Today has been our first full day in Budapest and Linda’s first day at her conference. It has wonderful to see this city again as my initial impressions ten years ago were soiled by an awful apartment, foul weather, holiday fatigue and a rapidly diminishing bank balance. This time – none of the above. It is a beautiful city to stroll around.
Whilst Linda was conferencing, Maryanne and I walked from the Buda side back to our HUGE apartment. The city was built on a grand scale and most of the significant buildings were constructed during the height of Austro-Hungarian dominance in this region. The parliament building on the banks of the Danube looks out over one particularly poignant monument – sculptures of shoes. In 1943 as the Nazis were retreating their allies in Hungary (The Arrow Cross Movement) took it upon themselves to rid the city of the last of the Jews and Roma. All remaining Jews and Gypsies were marched to bridges or to this embankment on the edge of the river, forced to remove their shoes, then shot. Their shoes had value – their lives had none.    
More wandering, more photographs and a leisurely lunch in the afternoon. The food is generally cheap and of a high standard. I have eaten slow-cooked beef cheeks before and without exception they have been tender. Today’s beef cheeks were very tough indeed. I wondered perhaps if that particular animal had spent an inordinate amount of time drinking through straws or whistling? This would certainly explain the well toned cheek muscles (obviously waltzes and Hungarian folk tunes would be the cow’s music of choice – though Catrina’s people would be better able to answer this. I’m not some Hungarian whistling cow expert.)  
Home was a stroll up Andrassy utc. one of the more famous European boulevards. It was built with the intention of providing a suitable avenue for victorious Hungarian armies to parade. Sadly for the Hungarians this has never happened. Since about 1800 Hungary has managed to lose every single campaign in which they have participated. Every nation in the vicinity has beaten Hungary – some more than once. In fact if you wanted to practice winning a battle you would start with Hungary. The invasion of Serbia to start WW1 – disaster, wars against the Romanians – disasters, along side the Germans in WW2 – disaster, taking on the Russians again in 1956 – disaster. I’m sure they had wonderful uniforms and some fine marching music – even a marching herd of whistling cows perhaps, but none of it helped. Sometimes you should just admit that you are Hungary the Defatigable, chew on some tough beef cheeks, then go home. Parades are stupid anyway.

F C-S