{"id":722,"date":"2007-05-19T03:04:14","date_gmt":"2007-05-19T07:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=722"},"modified":"2018-08-18T21:46:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T01:46:09","slug":"saturday-may-19-2007-books-and-sausages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, May 19, 2007 \u2014 Books and Sausages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"07-05-19<\/a>Three days in Budapest. We did a lot of walk\u00ading in this city, which has a feels total\u00adly dif\u00adfer\u00adent from Prague. Often, we ate in the gigan\u00adtic Cen\u00adtral Mar\u00adket. This grand struc\u00adture orig\u00adi\u00adnal\u00adly incor\u00adpo\u00adrat\u00aded an indoor canal by which goods were deliv\u00adered to the mar\u00adket\u2019s traders. It must be four times the size of the St. Lawrence Mar\u00adket in Toron\u00adto, and hous\u00ades only god knows how many tons of sausages. I par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly liked snack\u00ading on l\u00e1n\u00adgos, flat disks of fried dough which came with a vari\u00adety of ingre\u00addi\u00adents, sort of like piz\u00adza slices. They would be a big hit in Cana\u00adda if they were introduced.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"07-05-19<\/a>The archi\u00adtec\u00adture of Budapest is quite dif\u00adfer\u00adent from Prague. The Hun\u00adgar\u00adi\u00adans seem to like mon\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtal grandeur. There are broad Parisian-style boule\u00advards. Stat\u00adues of mighty-thewed Mag\u00adyar war\u00adriors, look\u00ading like they stepped out of a Conan com\u00adic, are every\u00adwhere. But the most dis\u00adtinc\u00adtive fea\u00adture of the city is its unusu\u00adal num\u00adber of book\u00adstores. I have nev\u00ader seen any place with such a num\u00adber and vari\u00adety of book\u00adstores, from hum\u00adble lit\u00adtle nooks to huge mul\u00adti-floor empo\u00adria. The Hun\u00adgar\u00adi\u00adans must read a lot. Almost all of this huge mass of print\u00aded mat\u00adter is in Mag\u00adyar, though you can usu\u00adal\u00adly find a few Ger\u00adman, French, and (more rarely) Eng\u00adlish shelves in any store. Almost any\u00adthing of sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcance seems to be trans\u00adlat\u00aded and pub\u00adlished here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"07-05-19<\/a>Our most seri\u00adous tourist for\u00aday was to the Nation\u00adal Muse\u00adum. This was a very well planned and orga\u00adnized muse\u00adum of Hun\u00adgar\u00adi\u00adan his\u00adto\u00adry, pro\u00adceed\u00ading sys\u00adtem\u00adat\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly, room by room, from pre\u00adhis\u00adto\u00adry to the present. The muse\u00adum even includ\u00aded a repro\u00adduc\u00adtion of a 1930\u2019s Budapest cin\u00ade\u00adma, with news\u00adreels run\u00adning, and posters of Hun\u00adgar\u00adi\u00adan movie stars on the walls. I was par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly pleased by the Avar room, since I had nev\u00ader seen any arti\u00adfacts from that cul\u00adture before. The Avars were an Asian tribe, either Tur\u00adkic or Mon\u00adgolic, or some com\u00adbi\u00adna\u00adtion of both, who pushed their way into cen\u00adtral Europe, and had a more-or-less sta\u00adble king\u00addom based in Hun\u00adgary from 568 AD<\/span> to 810 AD<\/span>., after which the self-iden\u00adti\u00adfied eth\u00adnic\u00adi\u00adty quick\u00adly van\u00adished. Pre\u00adsum\u00adably, they sim\u00adply melt\u00aded into the grow\u00ading Slav\u00adic pop\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtion. When the Mag\u00adyars arrived in Hun\u00adgary, in 895 AD<\/span>, there was lit\u00adtle trace of them. But dur\u00ading the height of their pow\u00ader, they were the prin\u00adci\u00adpal threat to the Byzan\u00adtine Empire, and it was their inva\u00adsion that drove the Ger\u00adman\u00adic Lom\u00adbards across the alps into Italy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the base\u00adment, there was some\u00adthing real\u00adly fine. Budapest, in Roman times, was the city of Aquin\u00adcum. The city had around 30,000 inhab\u00adi\u00adtants by the end of the 2nd cen\u00adtu\u00adry, most of whom would have been Roman\u00adized celts. But a full Roman legion was sta\u00adtioned there, so there would have been a fair num\u00adber of peo\u00adple from all over the empire. Aquin\u00adcum was a cen\u00adter of stonework, mass-pro\u00adduc\u00ading tomb\u00adstones, among oth\u00ader things. Because of this, the muse\u00adum has an entire room of engraved tomb\u00adstones, often for peo\u00adple of quite hum\u00adble sta\u00adtion. A mule-dri\u00adver, for instance, had quite a nice tomb\u00adstone. There was an extra\u00ador\u00addi\u00adnary vari\u00adety of styles, reli\u00adgious sym\u00adbols, and types of inscrip\u00adtion. There were poignant sto\u00adries: a beau\u00adti\u00adful girl who died young, a legion\u00adnaire from Cyprus who mar\u00adried a local girl. Rarely have I felt so strong a con\u00adnec\u00adtion with peo\u00adple in the Roman world, as in this room.<\/span><\/p>\n

