Iarna

Winter

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. - Andrew Wyeth

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you...In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. - Ruth Stout

Let us love winter for it is the spring of genius - Pietro Aretino

Winter came to our home one night

Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,

And we, we were children once again - Bill Morgan Jr.

The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination - Terri Guillemets

Summer pleasures they are gone like to visions every one

And cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on - Shakespeare 

None of you will bid the winter come

To thrust his icy fingers in my maw - Shakespeare (King John)

In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire

With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales

Of woeful ages, long ago betid - Shakespeare (Richard III)

Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.
- Sinclair Lewis

One kind word can warm three winter months - Japanese proverb

On Linden, when the sun was low

all bloodless lay the untrodden snow

And dark as winter was the flow

Of iser, rolling rapidly

- Thomas Campbell

Winter is coming - House Stark

Recovery

For the most part I have been trying to post things related to our travels or things related to life in a small Romanian village.  I try not to go on personal tangents about bad foreign policy or the oft-idiotic mainstream media coverage of natural disasters and civil strife in developing countries.  I try to keep it focused.

I suppose this post is about travel in a round about way;  the business of post-travel recovery and the resettling of ourselves into our tiny Romanian village.

See, holidays are not my thing so I can't really appreciate what most of America and the West goes through on January 2nd. I don't understand the let-down and the bewildering feelings of "what do I do now?" and "how do I stop single-handedly consuming the caloric intake of small southeast asian country?"
Except I kind of do.  Because I have the post-travel blahs.
From what I hear, these sound an awful lot like the post-holiday blahs.  Maybe it's just something to do with the season, I don't know.  But no matter how sternly I lecture myself on how I'm going to start eating well and going for long walks instead of napping in the afternoon, all I manage to do is sit around in my fat pants and lament over how the floors need to be vacuumed.

This was my dinner. I won't say for how many nights in a row.

You think I made this up just for the blog.  No.  I really ate this for dinner.
It's an unappetizing cornucopia, spotlighting some of the worst foods the world has to offer: the peanut butter we shipped from the States, the Pringles (paprika flavor if you notice) we bought in Austria.
I don't even know where that candy bar came from, I'm guessing someone dropped by during the holidays and left it here for the boys but I saw it first so it's mine.
At least the pickles were fresh from the market in Budapest.  As is the palinka.
You know what's really sad, I don't even like Pringles.

But that probably explains why this is all I can fit into these days:

When it gets warm enough I remove the sweater and change the shoes:

See how I photographed it like they do in fashion magazines to try and make it look less pathetic.  Also, as unflattering as it all looks on the floor, it's even worse on me.  Really.

Tell me you all go through this in one way or another in your lives.

I know, it's January 27th and I need to snap out of it already.  Because you all have, right?  After you read this you'll head out to the gym or walk yourselves into the kitchen to consume that head of organic broccoli you bought because you know its good for you and you know you're supposed to eat things like that.

And I'm going to do that too.  Because we've had snowfall and it's a glorious winter wonderland out there and I need to go photograph it so that I can have something decent to post for you all.  Because I feel badly about this.  So badly that I think I need another candy bar and a spoonful of peanut butter as a chaser.  Then I'm going to go pull on my Ugg-knock offs and find Mihai because we've got another trip to plan.

An Unnamed City

Got the mid-January blahs?  Who doesn't?  I know I said you should never follow any travel advice I might try to dispense but let's make an exception here, okay?

I figured if I put the name of the place I am recommending in the title, no one would bother to read.  Because you're tired of it. Unjustly so.  Yes, unjustly.

How many books, movies, blogs, Pintrest pins, etc are there about Paris?  London?  New York?  Listen, in this unnamed city I have ridden the metro system and (other than the horror of seeing Linda get on a train while we stood on the platform watching her depart without us) we never encountered a single problem.  And do I speak Hungarian? Nincs.

A few trips back we bought ourselves this lovely book from a street vendor.  I've noticed there are a lot of used book sellers on the streets of Europe.  You can find a mixture of useless junk and cool stuff, this book, circa 1965, is in the latter category.
My all-time favorite translated sentence is: Hol vannak a legjobb vadaszteruletek? 
Where are the best hunting grounds?

Of course you may borrow this book but you will hardly have to use it because so many people speak English in Budapest (although on principle I believe foreigners should always make an attempt-however lame-to speak the local language before settling back lazily into English).  Bath staff aside, the locals are friendly and considerate and getting around won't pose much difficulty if you are comfortable with the basics of bus/metro/tram travel.

You'll find that the food is very good: gelato, pizza and schnitzel in the summer, mulled wine, goose and goulash in the winter.
And vermouth-heavy martinis year round.

There's a great hotel on the cheaper Pest side about a 20 minute walk to the downtown market/Liberty Bridge district.
Or if you're not the sort that likes to walk you can hop on the either the 9 or the 109 bus that will take you to the same place.  The bus stop is right across the street from the hotel. You see how easy this is already? Look, I'm doing half the work for you.
They have apartments as well as standard rooms and if you find yourself with an unexpected case of the flu, you can spend the afternoon laying around in the apartment while your great-uncle composes music in the bedroom and your parents go out and document the Castle District and do last minute shopping. (yeah, you read that right the Castle District.  That last post?  It was Budapest. ha!) You will be perfectly comfortable and at your ease even if your great-uncle forgets he is supposed to be taking care of you.

If you find you've walked too much and you're tired, you will head to the baths.  Since you've been forewarned, you will have brought a towel and hair cap and this will decrease the confusion and your interactions with bath staff considerably.  And since you possess either self-confidence or firm thighs you will scoff at the notion that public bathing is nerve-wracking. (really, a soak in those tubs is worth the walk across the grounds.  Remember you'll never see those people again in your life.)

Notice I say that you will do all these things.  Because you will go.  I know you will.  How can you pass it up after you've labored through all four of the long-winded Budapest posts and seen photographic evidence of all that the city has to offer?
Yes, it's a bit cheaper to fly from SFO to Paris.  I doubt you'll find any "For 12-hours Only" rates or a Valentine's Day Special deal.  But Hungary doesn't use the Euro and the exchange rate between USD and Forint is about 1:235 currently.  Hello.  You're not going to find that in any major European city. And you need a holiday, don't you? Yes, you do.

So go.







What, you're still here?  What are you waiting for?  Get off this page and go book your flight already.

The Castle District

Just photos.  

"The battle for Middle Earth begins" (come on, you know you were thinking it too...)