Sunday, July 4

Another absolutely whirlwind day.

We got up in Budapest this morning, after having a kinda lukewarm opinion of it last night. That certainly changed! Our apartment was in a "rejuvinating" section of town, and we went to the historical/tourist areas in the morning. Hero's Park, a castle that' been there forever, stopped by the Kodaly Museum (famous Hungarian composer, folk music, like that). Kodaly Museum was closed for restoration, of course, because they knew we were coming and that Rob REALLY wanted to see it. Then:

• Went to "Castle Hill", where everything important in Budapest really is. "Chain Bridge", built in mid 1800s, the Palace on top of the hill; funicular leading up to it; did the funicular, got a bunch of pictures, stayed around there for an hour or so.
• Biotch took us about 15 km. SW of town to a really unique park called "Memento Park", or "Monument Park". Some enterprising soul who is unnamed guy collected as many communist-era statues as he could get in 1989-90; most are from Budapest, but not all. Some REALLY famous stuff that we've all seen since we were kids. It was so unexpected to find this. About 15 people were there. Along with this exhibit outside was an inside exhibit that focused on the Hungarian Commnist party and uprising of 1956 and 1989. We were  both pretty entranced by this. They were playing Communist marching songs from an ancient radio at the rather spartan admissions booth.
• Took off for Ljubljana, Slovenia. Perfect, smooth, unbelieveably uninhabited freeway all the way. We got to a turing point and decided to dip in to Croatia to get a beer, add that to the list of countries. Stopped to gas up and grab that all-important beer. Took a swallow and poured it out. Brings canned Falstaff to mind.
• Arrived in LjubLjana about 8:00; this is a city of 265K, but doesn't seem like it. Capital of a very thriving country, but it's really laid back. It's about an hour from Italy, and about the size of New Jersey with a quarter the population. There is indeed a little city center, but about one quarter the size of the other old European center areas we've been to. Got directions from the hotel chickie for a restaurant; went on the search. Found out that they don't eat here, just drink. Beer. Booze. Coffee drinks. And on and on. We must have passes 20 jam packed sidewalk places that had no food available, only drinks. God bless the Slovenians. However, we did have to have food...found a restuarant with...count 'em....100 choices of pizza on the menu. Damn. Best we've ever had. They learned a bit from the Italian pizza gods here, I guess.

Tomorrow we'll do a walking tour of Ljubljana, then drive over to Bled, which is a popular resort area. We're going to try to get a bit of rest tomorrow. Lotsa driving and going up to now.

Random thoughts:

• Many MANY women have hair with colors not found in nature. (CNFIN) All ages. Doesn't matter. Red. Purple. Yellow. Gold. Green. Puce. Mauve. Connected Gray.
• More style additions to mine/Rob's wardrobe: purple spaghetti strap tops with brightly - colored matching striped boxers that..uh...er....exhibit the package. Really. No, really.
• Speed of 130 kph on the roads really means go as fast as you can without running others off the road.
• To use the baths in Budapest as a male, you MUST :
• Have a 60 lb. belly
• Wear a speedo
• Hit on the 20-something chicks