Because of my trip to Budapest last year, I've felt an odd connection to Hungary as I've read increasingly bad news coming out of Central Europe these days.
A weakening currency; contracting economy; the Prime Minister having recently stepped down after a vote of no confidence; and today Standard & Poors cut the Hungarian government bond rating to just above junk.
Tough times for a Magyar.
In June of 2008 I took a trip to Ireland, Hungary, and England. Experiencing different food is one of my favorite parts about traveling abroad, so I decided to dedicate a tabblo to a few of the meals I had in my travels. You can read about my entire journey on my blog. ... See my Tabblo>
This is one of a series of entries from my travel journal chronicling my recent trip to Europe. You can click here for the archived entries.
Day 10 | Day 12
Budapest photo gallery.
Somewhere Over Hungary 16/06/08
Yesterday and today have been fairly busy and this is the first chance I've had to catch up on my journal. Jeff and I took off on an easyJet flight from Budapest to London Luton Airport about twenty minutes ago. I'm now on my way to the third and final leg of the trip in England.
I awoke at the hotel in Lajosmizse yesterday morning feeling incredibly groggy and dare I say perhaps still a bit intoxicated from the night's festivities - however I didn't have a headache, so despite the fact that I slept through breakfast I felt pretty good. We got our stuff together and took the shuttle bus back to Budapest. We had another night to stay in the city and wanted to stay in a different hotel - one that was close to the city center and preferably wasn't an old workers' hostel and offered better breakfast fare than eggshell-laden scrambled eggs and unspeakably poor coffee. We had befriended one of the younger guests at the wedding, a French girl by the name of Celine who knew the couple from their time in Chicago. She had also coincidentally stayed at the spartan and underwhelming Hotel Rila on Friday night and she was spending Sunday night in the city as well. We decided to find another hotel and split it three ways - this way we could get a decent room and not break the bank. After a miss at a full hostel that allegedly had decent private rooms, we came to the Hotel Art (a Best Western affiliate), which seemed perfect from the start. The concierge was incredibly friendly and helpful and we ended up getting a two-bedroom, four-bed suite for the double-room rate. The three of us dropped off our luggage, refreshed ourselves, and then headed out to spend the rest of the day touring Budapest.
The hotel had an attached restaurant, and I was a bit peckish since it was afternoon and I had missed the breakfast at the hotel. We stopped in at the étterem for a bite. I ordered the Transylvanian meatball soup, primarily because it sounded like something Vlad Dracula might've gnoshed on back in the day. The menu was quite extensive for a smaller place and all the items had - as we found to be quite common in Budapest, especially the more popular tourist areas - descriptions written in hungarian, english, and german. The soup was delicious - a flavorful broth of sour cream and very tasty, piping hot beef meatballs. I had a tall .5L Dreher to go with my soup. Dreher is a common local pilsner that we would have quite a bit of over the next couple days.
After lunch we walked along the Danube to the Chain Bridge, the links of which are more like those of a bicycle chain than an anchor chain. Most of the vibrant nightlife and cafés of the city are on the Pest side, which was also where our hotel was located. We decided to cross the bridge and investigate Buda. One comes off the bridge at the foot of a hill, on top of which sits the National Gallery art museum. The Gallery used to be the Royal Palace back during the days of the dual monarchy with the emperors of Austria. On the same hill beyond the Gallery is the Fisherman's Bastion, a formidable defensive work which affords a fantastic view of Pest across the river - we could see the towers of Szent Istvan Bazilika as well as the ornate white Parliament building. Perfectly situated in one of the ramparts of the bastion is a café, where we enjoyed a beer as we took in the tremendous view.
We headed back across the river to check out a restaurant Jeff had read about in the Lonely Planet guidebook. We took a leisurely stroll back through St. Istvan's Square as Celine hadn't yet seen it. At this point Jeff suggested that we speak only in French from that point on for a change of pace - Celine spoke excellent English but this gave him and me the opportunity to brush up on our rusty high school French. Somewhat surprisingly, both of us could understand Celine quite well, although we stumbled a lot trying to speak ourselves.
