Our first day in Budapest

Yesterday we started with a tour of the grand opera house in Budapest.  It's quite elaborate and one of the crown jewels of the city.  

We next went to the synagogue which was built in the mid 1800s.  It was fascinating to learn about the history of the Hungarian Jews.  It amazed me that at the peak, nearly 20% of the population was Jewish.  They even had their own version called "Neologism"  (between conservative and orthodox).

 The synagogue itself had elements of a cathedral with preaching pulpits on the sides and a big organ. 

The synagogue is in a complex with another synagogue and school, surrounding a courtyard that was made out of necessity into a graveyard during WWII.  This now is a kind of holocaust memorial.  Many, but not all, of the Jews in Hungary were murdered or died over the course of the war.  

We then drove to the top of the hill to see the view and the palace buildings.  Much is under renovation so we didn't go in.

We had lunch at a bistro where the highlight was getting great pastries ... apple strudel at last!

We stopped by the Hero Square, a giant plaza with statues of various heroes from the many tumultuous times of Hungary's history.

Our last formal stop of the day was at the Gellert baths.  This is an older bath house feed by natural hot springs.  There are many baths all over the city.  It was quite a process to register and enter.  My favorite was the automation.  You received a "proxy watch" which was a plastic armband with a watch-sized disc.  You used this to enter the baths.  Then, you held it up to a wall mounted device which assigned you a locker.  Then, when you got to your specific locker, your proxy watch could open it up.  The watch is waterproof so it also was your proof of purchase, and you were to wear it the whole time.  When you leave, you drop the proxy watch into a box and it releases your locker for others and lets you out (and keeps the watch ... as Cathy pointed out, it keeps it like they keep the last ball in mini-golf!).

We were constantly lost in the baths going from room to room and pool to pool.  Each pool is at a different temperature.  We had to rent towels so we stopped at the towel desk where a stern looking woman, who we decided to call "The Soviet", explained that we are being charged quite a bit but when we return them all, we get back the deposit.  This was challenging for us given that we were all going to leave at different times, so we set up amongst ourselves an elaborate system to try to get all the towels back to Joan, who was to return them for the group.  Midway through the visit I tried to exchange my soaked towel for a dry one, but The Soviet was having none of it.  She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and made it clear that no such thing was possible.  In the end, Joan managed to cajole her into returning the deposit even though Lenny had separately returned his towel.

Since I'm saying kaddish for my dad, I wanted to go to services, and Lenny, Cathy and Sandy joined me.  We went back to the synagogue and headed for a small room in the school.  The security guard wasn't letting us in, but fortunately a young man came by and we explained that we wanted to say Kaddish, and he instructed the guard to let us in.  Cathy and I had to go to the separate woman's area.  They did both the afternoon and evening services in about 20 minutes flat, and it went so fast, and with such a strange accent, that it was nearly impossible to follow.  Every time I figured out where I was, I would lose it a few minutes later.  Fortunately the young man caught my eye each time the kaddish came up, so I was able to accomplish my goal.

We then had dinner in a small Transylvanian restaurant (is Transylvania a real country?).  We tried the chicken paprika, which is a Hungarian spice.  Then we met up with Guy/Pascale, Joan/Karl for an organ concert at the giant St. Stephen's Basilica.  The music and the structure were quite impressive, although the rock hard seats not very comfortable!

After a stop in a fun cafe for some wine and desert, we called it a day.

Donna