Fish with Whiskey

Our second and third day in Paris were museum days.

I was familiar with some of Freida’s self portraits- mum had a book of them that we flipped through occasionally growing up), but didn’t know anything about her life.

It was a little crazy. Probably ‘tumultuous’ and ‘tortured’ if you want the artistic words.
She apparently said she had two great accidents in her life.

The first was a physical bus crash, which left her immobilized in bed for a period of time, and later forced her to wear a corset/brace to stand, then left her in a wheelchair. The time in bed began her painting career and also explain the hundreds of self portraits, and the recurrent health problems that came as a result of the crash- for example her inability to have children-  make for the themes of many of these paintings.

The second accident was Diego- the ‘elephant’ to her ‘dove’, whom she married – against her parents wishes of course- when she was 22 (he was over 40), divorced 10 years later, and married again the next year. She had multiple affairs, and, as her health deteriorated, he took up with her younger sister. But they remained velcro’d to eachother.

Anyway, the exhibition was quite beautiful- although Diego’s style was not my favourite.

After the Museum we had to head back to the apartment. In the morning, a fuse had blown, and we lost power in our apartment. Andy tried to switch the fuse, and the box made a loud bang, and flashed a little. So we called the landlord.

We explained the ‘Bang’ part of the terrifying fuse box. They tried to poke it into action anyway. It made a louder bang, a very impressive flash, and smoke started coming out of the box.

We got an upgrade to a larger apartment:

From which, Andy would be very excited to let you know, you could see not only the Sacre Coeur, but also the Eiffel Tower.

The next morning we got up (somewhat) bright and (slightly) early, and headed to D’Orsay, with Museum cards in hand.

There was a bit of a ‘no photo’ rule in D’Orsay as well, so you’ll have to make do with several hundred photos of the rather beautiful ex-train station interior.

 

(Did anyone watch the 4400?)

D’Orsay was one of the last museums we saw on our ’09 tour- which hit up the V&A, British Museum, Tate Modern, National Gallery and Lourve all in the space of two weeks- and it was one of my favourites. This time ’round I still went gaga over the art nouveau (but realised that Andy is an art deco man- relationship ruined!), and really enjoyed perusing.. but realised that generally my tastes have shifted to something even more modern.

Older art- the religious stuff you find in the Lourve, is beautiful for its richness and can be appreciated for the pure skill involved in creating such a masterpiece. But with excessive viewing, they can blur into one. The impressionist/post-impressionist stuff adds a new angle, but still involves multiple artists adhering (to a certain degree) to a style. There are always a few that really steal your heart (mine flutters for Mondrian, and goes a little gooey for Van Gough), but that sense of familiarity can still set in.

Modern Art seems to have the singular aim to be innovative- and while I’m sure someone in 100 years will look back and be bored by the theme, and even though much of it is hideous and terrible and tacky, I like this quest for uniqueness.

Anyway, after hitting up some art we went for a stroll along the Seine.

We passed by and stuck our head into Shakespeare and Company- a beautiful, old bookstore that shouts out to every part of my DNA that wants to read, and all the other parts that want to Hoard things.

After stuffing our faces with Asian delights, we skipped across to the Lourve, where we walked through the top floor, realised that this had taken us 1.5 hours, and then ran around trying to find the Mona Lisa so that Andy could pose next to her.

That evening we headed to the Centre Pompidou, which houses the biggest modern art museum in Europe (so says wiki!)… but I’ll have to show you those photos later…

 A few weeks back, Pau and I once again hit a 1 year mark on our progression through time. To celebrate being now ridiculously old, we dressed up in our finery, and danced around the apartment.

Which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do, as long as you remember to invite some friends.

The theme was Movies and Music.. I’m something vaguely Gatsby, and Pau is Sandy, from Grease.

(I should note that about half the photos below are taken from Pau- Thanks Pauli!)