We walked all over the city. We climbed the steep bluffs on the Buda side of the Danube. We entered a church inside a cave. We walked the full length of Andr\u00e1ssy Avenue, all of which is des\u00adig\u00adnat\u00aded a World Her\u00aditage Site. We walked the grounds of the High Cas\u00adtle. We some of the lux\u00adu\u00adri\u00adous Baths, which are essen\u00adtial\u00adly ancient Roman baths as trans\u00admit\u00adted through Byzan\u00adtium and the Ottoman Empire to the Haps\u00adburgs, with rooms at dif\u00adfer\u00adent tem\u00adper\u00ada\u00adtures, masseurs, and so forth. I was tempt\u00aded by this sybarit\u00adic paas\u00adtime, but Isaac was not, and I did\u00adn\u2019t feel like going alone. We saw a bizarre lit\u00adtle cas\u00adtle in a park which con\u00adtained a stat\u00adue memo\u00adri\u00adal\u00adiz\u00ading the works of \u201cAnony\u00admous\u201c. It is def\u00adi\u00adnite\u00adly an ele\u00adgant city.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hos\u00adtel we stayed at was built into one of the typ\u00adi\u00adcal inner-court apart\u00adment blocks. These are the lin\u00adear descen\u00addants of the Roman insu\u00adlae<\/em>, each one being a lit\u00adtle vil\u00adlage in the city. The hos\u00adtel was run by a young Cana\u00addi\u00adan and Amer\u00adi\u00adcan, and it hap\u00adpened that there were oth\u00ader Cana\u00addi\u00adans stay\u00ading while we were there, so we found our\u00adselves in a long evening of pok\u00ader, fol\u00adlowed by a trip to a sleazy bar. We dis\u00adcov\u00adered that Hun\u00adgary pro\u00adduces some of the world\u2019s most ined\u00adi\u00adble pota\u00adto chips. Isaac expe\u00adri\u00adenced momen\u00adtary ter\u00adror when the slats of the bunk-bed above him broke under the strain of a guest known as The Behemoth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My neme\u00adsis: a vast tem\u00adple of schnitzel and sausages.<\/p><\/div>\n

I deter\u00admined that if I stayed in Budapest, I would soon weigh 200 lbs. Just too much good food, most of it involv\u00ading pota\u00adtoes and sausages. A dan\u00adger\u00adous place for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

After three days, we returned to Prague. Isaac is head\u00aded off, alone, to Aus\u00adtralia. I\u2019m stay\u00ading for a few days, until I catch my flight back home.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three days in Budapest. We did a lot of walk\u00ading in this city, which has a feels total\u00adly dif\u00adfer\u00adent from Prague. Often, we ate in the gigan\u00adtic Cen\u00adtral Mar\u00adket. This grand struc\u00adture orig\u00adi\u00adnal\u00adly incor\u00adpo\u00adrat\u00aded an indoor canal by which goods \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-at-blog-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9196,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/9196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}