Budapest, Day 2

On Saturday, we visited the Grand Market, by walking the opposite direction down Vaci Utca (Fashion Street) to the end. This direction was quite different in flavor, with souvenir and antique shops.

The market is a huge building with three levels. In the basement is a grocery store, but the ground floor is covered with stalls. Merchants proffer meats and sausages, fruits and veggies, beans and legumes, pastries and sweets, and, of course, paprika. Entire booths filled are filled with paprika, sweet and hot, in gift packs, tins and bags, with tiny wooden scoops. Tourists throng to buy their souvenirs.

On the top level, we waded shoulder to shoulder through the prepared food stalls, watching people buying a beer to help their shopping (at 10:30 am!) or langos -- fried bread with toppings, either savory or sweet, many looking like small pizzas.

Then we perused the souvenir wares. Ceramics, woven blue with white painting or white with multicolor floral decals. Brightly embroidered linens and traditional folkwear vests. Wooden toys; brightly colored cut crystal; T-shirts. We saw a rhinestone version that said only Buda, but never found the more masculine version for Poppy.

I found some hand-painted blown eggs that were different from the traditional motifs, and succumbed to a bright coral egg with a chickadee set in a scalloped oval. 850 HUF (Hugarian forint) or less than five dollars.

Leather was very common as well, purses and gloves and fur-lined caps, not quite the thing to take home for summer in Austin. The cutwork felt bags were too tempting to pass up though.

When we emerged after our shopping trek, cherries and chocolate cookies in hand, the streets were wet. Back to the hotel we went to plan our trip to Trofea Grill, an all-you-can-eat-and-drink Hungarian buffet. Off we went again, to our first trip on the Budapest metro, in the oldest line built before 1900. The old trains were noisy and wobbly. Most interesting was trying to buy the tickets from a machine with no information in English. Hungarian is NOT related, and those 14 vowels and 30 consonants don't make any sense to us.

We managed to make it to the restaurant, and sat down to our table in an old, traditional upstairs room with beamed ceilings, informed that we had two and one-half hours to consume all we could of the 100+ dishes. Keenan immediately tried out the seltzer water bottle and sprayed us all. The waiters brought us glasses of champagne and were a bit mystified by Joren only asking for still water. They tried to talk him into a soft drink, to no avail. When I refused a second glass of champagne, the response was "Really!?"

The food was fun to explore. I most enjoyed the salad bar, since salad seems quite expensive here in restaurants. There was a large selection of conventional salad veggies, plus another large display of prepared salads and one of fruits (Joren finally got the banana he has been seeking since getting leg cramps). We didn't even make room to try the various sausages, the tray of liverwurst, or other appetizer items.

We were entertained by the automatic chafing dishes that opened when you stood in front of them, to retrieve goulash, sliced beef in gravy, chicken with peas and mushrooms and roast potatoes, etc. Best was the roast duck legs. I've even enjoyed the sauerkraut here, which doesn't have the strong vinegar flavor it seems to have at home.

Other than those two outings, we had a light day because we just needed a break.