I made myself fried rice for lunch, taking advantage of my shopping trip yesterday. Tofu, eggs, and onion combined with rice and soy sauce, black vinegar, sriracha and a little bit of sesame oil. 'Twas delicious.
I then took the metro to the far north of Buda to meet up with a group of people to go on a tour of Óbuda, (Old Buda, originally an old town to the north of Buda, now part of Budapest) and the Buda caves. I managed to arrive just as the group was walking away from the metro stop and, as I was congratulating myself on my awesome timing, I stepped into a pothole in the street and twisted my ankle. I was able to walk on it, but it wasn't comfortable. Fortunately, the tour consisted of many sitting breaks, where we took a bus or a tram or sat in a cafe, so I was able to both exercise and rest my ankle. And luckier still, the tour of the cave was just a walking tour, on a paved path with stairs and ladders that were kept dry, so I didn't put too much strain on the ankle.
Óbuda is a nice, quiet part of the city, with cobbled streets that are barely wide enough for a car and the tram.
We didn't spend much time here, walking through on our way to the caves, which were up in the hills. Hungary's a pretty flat country, but Buda goes right up into hills, which contains the most expensive neighborhoods in the city.
The cliffs near the caves
We waited in a little cafe for the tour to start, sipping hot chocolate and petting the resident spoiled cat. I think it may be the first cat I've seen since I've been here. We then walked into the caves, where we spent a lot of time walking around these beautiful limestone structures, trying not to touch them (as that would interfere with their formation). Many stalagmites and stalactites were seen, and many pictures were taken. However, most of my pictures just look like various rock structures, which aren't very interesting, except to my geologist friends. After walking around the caves for a while, I realized that wet limestone looks kind of uncomfortably fleshy and membranous in places, like we were inside a very large, stationary beast.
That was my overall impression of the place. That and it looked vaguely like Moria, especially the entrance and exit.
This resemblance wasn't helped by the Lord of the Rings music played about half way through the tour. The door to the entrance even has words written across the top, though I couldn't read them. I'm pretty sure that it didn't say "Speak friend and enter," but I can't be certain.
After we returned from the caves, we stopped at a bakery down in Óbuda. Apparently it was a fairly big name bakery, founded by Hungarians with Austrian background. According to our guide, Hungarians don't really like talking about the fact that they were part of the double monarchy, but the city's a pretty constant reminder...
The bakery was delicious. They had a selection of sweet and savory baked goods, from cakes to scones and cookies and kifli and all sorts of things. I bought a little sampler of savory goods, because I had no idea what most of these things were and they looked interesting. These are the scone things whose name I forget and are delicious. The two small ones are goat cheese (very lightly flavored), the two normal looking ones are plain (made with mashed potatoes apparently, they were hot and absolutely delicious, and tasted cheesy), the speckled one had pumpkin seeds in it (also good, not a very strong flavor), and the smaller brown one was made with animal fat somehow, possibly lard or cracklings or skin or something (the explanation was unclear, but the scone itself was delicious, slightly salty and crispy).
I also bought a little walnut cookie, but finished it before I took this picture. It was small, sticky, crunchy and not overly sweet. Very tasty. These were all fantastic and I would definitely return to this bakery if it wasn't so far away from me.
From our guide, me and one other guy managed to get recommendations on where we can buy loose leaf tea, which I'm missing quite a good deal. Tomorrow, we're heading over there and buying some. Because it's delicious. Not only will tea be made, but also tea vodka (stay tuned for the results of this venture...)
What followed was much indecision and wandering before a place was located for dinner. It was a small cafe in a relatively easy-to-get-to location that served delicious food for not too much. I had more of the fantastic garlic cream soup, and then some pork cellar stew, which was basically pork and potatoes in a pretty good sauce (I forget now exactly what the sauce tasted like, but it was interesting). The meal was accompanied by a wonderful glass of forralt bor, mulled wine. Forralt literally means boiled, which is a satisfying discovery for me because I was irritated with it being different from forró, or hot, which I had thought it was previously. I thought it was some very strange conjugation that I didn't understand, but it being a whole different word is a nice discovery. I couldn't finish my meal completely, it being very rich and all, but it was very tasty.
After I returned home, I finally took it upon myself to finish doing laundry. I had put my clothes into the wash this morning before I made lunch, but the machine takes many hours (3, by my roommate's estimation) so I was unable to do anything else until I came back home. As we don't have a drier, I had to hang everything up from a drying rack in the bathroom, which ended up being successful.
The bathroom doesn't seem the like the best location for the drying rack, as showers will increase the moisture in the air, but I suppose it's the best place possible. I was very excited to get my laundry done, as I've been putting it off and being nervous about it for a bit, as it seemed very complicated. It is strange not having a drier, and I hope that at least some of my clothes will be dry by tomorrow as I'm pretty much all out. Ah well...
And now, I've caught up. Hopefully I won't fall so far behind in the future, but I make no promises.
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