We started today by going to the post office to mail my mom a postcard. We bought a cocoa Kurtosh cake outside our hostel on the way there. After that, we went to the heroes square via the subway. It drizzled a bit early in the day, and everyone seemed to be carrying an umbrella. A lady tried selling us umbrellas, but we turned her down. There were also umbrellas hanging in our hostel, but we weren’t sure we should use them, so we didn’t. In hindsight, we probably should have gotten an umbrella, because we just got poured on on our way home tonight. After heroes square, we came back to our hostel, and went to Castro Bistro for goulash and also had an eggplant pita. The eggplant was actually hummus, which surprised us. Also, I finally figured out the custom for paying the bill. I asked for the bill, gave my server the cash I was paying him, and told him how much change I wanted. The bill was 2880 and I wanted to pay 3200 with tip, I paid with a 10,000. I asked for 6800, and the server ecstatically said thank you. We weren’t sure if that was because the tip was over 10%, or because he was surprised we finally figured out the tipping custom. Then, we went to the bath house. We paid for two admissions and one private cabin . We started with the large pools outside. I saw the locals playing chess, and tried to ask a few for a game, but I was turned down. There was a whirlpool, I think they called it the lazy river. It was a lot of fun being spun around by the jets in that pool, it went very fast. We went inside, and tried out just about every pool, as well as a few saunas. The medicinal pools felt different, we weren’t quite sure why. We went back outside, and I went into the large pool where they played chess while Linda walked around taking picture. I found a chess board without an opponent, so I hung around it for a while. A lady was in front, drinking beer and talking to a guy, both older. I motioned to the chess board to the guy, and he motioned to her, she agreed to play me. It was hard to focus on the game and think multiple moves ahead. I was up pieces for a while because she traded a rook for a knight. At one point, she said I moved twice after talking to a guy in the crowd that came to watch. I think he was wrong about that, and she put my knight where I didn’t move it, and said it was my turn. I wanted to avoid confrontation, so I played it out. At any rate, I got spanked in chess by a drunk old Hungarian woman. We went home for a shower, and planned on going out to a restaurant highly rated on yelp. We couldn’t get a table, but our backup plan was Sir Lancelot, a medieval themed restaurant. We had soup and duck with potatoes and cabbage. While we ate, there were people performing things like juggling, lifting things, balancing a wine glass on a dagger, and belly dancing. We left in hopes of stopping at the hammock ruin pub, or the labyrinth ruin pub, but they were closed. The whole walk/ride home it was pouring. We stopped to buy a bottle of wine on our way.
Going on and on