What Do Bird Flu , Cheltenham And Budapest Have In Common?
Well, I know I said that I wouldn't be making entries every day, and I won't as a general rule, but there is still Laura to think about and the fact that for two solid weeks she won't be able to lift her head and desperately needs material that can be read to her by loyal P. And after what I just saw in the online NY Times, I just had to go to the Blog immediately.
Where have we been in the past month? Budapest (Hungary, of course) and Britain (London and Cheltenham - the races were really fun - my first steeple chase). And what do I read in the NY Times today? There is an outbreak of the deadliest form of bird flu in the largest turkey farm in Europe, which is located, guess where - yes, Britain. And what did we eat for dinner in Cheltenham? Turkey of course - Ed's favorite food and generally impossible to find in Ukraine. Reading on, I learned that there had been an outbreak of the flu in France the year before, but that had been contained and there were no further incidents until last month, when it was found in the domestic goose farms in, yes, of course, Hungary. And what did we eat in Budapest - what food is Budapest most famous for? Goose (goose liver in particular), of course.
Being me I have naturally brought along a supply of Tamaflu, but I never dreamed that I might actually have to use it. And being the unbelievable hypochondriac that I am, I probably won't get any sleep tonight.
So that brings me to some of our travels. We have actually been traveling so much and have been to so many charming, old world Eastern European capitals in the last few months that we were burnt out (they all began to look and feel the same) and didn't get to enjoy our most recent trip, to Budapest (and with the goose bird flu thing I hope it isn't our last trip!), as much as we otherwise would have. It's a beautiful city - especially at night from the top of Gellert Hill on the Buda side of the Danube. One mistake was our (my) choice of hotels - it was right near Hero's Square, which is also gorgeous - with huge columns in a sort of semi circle, and the magnificent Art Museum (with a van Gogh exhibit on while we were there) on one side and another, equally beautiful museum on the other. But it was about two miles from the city center and somehow we felt a little out of it. The metros there are great, but we didn't know that you had to pay when you changed from one line to another and we got fined $25 each during what I believe to be an entrapment sting operation - they block all the exits to the car at the last stop (which happened to be our stop) and make you show them your validated ticket before you can get out. Then you have to pay the fine, in cash, which of course we didn't have. Ed was held hostage while I was allowed out to go to the nearest ATM and withdraw the necessary Florints using my Visa card, which I never leave home without.
The Budapest opera house is stunning, and we saw Gotterdamerang (with super titles in Hungarian - oy vey, what a language - IMPOSSIBLE!!!! Except for Basque I have never seen anything that comes close) - not such a hot performance, but worth the $50 per ticket cost (I am still flabbergasted at how little one has to pay for tickets in these cities) for the gorgeous music and the hall and seeing everyone dressed to the nines - I'm talking ball gowns and tuxedos. We were nicely dressed - but not that nice!
The weather was unbelievable - in the 60's F. in January!!! The only way we knew it was winter was that it got dark at about 4:30.
We had a tour of the Parliament - also breathtaking - went to the synagogue (the second largest in the world) and walked through the "Jewish" section - where they never heard of bagels - and walked past the new Gresham Four Seasons as much as we could - what a building, what a view, and what a location - truly amazing. I must go back and stay there (at about 4 times the cost of our hotel). We had our first elegant dinner anywhere since we left the States in June - at Grundel - very near our hotel (delicious food - goose of course and goose liver of course) and fantastic musicians who play this xylophone type instrument that's native to Hungary and is really extraordinary, and then got a taxi to take us to Gellert Hill to see the city at night (so very beautiful with the lights on the bridges and The Four Seasons Hotel!). The driver waited for us while we did that, and then took us to the baths that Budapest is famous for. We chose Rudas, one the oldest baths, founded by the Turks in the 4th century or something like that - anyway, very old but supposedly renovated last year. These baths had recently changed their policies and hours and now permitted women in to the baths while the men were there, and also extended their weekend hours (they used to close at 6 p.m., but now they let both sexes in between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.). I'm afraid the baths are just not for us. They have about 6 different pools, all different temperatures, ranging from 35 degrees C (that's really hot) to about 18 degrees C (that's really cold). I just felt like I was taking a bath with a lot of other people, mostly very fat people wearing very skimpy bathing suits. We left shortly after arriving.
We decided that we should check out the location of the law school that has invited Ed to teach a U.S. criminal law course for 6 to 8 weeks next fall. We knew from our discussions with them that the law school is not next to the University itself (which is right smack dab in the middle of the city center). In fact, it turns out that it is really way, way out of town - requiring two buses to get to and from the city center. Since we will have spent so much time living in Eastern Europe by then, we decided to be perfectly frank with the director of the program that arranges these gigs, and explain to him that we either wanted to live in a city center, or go to some exotic place like Mongolia. We'll see what happens - when we emailed his assistant, she emailed back to say that they had thought this law school was in the center of the city and would we reconsider if it was - well, sure, we said, but it's not in the center - it's the University that is in the center. Obviously they weren't totally offended by our rather obnoxious position (we had said in the email that we realized that this was an obnoxious position and that if they wanted to cross Ed off the list that would be okay), so we'll see what happens.
