Berlin → Budapest – 03 June 2024

Not many pictures today; took Ryanair from Berlin. While waiting for the plane, another person saw a fire at the airport. I didn’t get my camera out in time to capture the fire, but here’s a picture of water being sprayed on a plane.

When I got to the airport in Budapest and asked where to find the bus to downtown, one of the people staffing the desk asked me how old I was. I told them I was 70, and they said it was free for anyone over 65, even if they aren’t Hungarian. At that moment, I channeled my inner Mr. Fauth. Who is this Mr. Fauth, you might ask? Well, to make up for the lack of pictures, here’s the story:

Mr. Fauth

He was a person who worked in the demolition business. It was a hard job, and he was good at it. He didn’t have much of a sense of money, though. He would come into my dad’s clothing store once every week to buy three pairs of socks. These were cheaply made socks in packages of five pairs for 98 cents. (This was back in 1967 or so.) If we had to break open a package, we’d charge 25 cents per pair. Mr. Fauth always bought three pair for 75 cents. We wondered what we would do if he ever came in for four pairs.

Sure enough, it finally happened. Mr. Fauth came in and asked my dad for four pairs of socks, and Dad said that it would be a dollar, “but tell you what, since you’ve been such a good customer, I’ll throw in the fifth pair for you.”

“No,” said Mr. Fauth. “If it’s free, it ain’t no good, and I don’t want it.” So he paid a dollar for his four pairs of socks.

Back to present day. As soon as I heard the transit people tell me it didn’t cost anything to ride the transit system, I heard Mr. Fauth in my head. (Also, a little bit of the so-called ethical person in me felt that I should buy a ticket anyway.) I managed to ignore Mr. Fauth and realize that I am, at heart, a totally unscrupulous person, and concluded, “if they’re making the offer, I may as well take advantage of it.”

The Hotel

A very nice place indeed:

Bathroom is small, but laid out quite efficiently.

Hurray; there’s a safe!

Not a terribly impressive view.

The Hotel Area

This is what you see if you look up at the hotel door. Probably a message about how they’ll react if you don’t check out on time.

More sculptures...

You can’t walk a block without seeing at least a couple of people walking their dog(s). Hence the need for this self-service dog wash:

This man was a musician and composer who died fighting communism (as best I can make out from the text)

The area around the hotel looks a bit run-down, sort of like things deteriorated during the communist era and never quite got restored. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Food

Went to Piroska Vendéglő for dinner; had chicken stew with dumplings. Nice decor, and the food was about an 8 on a scale of 1-10.