Gas

Laura and I noticed a posting in foyer this morning:

Apparently it's normal to have inspections of all gas appliances and connections in all flats. As this notice indicates, our inspection will be between 10am and 1pm on April 26.

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This thank you note/postcard I sent to the Simon family this morning is the first time I ever mailed something that didn't either go to or come from the United States:

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The tear down of the common part of the procession routes continues apace in Plaza de San Francisco:

Gotta get all this stuff out of the way before feria starts in 2 weeks.

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At Rachel's recommendation, I've been reading Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttigieg (boot-a-judge), the mayor of South Bend, IN. He's also a democratic presidential candidate. It's been an ok read so far, but today he got into the value of AI, data, and machine learning in running a city. His understanding of the strengths and limitations of these new techniques is impressive. His ability to articulate those ideas to a lay audience--even better. I'm thinking of using some excerpts of this section in my machine learning class. Also, I'd vote for him, if he made it that far. Of course, I'd vote for a warm sack of shit if Donald Trump was the alternative, so I guess that's not saying much. Buttigieg certainly epitomizes what I'd like to see in a President, mayor, or any public servant.

Monday

The day after Easter and things are returning to normal. This morning I watched the replay of the Mariners losing to the Angels. I re-read my paper. I did a lot of Spanish to get ready for the resumption of my Spanish class today. We hit the grocery store. I did a load of laundry. I went to class. There was one new person from Italy in class. A good group. We reviewed the imperative verb form. I went to the gym. Laura went to Costco. I worked on statistics.

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Lacking photos of anything else today, here's a random photo of our main street:

It was warm and breezy today. I think the wind is blowing in some rain for tomorrow and the next day.

Happy Easter!

Things were pretty quiet here in Sevilla today. I think with all of the energy poured into the semana santa activities leading up to Easter, there's not much left in the gas tanks of the average resident today. Streets are pretty empty:

There's a little more litter on the streets as the city workers have had a couple of days off:

I like my new gym. I can let myself in anytime, even Easter:

I talked to a few people on the phone today: Rachel, Betty, Jo-Anne and Emily. I did a load of laundry. Tomorrow it's back to Spanish class and math.

Simón Visit

The highlight of our trip to Budapest was our visit with the Simón family. We befriended them when we lived in Budapest in 2003-04. At the time Emily and Rachel were 10 and 8. Peter and Nadinka had 4 daughters Berni, Vicki, Zsofi, and Nadinka ranging from about 1 to about 12 years old. When we told them we were going to visit Budapest, Peter and Nadinka invited us to their home for lunch today. Nadinka (daughter) and her fiance Balazs picked us up at our hotel downtown:

and drove us to Peter and Nadinka's house in the outskirts of Budapest. To literally no one's surprise, Nadinka made a lot of food. We started with some potato soup and sliced ham. We then moved to beef stew with the classic Hungarian noodles (spaetzel):

We finished with dessert (or desserts in this case). Cheese cake-like bars, a dense chocolate cake (in the shape of a sheep, which Peter is killing in this photo):

 Some cookies, and various other sweet breads. We were stuffed! Too soon, it was time to go to the airport with our usual chauffeurs, Nadinka (daughter and Balazs). We did manage to get a good photo before departing:

 (From left to right: Albert, Laura, Peter, Bruno, Nadinka, Vicki, Berni, Nadinka) Zsofi, married with two children of her own now, understandably didn't make it. I also snapped this photo of the three Simón children still living at home, Berni, Bruno and Vicki:

The family update as of this writing is Bruno, the youngest is an altar boy and still in primary school. He gamely tried out his English language skills on us. Berni, a senior in high school, is studying for her university exams. She wants to go to the medical school in Budapest and, not surprisingly, it's quite competitive. Vicki is in her junior year of university in a bio engineering program. Zsofi is married with two children about 7 and 19 months of age. Finally, Nadinka is engaged to Balazs, whom we also met, and will be married on July 20th. Their wedding invitations are awesome (far better than the photograph quality):

Since their wedding happens to fall on the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, they have a space/moon landing theme to their wedding. The graphics on the invitations are awesome!

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I think Laura and I both got what we had hoped for from the visit. My only regret is that we didn't manage to get Emily and Rachel along. I think we'll have to come back with them next summer if we can swing it.

More visits along memory lane

We continued to visit places we used to go in Budapest today. The synagogue in our old neighborhood:

A visit to Margaret Island:

The fountain there is always entertaining. Here's a slo-mo:


The light gray building is our old building. Our flat, on the 4th floor isn't visible. We were on the back side:

We took the cog-wheel rail line up to the Children's Railroad. Here's the main terminal:

We didn't take the Children's Railroad. Instead, we hiked along some of the trails in the large park that the railroad tours:

Through the trees, you can glimpse the city:

Our trail took us towards the city. Instead of returning to the cog-wheel station, we just kept walking back to the city. We encountered this massive and old cemetary:

 We ended up on the subway back to the hotel. This closed Princess bakery is one of the saddest sights in all the world:

This temporary Easter candy stall at Deak ter was beautiful. Unfortunately, it was largely stocked with marzipan which neither Laura nor I really dig:

The city is like a different place at night, so we headed down to the river to see everything thing again bathed in their night lights. The little princess statue perched on a fence was always one of our favorites:

The Chain Bridge at night is iconic for Budapest:

 The Castle during the day and at night:

 This new piece along the river is a scattered collection of shoes (in bronze) to represent Jews that were executed along the banks of the Danube in Budapest during WWII. They were force to remove their shoes and summarily executed. Their bodies fell into the river to be carried away by the current: