Yesterday was a memorable day that turned out to be quite special. I’ll be writing a longer, more detailed version of this story when I write about this trip, but for now, I want to preserve the memory while I can.

I did a whole lot of walking yesterday. I used to walk a lot, but nowadays, I’ve gotten pretty out of shape. What I did yesterday is no longer normal for me. I probably won’t repeat it today, when I venture out on my own.

I went from the hotel, across the famous Chain Bridge to the Buda side of the city, down the Danube to the Margaret Bridge, around Margaret Island, and then back to the hotel. It took several hours, and I walked close to six miles. I got tired and thirsty, and never managed to eat lunch, although I did have a wonderful cold lager that tasted so good…

After a nap, it was getting close to Bill’s quitting time. I decided to rest in the hotel room. I thought maybe we’d go to the Italian restaurant near our hotel that looked really cool. But since Bill had walked to his conference yesterday morning, he wanted to show me a shopping area very close to where we’re staying. I didn’t bring my purse with me. Instead, I left my bag in hotel room, and carried my phone, some Carmex, and my keycard in my pocket. We were looking at a display in the street, and I dropped my keycard. A few minutes later, I noticed I didn’t have it, and we were walking quickly back to the display to see if we could find it.

On the way there, a modestly dressed, overly friendly woman tried to stop us because she wanted to talk to us… (probably about Jesus, but I don’t know for certain). I was anxious about the keycard and annoyed by the woman. I snapped, “We don’t have time to talk.”

We found the keycard and decided to leave the busy plaza. The intrusion by the proselytizer had put me in a foul mood. I was hungry and tired, and in no mood for people and their bullshit. So I forgot about the Italian place, and we rounded a corner, where we were confronted with a bunch of touristy restaurants… the kind with pictures of the food.

I don’t like to eat in touristy restaurants. I find that the food is usually overpriced and mediocre, and the service is half assed. When we went to look at the menu, there was a very young, pretty woman in a very short skirt, clearly there to lure in male customers. That, too, was a bit of a turn off.

Then a group of Asians rudely pushed in front of us as we were talking to the hostess. They didn’t even end up eating there. By all rights, we should have just walked away and found someplace less obnoxious.

Nevertheless, I really needed to eat something, and didn’t want to repeat the process at the next restaurant. So although I had low expectations, and was put off by the tackiness of the menu and the hostess’s attire, we said yes to the “tourist trap”.

The short skirted hostess pointed to a four top table, right by where the stream of guests were walking in, which I didn’t like. The chair was also not very comfortable. The faux arm rests, which weren’t actually functioning arm rests, dug into my thighs (more long walks without lunch might solve that issue).

I was not all that enticed by the menu, which was a lot of heavy Hungarian dishes, along with pastas, salads, and other stuff. I ended up ordering a draft beer and a Caesar salad with shrimps. Bill had chicken paprikash.

As expected, the food was fairly mediocre. My salad was mostly iceberg lettuce, with quartered toasted white bread, a small slice of bell pepper, some greens, dressing, and Parmesan cheese. I think there were six medium sized prawns. I was glad they weren’t overcooked.

About halfway through dinner, a quartet of musicians showed up. One guy was playing what looked like a dulcimer, while the other three were playing a violin, viola, and upright bass violin. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they played extremely well.

The violin player was obviously leading the act, and he noticed me enjoying the music. He acknowledged my admiration with a big smile, and kept playing Hungarian hits of centuries ago. And then they started playing “I Could Have Danced All Night”, a song from My Fair Lady I often tease Bill with by changing the lyrics to something obscene. Before I knew it, I enthusiastically burst in, singing along like Julie Andrews. People stopped to listen, like it was something out of a movie. The fiddle players came over and started accompanying me. Then they played “Memory”, which I could have sung, but the key wasn’t ideal.

Bill gave them a big tip and we bought their CD, which made me happy, because I love buying music from buskers. It’s probably my favorite souvenir. However, Bill had given them such a big tip that he was short on cash to cover the price of the CD. They wisely sold it to us, anyway. LOLOLOL… Well, it’s not like we didn’t already pay them with the tip.

They played to most of the other people sitting on the terrace and a group of Brits really got into singing “Edelweiss” and “Do-Re-Mi”. One of them came over and paid me a compliment on my voice, and I returned the compliment to him and his group, when he jokingly said, “You weren’t as good as we were!” 🤭

Bill and I had wine for dessert, and left there feeling a lot better than we did when we arrived. And it later occurred to me that this is something that happens to me quite often. I show up somewhere in a foul mood; something amazing happens; then I leave with great memories, or a new story to write about in my blog. When I am back at my usual computer, I’ll have to write more about that phenomenon. I don’t know if this is something unique to me, but it’s happened to me a lot of times in my lifetime.

Anyway, I’m sure this is what the band does all the time… get the crowd going and earn tips, which is exactly what they should be doing. But they were truly kind and talented gents, and I couldn’t help but realize how much time, money, and energy went into what they do. They were stellar musicians. I didn’t hear them put a single note wrong. And as someone who is also somewhat of a musician, I really appreciated that. But I also love that they gave me a wonderful memory and a new story to share.

Bill was emotionally overwhelmed last night, and so was I. The musicians brought tears to my eyes, because they were so good. And when we left, they bid us an enthusiastic good night. I felt like I made new friends! 😁 Music truly is an international language that brings people together.

Every time we travel, something crazy happens… But even if we hadn’t encountered the wonderful musicians, we also saw a guy who came up, perused the menu very obviously, and then walked along the terrace and tapped all of the flowers in an odd and entertaining way. If anything, Budapest is a great place for people watching.

I don’t know what today holds. I’ll probably try to explore the area we vamoosed out of last night, since it looks like it might be a good place to buy stuff for the grandchildren. I don’t think I’ll walk six miles again, though. I need to let my thighs heal from all the chafing.