The bells of Matthias Church pealed from across the river. I sat there on the sandy shore watching the beautifully lit up Szechernyi Lanchid. Above it, the royal palace glowed in the orange light. It was a sight I had seen many a night during my previous trip. But still, it wasn’t enough! I just had to return there. I lingered on further till nightfall (which happens by 8 PM now), and the place was slowly coming alive. A Chinese family was omnipresent. The two little kids were hyper-active. One minute they were climbing up on the lap of the “Little Princess” and the next they were chasing after some poor dog that was playing on the lawns of Visegrad Ter. As I sat there watching them, the melodious notes of “Ave Maria” came floating through the night. It was a beautiful lady playing the violin just outside the Ambassador Hotel.
Snag had been very impressed by the Danube. “It looks so clean”, she had remarked “It’s because these people don’t take bath in it like they do back home!” Today she found out why they never do.
It was the first day in office, and I had to be late. There was nowhere to keep my camera, so I ended up carrying it to office, looking as if I was on a vacation! It was once again, back to the rides in the metro. Those huge escalators still made me dizzy. Even Snag disliked them. Being in the city centre was not of much help. We still had to take three trains. As we walked through the subway at Kaszasdulo, I pointed out the graffiti-filled wall to her and remarked: “Pragati was crazy about them.” “I can imagine that”, she said: “Pragati, with her typical expression: ‘ Arre yaar….kitna achha hai…”
The little bus was not there to pick us up, and I was not sure when it would turn up. “Where is the office?” asked Snag. “There…” I pointed ahead at the next traffic junction in the distance. “Oh! That’s all? We can walk till there” she remarked. I forgot to mention to her that at the junction we needed to turn right and walk further, and she was far from amused when she found out.
“That’s the Aquincum Museum” I informed her, pointing to the small entrance.
“I am not going into any more museums!” She shot back.
“This is not THAT KIND of museum…there are no paintings. It used to be an old Roman settlement”. I replied back. Pointing to some huge stones positioned on the road side, I continued: “Look at these stones. They are all from the Roman era. They probably existed from the time of Julius Caesar”.
“Stones are stones, Ravi!” she retorted back “It doesn’t matter how old they are.”
I couldn’t find a reply to that.
Thanks to the fact that we reached late, there was barely an hour or two I could spare for my messages. The sessions passed off well, with the best session being lunch (heh heh), thanks to the Palacsinta (the Hungarian sweet pancake).
“Is it safe to drink the tap water in the hotel?” asked Snag.
“Yes it is!” replied Gabor “You can drink anything…as long as you don’t go down to the Danube and drink from it. It is so dirty that nobody would venture out on it”
“Now you know why you don’t see people taking bath in it!” I whispered to Snag.
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