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Chapter 9: Baths With Strangers
Three-quarters of the country of Hungary sits atop of a giant reservoir of hot springs, and Budapest is known as the spa capital of the world. On a cool rainy day, we went to Széchenyi Baths, the most famous of the dozen naturally-fed baths in the city. Széchenyi is a huge complex with 15 indoor pools, but the main attractions are the three large outdoor pools fed by 165° F underground hot springs, mixed with cooler water to become a balmy 100° F. It was a quiet weekday morning, meaning our fellow bathers were circa 40-100 years older than us, but that didn’t deter them from flaunting swimsuits you couldn’t…
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Chapter 8: Hungarian Is Not An Easy Language
We’re in Budapest now, and on our fourth language of the trip. French and Italian weren’t bad, German was tougher, Hungarian is a whole new level. In the other countries, we could eyeball a sign or menu and hazard a rough guess of what it was trying to say. If you stir English together with our high-school Spanish and French, there were usually enough familiar words or cognates to determine whether, say, a closed door leads to the toilet or the elevator. But Hungarian…wow. For example, this sign was posted outside the park near our AirBnb. I defy you to glean any useful information from that. What are the park…
