Thursday July 31 Day 16:

There was a thunderstorm during the night. So everyone woke at about 1 am. There wasn't that much rain but it was noisy.

The air was fresh in the morning and the temperature quite nice. It was about 25-6 C at mid-day.

I have been cutting back on breakfast only peppers, tomatoes, toast and jam with green tea. This seems a more reasonable breakfast although I did have some cold meat too.

We went over to Irma's place and met Joe who had a stroke about 4 years ago. He and Irma were in Canada for over 25 years and then moved back to Hungary and built the house. It is more typical inside of a Canadian home. A large kitchen, small dining room, large family room and bathroom (Canadian style...toilet with sink and tub). The up stairs has 3 large bedrooms another big washroom and a balcony that can be accessed from 2 bedrooms. They have screens on the windows, Canadian style. Where I am staying does not have any screen on any doors or windows. Except for the odd mosquito it seems to work just as well.

We sat at the table with Joe at the end against the wall. Irma served French Rose wine to us and a special wine (only a bit) to Joe(he was able to pour his own). We had cheese and a cake dessert with “megg” (sour red cherries...they are not sour but do have some pits still in them). It was a very delicious dessert.

We tried to get Joe to speak English and eventually he mixed English with some Hungarian which even I could understand. He spoke haltingly, but that was expected. Gradually he seemed to gain some energy (he is fairly frail). You could see that he had improved considerably by the time we left. Irma was her bombastic self.

Gyorgyi and I went back to the house where she made a lovely zucchini and broccoli with the main course being spaghetti with a creamy cheese sauce. I asked Jancsi in Hungarian what was the type of cheese in the cream sauce and he said, “disznu” (wild pig)... we had a good laugh. My Hungarian is not that bad that he could not understand.

I had finally after 5 years got Skype to work on my netbook (ASUS). I Googled around and finally got an answer that worked... it was so simple yet unlikely. I Skyped Guy and Robbie(in Canada) and it worked perfectly (although we lost Guy's picture after a while). The sound which had not worked at all for 5 years was fixed and worked perfectly. Maybe I will be able to get Nancy to log on Skype when I get her password figured out.

BUDA side of Budapest

The highlight of the day was about to come when we went to the centre of Pest (Buda is the one side of the river where the hills are and Pest is the other side of the Danube River where it is flat). There is a new device on the Pest side called the Sziglet Eye belvaros. Yes it is a ferris wheel based on the idea of the one in Vienna with enclosed compartments. When Gyorgyi asked me if I wanted to go on it I said I had to because the opportunity may never arise again. So we all 3 went on it...3 revolutions only at a cost of 2400 HUF (about $11 Can). I have some video and put the other pictures below.

Szigeti Eye

Jansci and I on the Sziget Eye

I bought us a beer to celebrate afterward and we did some shopping.

We had till 6 pm on the meter and were 10 minutes early.

Supper was the rest of lunch with some nice Szekszardi wine.

Gyorgyi's ankle was sore so she was in some pain.

Another episode of “Wind at my back” or what I call it “Wind down my leg” and we head to bed. A tiring walk which was estimated at about 5 km.