Category Archives: Work trips

Eastern Europe, Hungary, Memorials and monuments, Work trips

Back to Budapest– Cloudy skies, Jewish memorials, quirky toilets, sexist servers, and Soviet monuments… part five

I got a kick out of the Art Toilet– especially the cat’s asshole…

After breakfast, after I did some morning writing, then picked up some vending machine tokens Bill had left over after getting water and a beer from the hotel vending machine. I figured after my walk on Wednesday, I could get something from the machine on the way up to the room.

The temperature had dropped, and the skies were cloudy. It looked like it might rain, so I figured I wouldn’t be walking many miles. To be honest, I wasn’t wanting to walk for that long, anyway. Nevertheless, I set off, and the first place I went to was a square where there was a statue of Archduke Joseph of Austria. On either side of the statue, there were two smaller ones with fountains that looked like they were made of ceramic. I was more impressed with the colorful, smaller, newer statues on either side of the bigger, older one of Archduke Joseph of Austria.

I continued walking and soon found myself near St. Stephen’s Basilica, a beautiful church with a treasury and observation terrace. I didn’t go into the basilica, because you have to buy tickets, and I prefer going to places like that with Bill. But I did take some photos, and I see I got a picture of that basilica in 2009, too…

From 2009…
I noticed this “Stolperstein” in Budapest. I didn’t see any others during our visit, but I’m sure they exist. In Germany, these are all over the place to memorialize people who died in the Holocaust.

I noticed signs for the Retro Museum near the basilica. That was a place I was actually willing to visit without Bill, so I headed in that direction. But, I turned the wrong way and headed further into the residential part of Budapest. Soon, I found myself near Liberty Square, looking at a very moving memorial for people who died in the Holocaust. Some of the papers in this memorial offered English translations.

I kept walking and passed a rather impressive looking playground, next to a large, rather Soviet era building, that didn’t seem to be maintained very well. The map tells me the building was the Exchange Palace. Close to that was the Soviet War Memorial, which commemorates Russian military who served in World War II. Looking at the war memorial brought back eerie flashbacks of my time in 90s era Armenia. A lady with four cute little dogs was also there. I focused my attention on them.

The sky darkened a bit, so I decided to move on. I walked through an unremarkable neighborhood, but noticed an interesting looking Hungarian restaurant called Taste of Hungary. You have to reserve to eat there, but I thought Bill might like it. I also noticed a familiar looking van… Unfortunately, we never got around to visiting the bistro, but maybe if we manage to visit Budapest again, we’ll make it there.

As I walked down the street, it looked like maybe there was a major road that might take me to an undiscovered part of the city, but as I got closer, I realized I was just looking at the Danube River. Soon, I noticed the Parliament building, which had become very familiar. I sighed and turned toward the now familiar Akademie Street, which I knew would get me back to the hotel. My ankle was starting to ache from all the walking, and soon it was painful. I decided it would be best to go take a rest.

I tried to decide if I wanted to eat lunch, but then determined I’d rather just relax for a bit. I got to the hotel and went to use the tokens for the vending machine. Unfortunately, I mistyped my choice, and wound up with a bottle of still water and M&Ms.

It was still late morning when I got back to the hotel. I went to the room, but it wasn’t yet made up, so I grabbed my iPad and peed, and went back to the lobby to wait for a bit. I noticed the housekeeping cart was in the hall, across from our room. I figured they would get to us soon. I played games on my iPad, ate the M&Ms, and drank the water.

After about 45 minutes, I went back to the room. It still wasn’t done, and they were still apparently cleaning the room across from us. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell had happened in there, because they were doing an unusually thorough job of cleaning. I went back down to the lobby and then decided to take a short walk around, again thinking maybe I should have lunch. But I didn’t want to eat alone, so I went back to the hotel to try again.

Another Jewish memorial.
I made a note to visit this place…

I went back to the hotel… and ordered a large lager, just in case the housekeepers needed more time. When I went to pay for it, I was told one of my 1000 Forints notes is no longer valid. It’s old currency. I made what I’m sure was a hideous face when the lady told me that. Fortunately, I had another 1000 note that is good in 2025. I gave her that to cover the 2173 Forint bill for my beer, and told her to keep the change. I drank the beer, feeling really pissy and wanting to go home. Then, I went back up to the room, expecting that the room might finally be ready.

Below are 1000 Forints notes. The one on the left is no longer valuable. We’re going to send it to Bill’s grandson. Maybe he’ll find it interesting.

Unfortunately, once I got to the room again, they still hadn’t done the room. It was, at that point, after 1:00 PM, and I was feeling kind of cranky, because my ankle was hurting. As I was opening the door, one of the housekeepers appeared and asked if I wanted her to clean the room, or just change out the towels and get more toilet paper. I asked how long it would be before she was ready, and she said ten minutes. I told her she could skip us, because I didn’t want to loiter in the lobby anymore.