Andy, complete with Energy Dome, went as one of the members of the band Devo. Which no-one knew, so he spent the whole evening singing ‘Whip it‘ to anyone who would listen

Harry Potter:

Napolean Dynamite. Complete with Tatertots (a.k.a- pretty much the best birthday present I’ve ever been given)

and moon boots:

A very beautiful fairy:

Some cat-women

Marylin-Marylin Manson:

And Brian Molko from Placebo:

And this very charming couple:

(Heidi and Seal)

Alice and some friends:

and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And these two- who make up my favourite photo of the evening:

(Dr Zhivago and his lady love)- I have never seen anyone rule a mustache quite like Anna did that evening:

(and yes, that includes you Heidi Klum).

Although The Dude also had pretty cool facial hair going on:

On with the photos:

Thanks for all the fun everyone- I was super impressed that you actually all bothered to dress up!

Day One In Paris

I hope you know us well enough to guess that we left the whole ‘booking’ thing until the very last of minutes…

But it turned out quite well. We came up against the option of paying x euros per person and being thrown into the smallest of rooms in the oldest of hostels in the furthest corners of paris, or paying x+ a little bit more and staying in a shoebox apartment in the 9th (the ”burbs’ in Paris go clockwise out from the centre).

It was a pretty cool locale, not just in terms of location, but also in that it was one of these apartments that was originally for the maids and butlers- hidden on the hidden 6th floor (which you literally got to by pushing a wooden panel, ducking through this secret door and hiking up tiny rickety steps). Super cool!

Plus, in the evening, you could see Sacre Coeur from the window:

.. and in the mornings it was all sunshine and light and that beautiful architecture:

On the first day we did what by this time I can comfortably refer to as our traditional walking tour, which had us roaming around the city, peering at buildings and giggling at over-exaggerated history.

Paris is a much more beautiful city than Berlin- which seems to be mostly due to a couple of reasons:
a) the did a major city overhaul at some time in history and set the whole thing up in a logical and united way (of course to the loss of the masses who lived in the city- many of whom could not afford the re-mod)
b) it did not get bombed to oblivion in the war (although Hitler ordered it to be raised to the ground when he realised his imminent defeat, apparently this guy disobeyed the orders- most likely to save his own neck).
c) communism with its delight in grey, concrete and pre-fabricated uniformity, did not get such a hold. I mean check out this comrade- sure, dismantling the church and giving the money to the poor is a great idea, but can we start with NOT the really beautiful 100 year old marvelous beauties?

I’d probably let this one hang around too:

But not with the ugly viewing platform, which is meant to give people ‘a new perspective’ on the building.

These Parisians are so artistic.

Notre Dame for those of you playing at home- the original hang-out spot of my beloved Mr Hugo’s hunchback.

The river Seine. When my cousin, sister and I used to act out Les Mis in our living room (I was of course Gavroche, because he’s the only one with any balls in the whole piece) we all thought it was hilarious that Javert went insane and jumped in the river Seine. 

Not that the suicide part was funny- although the way I acted it (I was also Javert- there were only 3 of us after all), it was probably more comedy than provoking heart-breaking realisations and deep existential thoughts.

Hoho! What’s that peaking out in the distance there?

The Love Lock bridge. I think it’s Pont de l’Archeveche (insert appropriate accents in your own time) but I could be wrong. Internets says that this bridge is for your lover and the Pont des Arts if for long time love, but in any case this seemed to be the bride where it was all happening.

I just found some info about how horrible it is that the beautiful historical bridge is being ruined by locks. I agree that it might not be great for the environment, throwing hundreds of keys in the river and having rusty locks occasionally make their way in (although from the looks of the Seine, there are worse things floating by), but still- they look so pretty all a-glistening in the sunshine.

 Next stop, The Louvre.

Our guide- to be honest he was only ok.

And now for my favourite photo, ever:

We took a break and Andy stuffed himself with some Mc-Macarons, and I managed to rind myself a Nutella-almond-banana crepe.

Onwards with the travels!

/

These are in the Jardin des Tuileries, which is right next to the Louvre and holds the Orangerie and the photography museum.

I think the crow adds a certain something to the photo.

The tour ended by about 4, and we were both starving, so we followed the group into a little cafe and stuffed our faces for a long, satisfying period of time.

Andy ordered the snails, and spent quite a while trying to get the little buggers to stay on the tongs in a way that also made it possible to get them out of their shell.

