Times they are a-changin'

What I didn't comment on yesterday is how expensive everything is. My memory was everything being cheap - even in by my "poor student/Midwest prices" standards. Beers at most bars were between 50 cents and a dollar - assuming they were Hungarian, same with wine. Any local food prepared in restaurants tended to be only a couple of dollars. Visitor attractions and metro tickets might have been a dollar. Our joke now is that everything is 2900 forints (a little more than 10 Euros or about 15 bucks). A crappy pizza near the Basilica (15 bucks), go into Parliament (15 bucks), stand on the sidewalk and gawk at the tourists (priceless). Without a doubt, part of the inexpensiveness of Hungary was the relatively modest standard of living at the time - they are no doubt doing what they can to catch up with their European counterparts. Another might be the relative weakness of the dollar these days, although I've always been shocked that the dollar has stayed relatively strong throughout the "Great Recession". Anyway - the $15 snacks and $30 meals are a bit of a fly in the ointment but I'll get over it - better that is was cheap then when I didn't really have it as opposed to now (rich school teacher that I am).

What has stayed the same, and one of the few things I have a fairly vivid memory of, is the Metro - the Subway. The second oldest in Europe (after London's), both the cars and the ticketing seemed not to have aged. The prices have gone up with everything else (in line with what I pay for BART) but the tickets are still the little pieces of paper (think old style move tickets) that get punched by a mechanical device before entering the station. It's still honor system (no turnstiles) and if you get nabbed without the ticket its still 20 times the cost of the trip if you pay it on the spot (a system that I always thought was inherently corruptible).

The words keep coming back but I'm still having trouble putting together anything other than subject verb object and those verb conjugations are highly questionable.

Great walk through the park and Jewish ghetto yesterday, stroll during the bridge lighting yesterday evening, and run along the river this morning. Last to-do on the agenda is the Gellert Baths.