From Bath to Opera

Today was a whirlwind. I was going to check e-mail and go straight to bed, but the front desk is giving me free internet! A luxury!

I started out at the city pool and bath. There were several pools all varrying in temperatures. I spent some time in the 35C pool, but a couple older people kept trying to tell me to go somewhere else. I never figured out why. I think they thought the water was too warm for someone young. I don't know. I went to the colder pool and then got my camera and wandered up to the balcony overlooking the whole place to snap some pictures. I didn't want to take pictures at pool level and look like some weirdo.

Unfortunately, the balcony ended up being the tanning area. Not so bad, you might think. Well it was a ladies only tanning area so when I opened the door I was ready for anything and I got an eye full of a lot of Hungarian skin. One woman seemed concerned when she spotted my camera (remember I wanted to avoid looking like a weirdo) so I quickly turned towards the pool area, took my pictures and left. Her concern was really unwarrented since the sight of all those naked Hungarian women left a permanent picture on my brain.

After the bath I stopped for some horse racing at a festival in the park. Then I went to the largest synagogue in Europe and took a tour. It was more like a lecture in the synagogue thought. Besides the sweeping historical critiques the guide made, it was pretty good information. The memorial outside to the Hungarian Jews killed in a nine month span when Germany deported and killed a few hundred thousand Jews was really impressive. It is a weeping willow with names of the dead on its leaves.

I took a quick sweep through the national museum and then took a nap before heading to my very first Opera. Thanks to a couple of American girls who had printed out the translation I gathered what the story was about. At first I wanted to try and see if I could sort it out, but found that my interpretation became very colored by my theological training. For instance, the first act takes place on a green stage and the ensemble is dressed in green and there are twigs all over. It gave me the impression of a tree. Then there was one character dressed in red and one in white and the way they interacted with another character made me think there was a good/evil struggle. And then I thought it was like the Garden of Eden. I realized this was totally off when several other players entered the scene, but thought it was pretty funny how I was interpreting the Opera. Turns out I wasn't the only one. I overheard some other people talking about how they thought it was symbolizing red and white blood cells and photosynthesis. Must have been science types.

I'm off to bed and hope for a slower day tomorrow. I'll see parliament and a basillica, but the rest of the day will be open for whatever. Then I'll be off to Vienna.

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Also, if you find a lot of spelling and grammer mistakes in my writing, I'm sorry. I can't get the spell check to work on this blog and really don't have the energy or time to do edits most nights. I'm sure you won't hold it against me.