Cheltenham and London will have to wait - it's getting late here, and if I write about Cheltenham, I'll want to write about the Kharkiv Office and the project in general, so I'll do that next time.
Where have we been in the past month? Budapest (Hungary, of course) and Britain (London and Cheltenham - the races were really fun - my first steeple chase). And what do I read in the NY Times today? There is an outbreak of the deadliest form of bird flu in the largest turkey farm in Europe, which is located, guess where - yes, Britain. And what did we eat for dinner in Cheltenham? Turkey of course - Ed's favorite food and generally impossible to find in Ukraine. Reading on, I learned that there had been an outbreak of the flu in France the year before, but that had been contained and there were no further incidents until last month, when it was found in the domestic goose farms in, yes, of course, Hungary. And what did we eat in Budapest - what food is Budapest most famous for? Goose (goose liver in particular), of course.
Being me I have naturally brought along a supply of Tamaflu, but I never dreamed that I might actually have to use it. And being the unbelievable hypochondriac that I am, I probably won't get any sleep tonight.
So that brings me to some of our travels. We have actually been traveling so much and have been to so many charming, old world Eastern European capitals in the last few months that we were burnt out (they all began to look and feel the same) and didn't get to enjoy our most recent trip, to Budapest (and with the goose bird flu thing I hope it isn't our last trip!), as much as we otherwise would have. It's a beautiful city - especially at night from the top of Gellert Hill on the Buda side of the Danube. One mistake was our (my) choice of hotels - it was right near Hero's Square, which is also gorgeous - with huge columns in a sort of semi circle, and the magnificent Art Museum (with a van Gogh exhibit on while we were there) on one side and another, equally beautiful museum on the other. But it was about two miles from the city center and somehow we felt a little out of it. The metros there are great, but we didn't know that you had to pay when you changed from one line to another and we got fined $25 each during what I believe to be an entrapment sting operation - they block all the exits to the car at the last stop (which happened to be our stop) and make you show them your validated ticket before you can get out. Then you have to pay the fine, in cash, which of course we didn't have. Ed was held hostage while I was allowed out to go to the nearest ATM and withdraw the necessary Florints using my Visa card, which I never leave home without.
The Budapest opera house is stunning, and we saw Gotterdamerang (with super titles in Hungarian - oy vey, what a language - IMPOSSIBLE!!!! Except for Basque I have never seen anything that comes close) - not such a hot performance, but worth the $50 per ticket cost (I am still flabbergasted at how little one has to pay for tickets in these cities) for the gorgeous music and the hall and seeing everyone dressed to the nines - I'm talking ball gowns and tuxedos. We were nicely dressed - but not that nice!
The weather was unbelievable - in the 60's F. in January!!! The only way we knew it was winter was that it got dark at about 4:30.
We had a tour of the Parliament - also breathtaking - went to the synagogue (the second largest in the world) and walked through the "Jewish" section - where they never heard of bagels - and walked past the new Gresham Four Seasons as much as we could - what a building, what a view, and what a location - truly amazing. I must go back and stay there (at about 4 times the cost of our hotel). We had our first elegant dinner anywhere since we left the States in June - at Grundel - very near our hotel (delicious food - goose of course and goose liver of course) and fantastic musicians who play this xylophone type instrument that's native to Hungary and is really extraordinary, and then got a taxi to take us to Gellert Hill to see the city at night (so very beautiful with the lights on the bridges and The Four Seasons Hotel!). The driver waited for us while we did that, and then took us to the baths that Budapest is famous for. We chose Rudas, one the oldest baths, founded by the Turks in the 4th century or something like that - anyway, very old but supposedly renovated last year. These baths had recently changed their policies and hours and now permitted women in to the baths while the men were there, and also extended their weekend hours (they used to close at 6 p.m., but now they let both sexes in between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.). I'm afraid the baths are just not for us. They have about 6 different pools, all different temperatures, ranging from 35 degrees C (that's really hot) to about 18 degrees C (that's really cold). I just felt like I was taking a bath with a lot of other people, mostly very fat people wearing very skimpy bathing suits. We left shortly after arriving.
We decided that we should check out the location of the law school that has invited Ed to teach a U.S. criminal law course for 6 to 8 weeks next fall. We knew from our discussions with them that the law school is not next to the University itself (which is right smack dab in the middle of the city center). In fact, it turns out that it is really way, way out of town - requiring two buses to get to and from the city center. Since we will have spent so much time living in Eastern Europe by then, we decided to be perfectly frank with the director of the program that arranges these gigs, and explain to him that we either wanted to live in a city center, or go to some exotic place like Mongolia. We'll see what happens - when we emailed his assistant, she emailed back to say that they had thought this law school was in the center of the city and would we reconsider if it was - well, sure, we said, but it's not in the center - it's the University that is in the center. Obviously they weren't totally offended by our rather obnoxious position (we had said in the email that we realized that this was an obnoxious position and that if they wanted to cross Ed off the list that would be okay), so we'll see what happens.
Cheltenham and London will have to wait - it's getting late here, and if I write about Cheltenham, I'll want to write about the Kharkiv Office and the project in general, so I'll do that next time.
posted by Susan Spivak at 7:52 PM
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