I had the french onion soup, which was more bread than soup, and more cheese than bread. Together, we made for a rather hilarious lunch duo.

We both had some sort of Boeuf Bourguignon for mains. It was lovely and tender, and very appreciated after a year of pork-chicken-pork-pork-potatoes-pork in Germany. Still, I suspect Ella (my sister) makes better.

We wandered around the city a bit more, and then, tired out by all the walking and eating, headed back to the apartment for an hour or two before dinner (more eating!).

Excited by the fact that Paris seems to be made up of people of more than a single origin, we stuffed our face with some sort of middle eastern fair, and made our way back to the apartment with these sugary delights:

Last time I went to Paris (with Ashlee and Lauren), we were way too poor to even contemplate biting into ‘les macarons’….

…this time, I endeavoured to make up for that lack.

I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit where my first french macaron came from:

Andy had been prattling on for months about how he intended to eat Mc-arons and Mc-Donalds in France, and to tell you the truth we all thought he was talking bull. But lo! The mc-mass-produced mc-macaron:

And to be honest, they’re not too bad. Better than 80% of the stuff you could find in Perth a year ago when everyone thought they should try getting on this new trend and charging 3 bucks for stale/overbaked/flavourless biscuity things. Quite mild on the flavour with the pistachio, and perhaps not so melt-in-the-mouth as possible. But they have a range of the basics- chocolate, choc/orange, strawberry, pistachio, and they only cost 90c a pop.

Andy claims that they were his favourite out of all the ones we tried. But this is a boy who eats a Mc-double burger at least twice a week and who I’m pretty sure is being paid by the company to constantly sing their praise.

In keeping with the fairly unadventurous flavours, we shelled out for a strawberry-choc-lemon trio at the Lourve. I know that you can’t really expect the finest in pastries and baking at a mega tourist destination, and these settled fairly well into our expectations- mild flavours, ok, but nothing to write home about.

By the third day in Paris it became apparent that we just weren’t going to get enough Macarons into the trip by mere chance encounters. So, in order to up-the-odds and take a stab a the best of the best, we headed on a pilgrimage.

First up, Lauduree.

Which is all beauty and pastels and Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Unfortunately also very dim so hard to get good photos from the inside:

The world is divided into two factions: Sharks and Jets, Pepsis and Cokes, people who spell colour with a ‘u’ and people who are confused.

In the world of Macarons the lovers of Lauduree are pitted against the Pierre Herme gang.

 Slightly less fancy than the Lauduree setup.

We had to pass more hideous scenery to get to our final tour stop.

Our final stop was Sadaharu Aoki, famed for it’s adventurous use of flavours. Unsurprisingly, the set up here was more Japanese: beautiful in its order, everything in its place (the macarons were organised in a spectrum!), and slightly more sterile. I snuck this photo in before they banned me from any more:

We sat in the sun in a park, and settled into our Macarons.

First up, Sadaharu Aoki:

We bought Macha (green tea), Earl grey, Sesame, Japanese citrus (Yuzu) and Wasabi.

I really enjoyed the experimental quality of the different flavours. All of them tasted pretty good- even the wasabi, which was only mildly flavoured with the horseradish tang neatly cutting through the sweeter filling. Macha (green tea) and Earl grey were also pretty amazing- the sweetness counterbalanced by the bitterness of the teas. Generally the texture was great, although less delicate than other macarons. These were instead beautifully chewy, with the fillings very much a ganache or even fudge.

My favourite was the sesame- which had a dark, rather potent centre to counteract the sugary shell.

All in all: I would definitely return to try out some of the other flavours, they had a genmaicha and maybe one or two more ‘interesting’ ones as well as the traditional range. They’re also a bit cheaper than the other two brands (I think 1.65 each?).

(The black sesame- amazingly good!)

Next up, Pierre Herme.

I’m not entirely sure of the flavours, here, because it didn’t come with a wee booklet and it’s rather difficult to find a flavour list online. hmm.

So:
Passionfruit and chocolate (‘Mogador’)
Pure Venezuelan dark chocolate
Rose and Lichi
Yogurt and Banana
White truffle
and something else that I feel might have had some pistachio in it? but was clearly unmemorable as a flavour (Andy confirms on pistachio, and on the lack of impression the whole thing left).

