Buskers, Statues and Hummus

After an evening of wandering through some of the night life and getting to know some of the Hungarians attending one of the Universities some of us will be working at, it was decided to hit the streets once again in the day for a walking tour. After people slowly awoke from sleeping off the fun of the evening and getting some breakfast (at lunch time), some of us headed toward the tram stop near the dorms. We got off at the same stop as central market, a large in door market where you can buy fresh fruits, vegetables and bread from local vendors. It's much like a farmers market in Michigan, but much bigger, and there's little English to be heard of read. Produces are generally bought by weight per kilogram. However, as we're all familiar with the market, we quickly moved one to find other places. The streets we wend through are filled with small shops at the corners, where one can buy the nerdy, tourist I <3 Budapest mugs, bags or shirts. (I would say I greatly considered getting one, but I didn't, so I won't say it) Along the sides of the building are restaurants, where a sign or podium has the menu readily available, and occasionally someone is there ready to seat you. Here there was a man delightfully playing an accordion with a huge smile, waiting for coins to fall into his case near his feet. Busker!! I love them! Not too far off we encountered another busker (street performer), playing his violin.

Soon we passed through an old Serbia neighborhood. Against the church in this section a wall stood plastered by vines crawling along it. As we moved on we found a giant foot, but what's more exciting is we found a playground! Unfortunately, the slide was a little too small for me, but it didn't stop me from trying to play around on it. I found an odd spinning cup, and noticed a hole in the bottom, so I thought maybe if you pour sand into the cup and spin it the sand will leak out in some strange way. The sand just stayed there. Abby, my girl friend who is also along for the semester in Hungary program, had more sense than I did and indicated it was probably a spinning seat. The group proceeded to take turns getting dizzy on it, and we walked off swaying.

We eventually came to a church, decorated with statues of angels, and Christ on the cross at the base. This seems to be the typical construction of churches. Height, of a steeple pointing up, with points all along it, and garnished with statues of angels or great men, all whom I have little idea of which hero or figure they were intended to represent. We stood outside it near a dry fountain, where faces formed into the side of the structure would have water shooting out their mouth, if there was water being pumped into it. Near it some homeless people slept. Pigeons flew around the square. The scene had an odd stillness to it, and I felt the statues were watching us and wondering what all these people were doing below them, and why they had been constructed by them in the first place. I almost felt I heard them talking about how still they felt, and how silently the men had been sleeping below them through the night. I would have felt compelled to have sat there longer, but there was more to see.

One of the more exciting stops was, yet again, the finding of buskers! Three men playing brass wind instruments near a monument. While other people in the group were reading something about the monument I knew nothing about, I dropped a coin in their case, and stood back to watch. Abby and I enjoyed listening to them, and then the man in the middle decided to surprise us by suddenly bursting into a song with a deep, but mellow, voice with a fitting on key crackle in it. It was absolutely amazing! They made me smile for several minutes after wards.

We also made a stop at a "historical McDonalds". Supposedly the first "this side of the iron wall". Some children were eating there, and Abby pointed out how they were staring at me because of my height. I proceeded to pull out a coin do some old magic tricks which I'm far out of practice with. They seemed to enjoy them none the less, and conversed about how I might have done some of them.
Other activities continued. Such as walking along the river, stopping for coffee, pictures at statues of famous composers, the discovery of book stores and an opera house. But the details would take a long time to fill in, and I’ve already probably gone on and on with some of these, so I shall try to cut it short so you can return to your life.
The day ended by meeting others outside a church to go to a hummus bar. We partook and some wonderful hummus, and the best falafel we've found yet. (I've been eating a lot of falafel here, a deep fried chickpea patty, much of which has been rather dry at most stops we've been getting them at, but these ones were quite good.) Getting back ended up taking longer than anticipated, but having had no coat and wind making me quite cold through the latter part of the day, I was glad to get back to a warmer place.

And now I should probably get back to studying the Hungarian language, instead of procrastinating with this. Lots of fruits, vegetable, and other foods to learn. Woot! Also:

I like tea.