Budapest

august 12: we have arrived in the land of albert. we expected everyone to look like albert, but they don't.

chaffee's sick. :( so we did a touristy thing of taking a bus tour. it was a lovely 2 hour tour of both buda and pest. we saw lots of stuff and learned about hungarian history. :) hungary has been attacked and oppressed a lot. :( the buildings would have been amazing if they were able to fix them up.

we also were successful in finding pharmacy to get decongestion for chaffee. we went to a thermal bath yesterday at the gellért hotel hoping it would clear chaffee's sinuses. the bath would be beautiful in its hayday, but a lot of the fixtures were no longer there. after the bath, we went to dinner and dessert at the gerbeaud establishment.

today's plans are/were to go to the castle area, castle labyrinth, and explore some caves (probably szomlőhegy cave). we shall see. it rained last night and is threatening to rain again today. --- something of note, hungarian homes are have some very neat things (at least at our hostel - the wooden outside shutters, the hanging drying line in the high ceiling bathroom, the drying dish rack above the sink...) also, budapest seem to have large numbers of bookstores and fabric stores. both of us like budapest more than prague. it could be because it rained less, but mostly because it has been much less touristy and crowded.

we'll be leaving for münchen tomorrow and making our way down to see the castles of bavaria within the next 2 days... :) most of our greece portion of the trip is going to be plan by ear - so any suggestions would be welcomed.