The Life and Times of Martha Scott

I am seriously watching paint dry right now…hurry up!  I just want my painting to be dry so I can finish the details and hang it in my kitchen!

Yesterday and today have kind of turned out to be a wash-not completely, but they were not great days.

Yesterday being Sunday I had anticipated there being a lack of things to do, so I purposefully planned to go to the Jewish District since the synogogues are open for the public on Sundays.  There were three synogogues I had hoped to see-Dohany, Rumbach and one other which I can’t remember the name of right now.  I paid for a tour of Dohany.  The Synoguge itself as well as the cemetary and memorial park were beautiful, but the tour was not great.  When I got to Rumbach, I almost thought I was in the wrong place…the entire thing is under construction!  I was surprised because my guidebook said they frequently close for restoration work, but that the synongogue was active.  This place was completely, 100% gutted.  It was still open, so I did get to go inside, but there wasn’t much to see anymore.  Aside from these things I could not find a single thing to do in the jewish district.  Most things were closed, so I spent a majority of the rest of my day wandering around.  At least the weather was okay.

Today I woke up and it was cold and raining.  I had planned on going to Vac for the day so I went to the train station to get a ticket.  The train ride was only 20 minutes to get there and then I followed my guidebook’s directions to Tourist Information to get a map….but it was closed.  Which is unfortunate, because I think I might really have liked Vac; however I couldn’t figure what was there, how to get any where and evidently no one speaks English.  I wandered around for about 2 hours before I got completely bored and got a train back to Budapest.  Somehow I ended up on the EXTRA Local train and the trip took two hours.  At this point I decide to go in to the ginormous mall and look in the stores-at least it’s indoors.  Turns out everyone in the whole of Budapest had the same idea.  The amount of security in stores here is ridiculous.  Nearly every store had a security guard at the front and there were two or three roaming each floor of the mall.  They seemed suspicious of me.  Yes I am wearing a hot pink rain jacket and yes I am American, but no I am not going to steal anything from you.  I’m sorry I don’t speak Hungarian.  After I got tired of being stalked by security and watching teenagers make out in every corner of the mall, in every chair and at every table I left.

I’ve decided to throw in the towel and stop trying to make today happen.  I’m just going to take my book to a coffee shop and read.  It’s a cultural experience…okay?