We were both a bit underwhelmed by these. Generally the biscuit was a bit too crispy on the outside for my liking- almost dry, and with a small air gap underneath instead of melt-in-your-mouth macaron.

The flavours were definitely inventive, but not always in an amazingly synergistic way: the passionfruit/choc tasted a bit like the fruits were old so that this macaron first tasted offputting (before you realised that that weird flavour in the background was passionfruit), the chocolate ganache was rich, but too hard for my liking- it was really a solid mass and not a ganache, the litchi flavour was too faint to properly grasp, the yogurt/banana tasted like candy…

None of them really caught out tastebuds.

Not to mention that the white truffle was the most horrible thing I have ever put in my mouth. Which I guess is a matter of taste, but I feel also amounts to the fact that they overdid the flavouring. By the end of the day all our remaining PH macarons were completely contaminated with truffle flavour.

I should also note that the PH macarons top the price list at 2 euros each.

On to our final player: Lauduree. They had a fairly disappointing range of flavours- mostly the standards with only a few creative options. We went for the coffee, the blackcurrent and violet, the Pink peppercorn and the gingerbread.

I didn’t think I’d be that into the blackcurrent, but it came pretty closely behind the sesame as far as favourite flavours go- the filling was a fresh jam- not to sweet, and potent enough to be present against the almondy background of the shell. The gingerbread, which had a more buttery filling, was also exceedingly delicious- top 5 for sure.

And I was amazed at how well the peppercorn worked- even for someone who doesn’t like the flavour of pepper (I keep it away from my food), I was impressed by the delicate balances between the sweetness and spiciness of the filling. The creaminess also played a role- and I found myself much more impressed by the delicate smooth texture of this filling over the rock-hard ganache of the PH chocolate macaron.

So, I liked the Lauduree macarons (1.85 each) for texture and would like to explore their more classical range, but found their range of flavours limited enough that I would definitely stray more often to Sadaharu (for the Sesame and Macha- and because I really actually enjoy the chewier macarons with solid centres- even if this is not as ‘technically macarony’ as some people would prefer)… to be honest I would even return to PH if they introduced something new and thrilling, but with lower expectations and with intent to stay far, far away from anything flavoured by earth fungi.

Andy, of course, votes McDs number one, but I suspect he’s not cultured enough for his opinion to count in this matter.

Last night there was a ton of wind, and when we stepped out this morning most of the golden leaves around our Potsdam haunt had taken their final Fall.

Losing autumn comes with a sense of dread, correlated with and caused by ‘winteriscoming-itis’, has only been accentuated by the loss of our daylight saving hour. Now, when you look outside and the sun is setting, it really is only 4:30.

So let’s have have some photos from the blur of snaps I’ve taken in the last 10 days or so…as a loving tribute to Autumn.

In Memory:

Last weekend we headed to the big city to catch up with friends and climb some rocks.

Andy decided to practice the climbing before we got the Klettern world:

He’s such a filthy communist.

These look a little bit Aussie to me….

How great are those colours?!

There is something so cool about a day when you actually get a (fairly) blue sky, and you have golden light matching and bouncing off golden leaves.

I’m sad to say that the above photo (sunrise), and the photo below (sunset) were taken on the same day. This is a sign that
a) I spend too much time at the Institue
b) Winter is coming!

This is one of the paths we take as a shortcut to the institute. If I get a bit more organized I might try to take photos throughout the year, to show you how amazing the change in surrounding grasses and weeds is over the season.

Winter is coming!

We’re heading to Paris this ((extra) long) weekend, and I’m hoping that the several degrees of latitude of south-ness of the city will mean that we still get a little bit more of that autumn beauty… wish us luck!

I only took a couple of photos on our final day in Budapest.. partially because it was really only a half day, and partially because the weather finally gave in to Autumn and everything looked a bit like this:

In order to escape the misty drizzle that had descended, we headed to the Great Market Hall.
The building I quite lovely, with a slight air of ‘old British station’ to it, and the ground floor is filled with fruits and vegetables, cheeses and meats and all manner of lovely and unpronounceable (in Hungarian) things.

