In which we bound around Budapest. Part II.

Favorite photo of this adventure: see above.

Riding the subway in Budapest felt very much like riding the subway in Prague, in that you had to take epically long escalators into the belly of the earth for a chance at risking your life by hopping in and out of speedy, action-packed vehicles. This particular escalator (see below) was a curiosity indeed in that it was a.) wooden, and b.) really, really fast. Riding the yellowy line was especially entertaining due to its silly little chime (which someone captured here) and classic decor. Unlike the other subway lines, it careeningly wormed its way through the underworld only a few meters underneath the unsuspecting streets.

A few smashing heroes... and tourists. (But can you tell which is which?)

I particularly enjoyed walking down the big, open Andrássy street, admiring the trees against its elegant facades. Later I gave it a background check in my Two-Euro Clearance Guidebook and learned that people were hanged on its big beautiful steetlights during WWII. Needless to say, that shifted my perspective a little.

Drinks! Sweets! Souvenir! ...Gooseliver? ...And alcohol.

The rest of the Amis needed to depart on the fourth evening, but I had decided to stay on another day and tackle the city solo style. That adventure started with an evening stroll along the Danube, which had many sparkling treasures to unfold and behold.

Desperate much?

Who knew that Michelangelo's hand model was actually Franz Liszt?

A peek up the basillica. Holy in a Gaud-y kind of way.

In the last moments before turning my steps toward the airport, I finally found the man I had set out to find, much like many of the GOP nominee hopefuls: Ronald Reagan. (Here you go, JB.)

...And inadvertantly also discovered Ronald Reagan's Zombie Shadow, which so just happened to bear a striking resemblance to many of the GOP nominee hopefuls.

Budapest gave me a wholehearted tickling, much more so than I had anticipated. It definitely had an Eastern European flair that I had first tasted in Poland and the Czech Republic, but it surprised me with its simultaneous mega-cosmopolitan attributes. For example, most every single café window I sauntered by was advertising free WiFi, putting it way ahead of Germany on the interweb connectivity front. The public transportation was also much more advanced than I had expected. In fact, it was downright grand. Architecturally speaking, my eyes wanted to lick every wall and polish themselves on every overly-expressive statue. I didn't even make it into a single museum or performance space, which was certainly a bummer as there were so many exhibits and concerts that I would have liked to have seen. All the more reason to go back, I suppose.

I made it to the airport without difficulty and, after convincing the nice flight attendants to let me fly without my passport a second time (somehow managed to leave it in HH, oooops-- gotta love those Schengen buddies), I snagged an almost-front seat and proceeded to feast on miniature landscapes. (1. Near Budapest, and 2. Near Berlin.)

Fully satiated, I boarded the train in Berlin and let its zenny lull sing me back to home. Where it snowed a week later. Oh, well.