Sz" is a plain ol' "s" sound in Hungarian.) Actually, the kak- root has that meaning in a heck of a lot of European languages: I even remember it from Ancient Greek (κάκκη). Yes, yes, I know all my readers are thinking, "Don, you idiot: everyone knows that in Hungarian "kakas" means "cock" (male chicken). Gosh, you're right: that is a massive improvement. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)