Ellen and I were in search of some Langos, which I had not managed to try yet during our stay, so we headed upstairs.

Which to be perfectly honest, I would not recommend. While the ground floor has a fairly open feel, upstairs is full of narrow, corridors, with too many stalls, too many people and not enough space. While they do have the lovely needlework, the area seemed to mainly be dominated by tourist tack.

We did find some Langos though…

And on that day, I discovered that actually, I don’t really like Langos. The bread is deep fried, so you’re starting with a hefty amount of oil. Then add sour cream, for added fat, cheap cheese, and a sprinkle of ham. Everything you ever needed for the heart attack you never wanted.

We also totally overestimated our appetites (due to a lack of breakfast), and went for one each. After carrying the remaining 2/3s of mine around for about half an hour, I finally chucked it out.

We headed down to the safety of the lower levels, and bought some fresh berries to ‘cleanse our palettes’.

After wandering to Hero’s Square, and agreeing that it was a little uninspiring-in-the-present-weather but nonetheless pleasing-in-its-holding-of-behorsed-figures-that-look-agreeably-like-Ringwraiths.. we journeyed onwards.

There was a random billboard-art installation, one of which could have proven extremely helpful with our pronunciation of Hungarian if only we’d come across it sooner.

Sadly, our destination was closed:

… and we were left to guess what this meant for all the cats who should have been contained within.

So it seemed it was time for our Final Meal in Budapest. Of course we went for something traditional… Israeli cuisine:

That’s all Folks!

On our third evening in Budapest, after doing our traditional walking tour and then wandering around in the dark, we headed to Szechenyi Baths (as recommended by the lovely Szilvia).

The Baths look something like this:

With the large bath in front being set at a delicious, E. coli incubating, 37 degrees. Inside the buildings out-of-frame to the right, are a whole range of baths of different temperatures, as well as a group of Saunas.

Personally, I have yet to see the peer-reviewed science that tells me that jumping from 18 degrees to 40 and then back to 22 only to then spend 5 minutes in an 80 degree sauna is in any way beneficial to my health.

It certainly isn’t enjoyable.

After kind of adapting to 37 degree- kind of because it felt too warm when I was actually in it-everything else felt amazingly icy, and after a couple of half-hearted attempts I just refused to go in anything that wasn’t plus-or-minus two degrees from 37.

Ell and Andy were a bit more adventurous, and not only played fast and loose with their lives in the pools, but also went in for the sauna option.

I panic when I can’t breathe, which I think is a pretty normal response. But I also believe very strongly that my lung is incapable of proper function above, say, 30 degrees- especially if there’s no air flow.

A sauna, as far as I can understand from my very loose understanding of the Bible, is pretty much the closest thing we have on earth to Hell.

An 80 degree sauna is clearly one of the inner circles, and going inside whatever an ‘aroma’ sauna is, is pretty much the same as asking Satan to poke you in the eyes continuously with that little arrow bit on the end of his tail.

Plus I’m pretty sure that the ‘aroma’ was mostly sweat and sizzling groin.

So Ellen and Andy frolicked around in the hot and the cold and the wet and the smelly, while I sat quietly in the 37 degree pool wondering why our society is so good at making weapons of mass destruction but so crappy when it comes to the invention of the truly waterproof book.

After they were suitably scalded and frozen, we headed back to the grand outside pool, and floated around gossiping about people from Perth, and questioning our futures in science.

The sun began to set, and we began to get wrinkly fingers and rumbly stomachs, so we poured out of the pools, redressed ourselves, and headed for some feasting.

Here’s some photos we took while we were waiting for Andy to blowdry his hair (or whatever takes men so long in the changerooms):

This one made me think a little of my grandmother on my mother’s side.

We ended up stumbling into Gozsdu Court, which is an amazing alleyway or bunch of connected courtyards, filled with different types of food and drink from around the world and- at least when we were there- bustling with people.

Andy spotted coffee shop that had a rather delightful setup, and played the ‘Aussie Hipster Who Knows His Stuff’ to the slightly nervous barista.

Ellen posed on their amazing patchwork floor.

