Fifteen Years Later

It's strange walking around this city and having memories jump out at you from nowhere. It's been 15 years since we lived here in Budapest. There is gentrification and probably more tourism than we remember, but it's also unchanged in a lot of ways. Today we just wandered around to all the places we used to go. Our old street, Madach, with its characteristic arch has been improved. The lovely fountain/plaza used to be an old ratty parking lot:

The Renyi Institute, where we were in residence for the year, looks much the same:

Barges still go up and down the Danube:

The trams still visit the big market:

The big market still has lots of locals and tourists:

But there were perhaps a few more vacancies than before, especially in the basement stalls. The Princess bakery still has mini chocolate croissants:

And they're still good:

There's a giant ferris wheel on Deak Ter that wasn't there 15 years ago:

The Chain Bridge and the beautiful circle on the Buda side is much the same:

Matthias Church in the castle district looks the same, perhaps a bit cleaner:

The Parliament building is splendid as usual and no scaffolding (as there was when we lived here):

The "shiny balls" horse is still there and his balls are still pretty shiny. The urban legend is that people rub this horse's balls for luck. Given the highly polished nature of the balls in question, I'd say it's more than legend:

Moskva ter is now Széll Kálmán tér. I guess this renaming is just the continuing distancing of Hungary from Russia. It's also been completely renovated. It's much cleaner and greener than it was:

We spent a lot of time with Emily and Rachel in Millenaris Park. The beautiful spring weather made this the perfect place to spend some time today:

This evening we went for traditional Hungarian fare at one of my favorite restaurants, Fatal:

  We both had gulash and I had a Dreher beer:

 

Both were amazing. I saved a little of each for the post dinner photo. On the way back to the hotel, we enjoyed watching some children dare the fountain on Madach:


I watched knowing with 100% surety that if this fountain had been there 15 years ago, Emily and Rachel would've done the same thing.

Budapest

All settled into our Budapest hotel. It's right across the street from where we lived for a year in 2003-04. Here's the front door of our old building:

The neighborhood is more active. Lots more stores, restaurants and people. I guess gentrification is the correct term.

The flight from Sevilla via Barcelona was on time. Never needed our US passports, just our Spanish residency cards. That's the EU for you!

Nadinka and her fiance Balasz picked us up at the airport and drove us into town. We exchanged lots of biographical information during the 20 min drive. We're getting together with them again on Saturday.

The hotel is nice. Time for bed.

More processions.

Another day of working on the paper and learning some statistics. The paper is shaping up. Laura's willing to give it read through in the next week or so. I also added some background today that helped to contextualize the results a bit better.

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I went to the gym again today. It's definitely easier on my body, but I do miss the river. I'll have to go along the river every once in a while just to visit. On the way home from the gym, I was struck by how folks have decorated their balconies for this semana santa season:

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I noticed walking around the city that the car tires make a really ugly squeaking sound when turning. I couldn't figure out why I was suddenly just noticing this after almost 10 months here. Then I figured out what changed. Along the procession routes there is a now substantial layer of candle wax on the road. All of the nazarenos carry candles and light them in the evening when the sun goes down. All those thousands of candles drip on the road. Cars drive over it and coat their tires. For whatever reason, the tires squeal when they have wax on them.

If you're keeping track, in January the streets were coated with sugar from the three kings processions where they threw out free candy and now, in April, they're coated with wax.

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We stopped in a tile and ceramics store this afternoon to get some small gifts for our friends, the Simons, in Hungary:

We're looking forward to seeing them again after 15 years.

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This evening Laura and I walked to the cathedral area to see the procession of the students. This procession is populated by the students and faculty of the University of Sevilla. I told Laura I'd go with her as far as the first dense crowd and then I was heading home. I made it this far:

Laura just plowed right through. I on the other hand, took this picture of the lovely Christ paso, and waved her off into the crowd.

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As promised, the video of the Christ paso from our neighborhood procession two days ago, La Estrella:

Gym Achievement Unlocked

Laura had class early today because her school is completely swamped by processions in the afternoons this week. While she was at school, I worked on my paper and did a little more statistics. When she got home, we went gym shopping. The first gym we went to was close the flat and lovely, but a bit pricey, especially the sign up fee. The second gym is near our grocery store, about 1km from the house. It's also very nice and less expensive. Laura helped with the spanish and I managed to get a membership. It's a cool facility, open 24 hours, but only staffed during the day. At other times, I can use an RFID card to get in. I'm pretty happy to have a place to workout that doesn't involve slamming my foot on the pavement along the river everyday.

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I went for my first workout this afternoon around 4pm. As I crossed San Jacinto, I noticed they were gearing up for another procession. I hoped it would be past by the time I came back, but no such luck:

Just... neeed... to... get... across... the... street. 😖 Oh well, back, around the block, under the bridge:

and home from the other direction. Meh, it's only a week.

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I found a copy of the Paris-Roubaix bike race that happened yesterday and watched it this evening. Such a great race. Philip Gilbert won. I've always liked him, so I was happy.

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Rachel got an HBO subscription and shared the login with me so I can watch Game of Thrones. It worked for a while this evening on the Whitman VPN, but then quit about half-way through the first episode. Not sure if HBO figured out somehow I was in Spain, or if it was just a temporary glitch. I'll try again later and see. Or, maybe Whitman figured out I was watching GoT on their VPN and pulled the plug. Who knows?! This is why people use bittorrent.

Domingo de Ramos

or, in English, Palm Sunday. Today marks the beginning of the official procession season. Each day here in Sevilla various brotherhoods will process through the streets to the cathedral. They march in a kind of parade with pasos (floats) depicting scenes from the passion of Christ. Often there is a second float with a depiction of the Virgin Mary. In some cases, there may even be a third float. The artifacts and sculptures on the floats date back hundreds of years. The oldest brotherhood dates back to the 1300s. The floats are interesting in another sense in that they are very heavy and are carried by teams of about 30 men that are hidden under the float. The act of carrying is considered by some as a kind of penance.

I went out and watched the procession of the Estrella brotherhood which is based right around the corner from our flat here in Triana. In this procession there were over 2000 nazarenos (marchers in pointy hats):

People lined the streets to watch, listen to the band, encourage friends in the procession and otherwise spectate. People in the flats above the procession had an excellent view:

The Christ paso passed through Triana and up over the bridge (the best bridge) for its date with the cathedral at 9:30pm:

As I write this, they're just approaching the cathedral. They'll go inside for a blessing and a prayer and then return to Triana around 2am.

The pointy hats are kind of shocking to folks from the US (think KKK). After you see about 2000 of them, men, women and adolescents, you start to realize they're just regular people out for a pretty long religious ceremony. Laura spotted these two pointy hats with owners absent at a bar, likely pre-gaming the procession:

Here are some other candid shots of nazarenes dressed and heading towards the start point of the procession. Even a nazarene on a mission (sans interior pointy hat support) has to wait for the WALK signal:

Two more, one pretty young, headed to the starting line:

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Laura went over to a different procession earlier in the afternoon. I tried to meet her there after an errand, but couldn't get through the crowd. I did a timelapse of my walk home in which I encountered a couple of processions:

I have a couple other videos, but I'll share them tomorrow. Still waiting for them to upload and process.