Still Waiting? Yeah, Me Too.

Still waiting to see those Hungary photos, eh? Well, lemme tell you, trying to find a decent online photo sharing service that won't bombard visitors' emails with spam or pollute its own pages with banner adverts, afford us a bit of privacy and be easy enough for everybody to use is... still forthcoming. I like BlueMelon, but who in the blue hell has even heard of it? Soon, everybody, soon. In the meantime, it's almost a week later, so before I forget too much, here are some of the memories of the trip:

- We basically did it, for better or worse, without a guide book. The book that we ordered (from the hipster Wallpaper City Guide series, Phaidon Press) didn't make it to the bookstore in time. So we printed and cobbled together some pages from Lonely Planet online, which proved to be... outdated. Every one of the recommended restaurants we tried to go to not only was closed, but had been for quite some time. While this left our trip a bit more freeform and pleasantly unplanned, it sure would have been nice to know the backstory of what we were looking at sometimes.

- Everybody in Budapest speaks English. Not just passable English either-- fluent English. The one guy who didn't worked in this upscale pizza joint and spoke a bit of German, so we muddled through. If your travel plans are decided/overruled by perceived language barriers, don't worry-- you won't have any difficulties here.

- I'm a bit of an architecture buff and this city of 1.7M inhabitants has arguably the most ecclectic collection of buildings anywhere-- and lots of them. Baroque, Beaux-Arts, Classicist, Romanesque, Gothic and Art Nouveau, even a bit of Bauhaus thrown in. More depressingly, there's also a lot of tilt-up Communist slabs too-- yuk. I'd hazard a guess that about 80-85% of these gorgeous buildings are in a state of decay as well-- I muttered "gloriously decrepit" as a description and it stuck-- because these faded grand dames were still breathtaking-- almost as breathtaking as the fact that a lot of buildings (all of which had residents and offices in them) still seemed to be standing mostly out of habit. Don't let that stop you though-- there is a LOT of money going through Budapest and Hungary these days, and one-by-one those buildings are getting refurbished, and the finished product looks stunning. But for much the same reasons as I prefer Reno over Vegas, I like Budapest-- maybe I'm from the old school, but a little bit of grime and a little less clean-scrubbed is what makes a city a city. If you can look past the soot and peeling paint-- Budapest is beautiful.

- I avoid discussing politics as a general rule, but if anybody needs to see an example of the inherent failure of the Communist system, I say get thee to Budapest-- the reason those beautiful buildings are in such disrepair was because the Communists (who got booted in 1989-- it's a parlimentary republic form of government now) found the buildings vulgar, and didn't have the funds for upkeep anyways. Those awful concrete slabs with holes punched out for windows are, oddly enough, in about the same sham-bolic shape as their 100-year-older bretheren thanks to bad design, cheap materials, and lousy workmanship. With the influx of money occurring from tourism and industry, things are turning around at an astonishing rate. I've traveled a bit, and I can honestly say that I've never seen as many construction cranes in one place as I did in Budapest.

- Hungary's a good enough deal, though not rock-bottom cheap. It's not on the Euro, but on their own currency called the Hungarian Forint (HUF), whose exchange rate worked out to a dizzying 1 Euro = 290 HUF. A very memorable evening in a wine bar set us back a whopping 5800 HUF (20 EU), and we waddled out of there. Be warned: Hungary is planning to go on the Euro sometime in 2012-13, so get out here before everything normalizes. But folks looking for cut rate designer label stuff-- Armani, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Promod, etc.-- all of these stores are here-- the pricing equals out to the rest of the world, so no special discounts on that front.

- There is such a thing as Hungarian wine, and they are quite proud of it-- 22 distinct wine growing regions, with all the basic types covered (red, white, rosé, sparkling, dessert), and a history that dates back to Roman times. It's all quite drinkable stuff too-- and is not just the cheapo Egri Bikavér (aka Bull's Blood) you can find at Fred Meyer, Trader Joe's, etc. World class? Not really, but give these guys time. At the risk of damning with faint praise, it's still better than any German wines we've quaffed.

But... patience is a virtue as they say, so bear with us a little bit longer-- the shots (and commentary) will be worth it.