We ended up eating at a slightly chainy but nonetheless delicious Asian place. It was a 1,2,3 sort of place, where you choose the base (noodles, rice, fried, boiled, egg etc..), then the protein, then the sauce, and also a whole lot of extras.

I had something tasty with base of neatly cut up veggies in the place of the traditional carbs, was filled with tender beef, absolutely drenched in a ‘red curry sauce’ and topped with basil, coriander and peanuts.

Then, because it was our last night, we frolicked in the city lights…

Pretty huh?

The IMPRS retreat was two days of scientific lectures and discussion. Plus evenings for partying the the third day for froicking in the an autumn awesomeland (like winterwonderand?).

So if you don’t like pretty pictures like this:

(who am I kidding, this is the nicest one)

Or posey pictures like this:

You should just move along now.

We went to Mirow, which is a tiny town somewhere nearly directly north-but-just-a-little-bit-west or Berlin, and nearly-directly-east-but-just-a-little-bit-south of Hamburg.

As mentioned, there was Science, but the only photo I have to track its passing is this one of the lovey Max.

For those of you who are completely unfamiliar with what I do, he’s made a very accurate picture of a plant cell. The big blob is a vacuole (for storage of stuff), and the smaller ones are presumably chloroplasts (for making sugars from the sun and carbon dioxide) and mitochondria (for making energy from the sugars).

We also have mitochondria, and small, unawe-inspiring vacuoles, but because we are not awesome and are too lazy to evolve to fix inorganic carbon, we do not have chloroplasts.

Which are really the only interesting organelles anyway.

We spent some time trying to get rid of our excess energy (acquired from the consumption of candy, chips, sugary drinks, chocolate etc.), by jumping around like maniacs. Poorly co-ordinated maniacs as it turned out:

 (also from Pau)

Ultimately that just made us hungry again, so we went searching for mushrooms…

 I NEED AMACROLENSINEEDAMACROLENS

This chess set looks very fatalistic or something. Mercedes and I tried to play but I quickly became distracted because… shiny things!:

On the first evening I introduced the group to the concept of croctching- in which a dominant male frames his ‘region of interest’ with his hands in an aggressive downwards motion. It sometimes helps to yell BAM at the same time.

This was a big thing at my old institute, and I felt proud to be an ambassador to The Continent.

We also talked Catapulting (in which alpha male sits with one foot on his knee so his legs form a kind of arrow pointing to… you guessed it, the crotch).. and later in the evening I tried to teach Mercedes to Neg.

It was a roaring success.. my favourite part of the evening being when the male in the room who I suspect thinks he is alpha tried to do the pose, and the whole group told him he was not as alpha as Tegan and Mercedes (I think someone may have suggested he can be beta female, but that might have just been in the glory of my imagination).

No wait, my favourite part might have been when Mercedes and I went home and exited on a synchronised double-crotch.

BAM!

The next night there was dancing:

 Most of which was successful…

We danced to the wee hours, with every third song being that ‘I DON’T CARE’ song that Mercedes had stuck in our head the whole damn camp.

I managed to SPIN (ANdy never lets me spin), and tried-very-hard-but-never-quite-managed to get my hips to move like Pau’s

As they awarded some of us with bubbles (I think for our awesomeness).. the next morning was filled with soap suds in the eye and Arek thinking he was a magician.

Here are some obligatory group shots which are probably not too interesting if you’re not in the group, but if you make it past them I promise there are more pretty leaves and fungi coming up.

Also, some of the shots feature a cat! (Which came when I clicked and only left when Pau pulled me away).

On the way home we stopped in at Rheinsberg Palace.

SWAN! Which also came when I clicked, and apart from the fact that it hissed at me and tried to bite my fingers, I think really liked me. I was such a friggin animal whisperer on this trip.

(From Pau!)

(From Pau)

Bullrushes remind me of home.

I am probably Frodo.

JuanK got really attached to this leaf. We were a bit more liberal with our lovin’:

I know Perth is always a little behind on the trends, but seriously, we should start doing this Autumn thing!

Do you know what these are called?

I’m choosing to believe they’re super traditional Hungarian food- because they were in all the bakeries in many different incarnations- but frankly they were tasty enough for me not to care too much about authenticity.

