The Wurst

Budapest is a big, clean, efficient, lovely, vibrant city. We had a nice day wandering around, but that doesn't make for the most interesting read. We walked around the castle district and the hills of Buda, across the Chain Bridge to Pest and through the Christmas market. By then, the smells of the food vendors were intriguing. I selected a cup of gluwein (hot spiced red wine) and a fried potato concoction - think pancake batter mixed with shredded potatoes cooked in a vat of oil served with sour cream on top - yes...healthy. Curt immediately got himself a long hunk of grilled mystery meat. It was so big that it curled around the paper plate twice, served with a small hunk of bread and a generous dollop of mustard (dijon). I sampled a few bites, and it tatsted ok. Nothing special. The pool of grease that grew around it was intimidating to me. Of course, it was not as scarey as the dark red/purple/black hunk of mysery meat that the Hungarian guy across from us was eating (blood sausage). Curt managed to eat the whole thing. For the rest of the day, and into the evening, I kept smelling that smell. Eventually, I busted him. Burps! Stinky sausage burps!! As disgusting as it was, I kinda felt sorry for him having to taste it all day. The 'snacks' filled us up for a good long while and Curt wasn't too interested in eating again. A few beers into the evening, I was starting to get peckish. We couldn't find anything appealing, so we ducked into McD's. It is something that I try to avoid during international travel, but sometimes you just want to know what you're getting. It is also interesting to see the differences - like Royale w cheese. We recall the McPink in Florence. Well here, the unique menu item was McFarm. What the hambone is THAT?!? I stuck to the tried and true McChicken and we were back on our way.

We've got another full day here, but need to continue plotting our journey. The next stop will be Bratislava, Slovakia. We've got convenient internet access, so I will probably post again before we go.

Have a great weekend everyone! Curt tells me you are in for a cold front in Seattle, so keep warm.