With the room situation settled, I took a nice nap. When I woke up, it was raining. I decided that would be a good excuse for us to go around the corner for dinner and eat at the Mercatino Ristorante Enoteca, an inviting looking Italian place very close to our hotel. When Bill got back to the room, that’s exactly what we did.

We walked to the restaurant, but first stopped at a very unusual public toilet near our hotel called Art Toilet. The below photos from from the men’s side, and we didn’t realize it was an actual working toilet until a woman used one of the stalls on the other side, which were identical, except there were toilets instead of urinals. You pay a machine admission, walk through a turnstile, and then get assaulted by the bizarre! There was weird 16 bit computer music playing, too. There was an art store next door, and a location of Madame Tussaud’s wax musuem. I think it was affiliated with Madame Tussaud’s. Have a look…

After we visited the quirky public pay toilet, we walked to the restaurant. We soon found ourselves sitting at a communal booth in the cozy restaurant. It was the kind of place where the tables were situated pretty close to each other, to maximize the number of people who could be served at one time. I understand that is a necessity in a city with as many restaurants as Budapest has, although it can lead to people being “trapped” at their tables, as they don’t want to have to squeeze their way out from between two tables that are close together.

I liked the inside of the Mercatino Ristorante. There were lots of bricks and a beautiful bar area, although it was just for preparing drinks, rather than sitting. The restaurant was pretty small, and I think reservations are probably a good idea there because of that. I got the sense that the manager/proprietor was very money focused, as well as loyal to his locals. He was clearly saving the coveted window seat for a regular who had made reservations.

Both a male and a female server served us. When the female server took a dish that had focaccia bread from us, I commented that I liked it. She hadn’t heard me, so I repeated myself. The male server piped up and said, “She doesn’t speak English very well.” I noticed that the comment offended the female, and she flipped him the bird. She and I privately shared a good laugh, as the male server was oblivious to his colleague’s middle finger salute.

There was an American couple sitting two two tops down from us at the banquette, and when two ladies showed up and said they had reservations, they were seated at the two top between us and the other American couple. The younger lady had asked if they could sit by the window, but the proprietor answered curtly, “No.” I was a bit taken aback by that, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been, after the way the male server had openly insulted his female colleague. I sensed a touch of sexism in that place.

The two ladies were speaking French, but they also spoke English. It turned out they were from Montreal, Canada. The American couple volunteered that they were in Budapest to start a two week cruise on a Viking ship. They asked if we were also on the cruise, and I said that Bill was in Budapest working, and I was tagging along.

The American couple gave off conservative vibes. They were from Florida, and I heard the American man asking about the taxes in Budapest. They only had main courses. The ladies from Canada shared an appetizer and had main courses. Bill and I had a bottle of wine, sparkling water, main courses, and dessert, so when we were paying the bill, we rated a house shot of limoncello. The manager asked us to rate them on Google, which I did. Below are some photos…

Bill had spicy tiger shrimp with black squid ink spaghetti.
I had seafood risotto.
I had pistachio cake for dessert.
Bill had tiramisu.

I liked the restaurant fine, but was a little put off by the rather curt manager and the male waiter. I also didn’t like that they held our wine hostage, and we had to ask them to top us up. Still, the food was good, and it was nice to talk to the Canadian ladies from Montreal. When the American couple left, it was kind of clear that they weren’t fans of our current POTUS… although they were polite about it. We didn’t bring up politics, by the way. The American guy at the other table did, just before he complained about Hungarian taxes.

As we were leaving, the female server and I shared another laugh and a hearty goodbye. I liked her. She clearly has spunk and personality to go with her good looks. I think she’ll go far.

Well, that about does it for Wednesday, September 10th. Stay tuned for part six!

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short breaks, Work trips

Big business in Poland, part five

Monday morning, they were still registering people for the conference. The buses taking participants to the conference location weren’t scheduled to leave until 11:00am. We enjoyed a late breakfast with many, many American soldiers, government employees, and contractors like Bill. It seemed a little like organized chaos as the Sofitel’s staff handled all of the people trying to get breakfast at the same time. The staff didn’t have me in the system, so Bill had to fix that issue. We then took advantage of the late start by taking a walk to the nearest Zabka.

These were EVERYWHERE!

Zabka is a kind of mini market. They are ubiquitous in Wroclaw. I saw at least one, sometimes two, on every street. We used the one that was right on the square, which was just a block from our hotel; however, if we’d wanted to, we could have used one even closer than that! It reminded me of the time Bill and I went to Seattle back in 2005 and saw two Starbucks within spitting distance of each other.