One of the best things about being in an international institute is that it’s fairly likely that someone has either come from or recently been to the city you want to visit. We hit the jackpot in Copenhagen- Joram had just frolicked in the city, and being the perfect Hipster, knew all the (soon-to-be) cool places to visit.

This time we had it one better- and actual Hungarian- Szilvia, who spent her uni studies in Budapest. Szilvia spent time telling us which wines to drink, which of the baths to go to (more on that later), and which places were not worth our time.

But her take home message was that Budapest (especially the inner rings of the Pest side) are really nice to just walk around.

Which coincided neatly with our traditional ‘take a free walking tour around the city’.

After a couple of false starts resulting from a desperate need for caffeine and the apparent absence of any non-Starbucks coffee shops in the central square, after getting scolded a couple of times for being late, and after eventually joining an entirely different tour group than planned, we were on our way.

Apparently she (yep, it’s a girl) represents the new Budapest- a bit of a change from the traditional communist symbol of big strong men.

Love locks. Including one from our tour guide, and one from the PM (or president??) on his marriage day. We did the cheesy thing:

St Stephen’s Basilica, named for the first Hungarian King, and also housing his right hand. We didn’t go to see it, because frankly I feel like my visit at 12 years of age to Italy and its multiple variations on ‘Mary Magdalene’s Eyebrows, St Christopher’s Fingernails and the Pinkie Toe of Saint Andrew’ were enough emotional trauma for one lifetime.

Still, the Basilica looks pretty from the outside, and is beautifully lit up at night (see the previous Budapest post…).

You might recognise this guy from the previous day. Apparently, if you rub his belly, it helps you in finding a good meal. If you rub his moustache, it helps with the growing of fabulous facial hair. Andy tried his luck..

Where we came upon a ‘highly traditional’ changing of the guards, which had been introduced the previous year (presumably to garner tourist interest?).

It’s hard to see from my terribly lit photo, but one of these horse-parts is not like the others…

… Perhaps if we go in for a close up?

As with many great statues, luck comes to those who rub (in this case, luck in passing exams). And, as with probably the majority of those great-and-lucky statues, the rubbing place is not the leg, tail, neck or ears.

The tour guide told us that in her grandfather’s time, back when communism was in vogue and all things vaguely sexual where on the ‘What’s Not’ list, the student’s used to stage fights around the corner from the statue, drawing away the guards and allowing the lucky test-takers to get a good testicular rub in while the coast was clear.

Let’s move on to something a little classier:

We headed into a nearby mess hall, where we discovered that Hungarian food may be the only type to truly rival German cuisine for its heaviness.

I had some sort of Bigos/goulash cabbage and meat mixture that tasted like it had 1/2 a L of coconut cream in it. Tasty, but only edible in tiny portions.

Ellen had a pile of ‘noodles’ with egg and cheese that were slightly on the ‘Clagg glue’ side…. I think she got through about 1/8th of them…

(Here she is looking down at them in shear terror)

And Andy managed to eat about 1/6th of his bean stew…

Our next stop was the Invisible Exhibition! Which was a rather awesome experience. You’re taken through a series of rooms, lead by a blind guide (and in our case a translator). The idea is to experience complete blindness in a variety of settings: an apartment, a busy street with stalls, a forest, a bar, and so on.

It’s a pretty unique feeling, because we’re very rarely faced with complete darkness- and I think all three of us waited for several minutes after entering, expecting our eyesight to gradually adjust- but there simply wasn’t any light for it to adjust to.

In the end we all loved it- and personally it made me think more, and feel more positive about the ‘what would I do if…’ question that we all sometimes ask ourselves.

Anyway, the whole experience ended with us trying some Hungarian liquors: Unicum and Palinka, both of which were absolutely potent (and in my taste absolutely horrible).

Obviously I can’t show pictures of the exhibition-so here are a couple of the grounds near the exhibition centre instead.

Winter is Coming and the world is racing through autumn, so I’m assuming that you’re senescing for some pictures of Andy and I frolicking, interspersed with pictures of autumnal leaves (see what I did there- plant humour!)…