Dave is…
In Szentendre
Josh is still a day away so I figured I’d get out of Buda and or Pest today and on a day trip and see what else Hungary has to offer so I hopped a train to the nearby town of Szentendre, a town well known as one of the best places to see what Hungary of old looks like.
Before I headed off though I stopped at St. Stephen’s, the rather large and imposing church near the hostel, to check out his hand. That’s right, St. Stephen’s hand, “miraculously” preserved and intact is on display in the church. Personally I think the hand looks rough and weathered but I also think its bullshit that you have to put in a coin to get the light to turn on so you can see it and I think there are some serious questions as to what this guy did to actually earn sainthood.
But then again the Catholic Church is currently rushing through the process of getting Pope John Paul II canonized, same with Mother Teresa (who did lots of good but definitely had some serious issues everyone glosses over) and even Pope Pius XII, otherwise known as Hitler’s pope and a fairly despicable human being. So in that context any guy who is immortalized in a Grateful Dead song is more than welcome to his sainthood.
St Stephen wasn’t looking out for me though as I got into Szentendre to discover that it was one of those towns where all museums are closed on Mondays and I was pretty much SOL on everything I wanted to see. Specifically the open air museum featuring a large collection of traditional Hungarian homes. With that closed there as little in town to do other than wander through the dense strip of tourist trap shops and linger on the river.
So I did, I dipped my toes in the Danube, had a beer on the street, wandered the churches and back streets of town and listened to Chuck Klosterman read his “Sex, Drugs and Coco-Puffs” thanks to the audio book I stole from Rob. Once again let me point out that while New York was deluged with rain it was a warm sunny low 70s.
The rain though is a mild concern on one score though. Something like 500 flights have been cancelled over the last couple days in NYC and while Josh thinks his flight should be ok there is definitely the possibility of delays.
Back in Budapest there was more bad news as CNN was just breaking the news of the shooting at Virginia Tech. Sitting in the common room of the hostel watching this when they changed the casualties from 2 to 32, I made the comment “That’s fucking terrible”. To which another guy in the room goes, “Depends on your point of view”. Fairly pissed at that statement I inquired what he meant by that and the fucking asshole gave me that bullshit line, “Well thousands die of starvation everyday in Africa”. That led to a somewhat testy exchange which, when I later realized he worked for the hostel, I am glad remained brief.
I left the hostel still feeling a little heated and went and met Rob who just rolled into town and we had an overpriced drink and poorly made donar before calling it a night.