All kinds of drinks… from juice and soda to booze…
Everything from toilet paper to dog food on the back aisle.
Wow!
Gum, batteries, doughnuts, and phallic looking hot dogs… They also had fresh lemons, peppers, and tomatoes.

We went into the Zabka because I thought I needed feminine hygiene supplies. I thought we’d need to go to an Apoteka (Apotheke/drug store) but it turned out the tiny Zabka store has a little bit of everything. There were just two aisles in the store on the square, yet they had fresh fruits, cat food, and liquor for sale, as well as the sanitary napkins I needed. Regarding those napkins– they had a couple of choices. I could have purchased the familiar Always pads, but I opted for a Polish brand. This morning, when I finally needed them for real, I noticed this description on the label.

Apparently, the Polish like their sanitary pads to have the healing properties of Tilia flowers. Fortunately, I don’t itch or burn “down there”.
We also bought a bottle of genuine Zubrovka (zoo-broov-ka)– “bison grass vodka” at the Zabka. The bison vodka available outside of Poland is usually artificially flavored, but this is the “real stuff” with a blade of grass in it. The grass is sourced from the Białowieża Forest, hand-picked and dried under natural conditions.

This vodka has an unusual flavor, but the real version with a blade of bison grass in it is illegal to sell in Germany and the United States, because the grass contains coumarin, a blood thinner. You’d have to drink many liters of the vodka before coumarin would affect you, but that doesn’t stop bureaucrats from outlawing it. They know what’s best for us…

Anyway, Zubrovka is available with grass or artificially flavored without grass. The artificially flavored kind is what I have seen sold in the US and Germany. The Zabka had both varieties, so we bought some “mit Gras”. The shopkeeper didn’t speak English and reverted to German when we requested the booze. Much to my amazement, I understood him before Bill did! We bought genuine bison grass vodka for the first time in November 2008, which was the last time we were in Poland. I could probably take it or leave it, but we like the real stuff whenever we can access it. People often chill it and drink it mixed with apple juice.

Monday was the first day of my individual quest for eating establishments. I ended up going for Georgian food again, but this time at a place called Chinkalnia. Like U Gruzina, this is yet another Georgian food restaurant chain in Poland. It was a bit different than U Gruzina. Located in the middle of the main square, the outlet I went to had more of an old school decor. Wines by the glass were not available; instead, those who wanted wine had to buy it by the bottle. I probably could have drunk the whole bottle on Monday, given how chilly and rainy Monday’s weather was. Instead, I opted for beer. I tried a Ukrainian draft beer that was pretty unimpressive, and then moved on to the Georgian beers they had, a lager and a dark beer. Both were much better than the draft beer and surprisingly decent.

I also had a pork stew called chanakhi. It was served in a small clay pot and topped with garlic. I had never had it before and mostly enjoyed it, although it tasted like they might have microwaved it. Some parts of the stew were hotter than others. I noticed other guests enjoying chinkali and khatchapouri and kind of wished I’d gone for the khatchapouri, although the pork stew, with its potatoes, carrots, and Georgian spices was filling and tasty. I also enjoyed the friendly Polish waiter, who said he’d been to Georgia on vacation.

Obolon, a Ukrainian brew that was pretty boring…
Charming interior of a Georgian restaurant.
Chanakhi topped with fresh garlic. After that and the beer, my breath was probably gorgeous.
Georgian beer was surprisingly good.
I enjoyed them both, but preferred the dark.
The outside of the restaurant. It’s a little more old school than U Gruzina.

This was a pretty reasonably priced lunch. I think I spent about 60 Zloty before the tip. Then I walked back to the hotel in the rain and took a nice nap. The weather was perfect for it.

For dinner, Bill and I had Italian food at a place called O Sole Mio. We hadn’t planned to eat Italian food, but we kind of got roped in by the lady standing at the door, inviting people inside. Bill had lasagne, which was very good. I had grilled salmon and two sides– huge portions of spinach with Parmesan cheese and baked potatoes. I was picturing one or two potatoes, but they brought out a whole trough of them!

Bill orders a carafe of wine.
Nice oven.
Yum… I should have gone for the lasagne.
The salmon was good, though. I liked the lemon sauce.
Huge sides.

Our waitress was very young and cute, and just like every other server and cab driver we ran into during this trip, she spoke excellent English. Really, I am very impressed by how proficient most everyone was with English. I think they may even have the Germans beat in that department.

It’s a stark contrast to 11 years ago, when most of the Polish people we met didn’t speak any English at all. But then, we were in the countryside, rather than a charming, tourist friendly city like Wroclaw. Older Polish people don’t speak English as much as the younger ones do, but they do tend to speak German. Since Bill can speak some German and I can understand it and speak a few words, that’s also helpful.

On Monday, I also got some photos from the inside of St. Elizabeth’s Church and many of the 600 gnomes scattered around Wroclaw. I will write about that in the next post!

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