We ended up in the Jewish Quarter and Jeff realized that the restaurant we were going to was a kosher joint with ethnic Jewish fare. Geflitefish and matzoh ball soup weren't what we had in mind for dinner, so we wandered around and found ourselves in Köleves, a "stonesoup restobar," whatever the hell that means. Although this place looked and felt like it was a bit off the beaten path, they definitely catered to tourists with a well-translated menu and english-speaking staff (we found that generally younger people spoke english pretty well, whereas older people often had none, and service people in increasingly trendy tourist spots spoke very well, like our fetching waitress at Café Kör on our first morning in town.) I wanted to go local, authentic, and a bit experimental. I ordered a bowl of goulash to start - a beef stew in a lighter broth (very tasty) - and a plate of pickled veggies. Pickled vegetables seem to be big here. It was a nice assortment of pickled cucumber, red onion, cabbage, and peppers. For my main dish I had a deer ragout of red wine and cranberries, with deep-fried cottage cheese balls. It was an interesting and flavorful dish. I think it was my first time trying venison - it had a very intense, gamey aftertaste that was a bit off-putting, although the ragout was excellent. It unfortunately overpowered the otherwise delightful sauce. A shame I suppose - I don't think deer will be making a regular appearance in the future. Jeff and I each had a 2cl shot of pálinka after the meal - I tried the plum, or szilva pálinka (I had previously tried the more prevalent apricot, or barack pálinka). Jeff opted for the raspberry pálinka, which was for some reason twice as much as the other flavors, of which there was a wide variety.
After dinner we went back to the hotel. Celine was knackered and had an early flight in the morning, but Jeff and I had a full day to spend in the city - our flight wasn't until 20:40. We bid Celine adieu and headed out to enjoy our last evening in Budapest.
After wandering for a while around Pest, we found ourselves at Szimpla, a place which both the Lonely Planet and Celine had recommended. It was a cool spot - kind of a funky coffeehouse with kitschy stuff like an old Singer sewing machine serving as our table base, the pedal still attached for the feet of the absentminded. We had a few rounds of shockingly cheap Drehers (about $2.50 for .5L) and took some small degree of pleasure in the fact that we appeared to be the only tourists in the joint. As seemed to be the thing to do, we got a pack of Lucky Strikes (no local tobacco to be had, unfortunately) and smoked and drank along with the local Hungarians. Although I hadn't had a cigarette in years (and find them abhorrent generally), it felt a more complete experience as we drank, smoked, and talked about everything from travel to money to love and family, whiling away the time until we got booted out at the rather early hour of 23:30. But we were drunk, tired and it was just as well to get a decent night's sleep for a final full day of touring the next day.
Celine had to leave early to catch her flight - luckily for us she was staying in the adjoining room and slipped out quietly in the morning today. Jeff and I grabbed breakfast (much better than Rila!) and headed out into a gorgeous day in Budapest. We walked along the river to check out the Parliament building. It's an impressive structure although it has to undergo constant restoration because the Soviets faced it with cheap, porous limestone that easily absorbs pollution (typical communists). The building, although structurally beautiful with towers and ornate masonry, offered a curious juxtaposition between the bright white recently-cleaned sections and the filthy black polluted areas. The square in front of the Parliament was the site of a massacre on October 25, 1956 - a couple days after the beginning of the failed Revolution - when the Soviets killed a bunch of protesters by firing into a crowd gathered in the square. There were a couple chilling memorials, including a mass grave and photos of the slain.
We next headed down Andrassy Út, the Champs-Élysées of Budapest. It's a long, straight boulevard lined with nice restaurants and high-end shops, which ends in Millenial Square, built in 1896 on the thousand-year anniversary of the founding of Hungary. We stopped along the way at the Terror Museum, which is in the building previously used as the headquarters of both the Nazi and Communist secret police during their respective occupations, but it is closed on Mondays. A real bummer, because I really wanted to check this out. Oh well - a sight for the next visit! We walked through the city park (not the nicest park I've been in - the scars of occupation are everywhere - but it looked like they were making an effort at beautification) and grabbed a bite at the park café. Then we made our way to the Szechenyi Baths - public pools, baths, and spas fed by local hot springs. The bathhouse was another impressive building with the hot baths inside and three huge pools outside in the center of the oval-shaped complex of yellow brick and white marble. We rented suits and towels and soaked for a while, checking out both the pool and the baths, which are arranged by temperature from 20-38 Celsius (68-100.4 Fahrenheit). Around the central pools were tables where old Hungarian men dressed in white towels sat and played chess all afternoon. It was a very cool experience (about $20 for an hour or so along with the rentals) although the amount of old, wrinkled, fat flesh on display was a tad unsettling.
After an extremely satisfying soak we hopped on the Metro and headed to a very nice wine store that was in the Lonely Planet. I bought myself a bottle of szilva pálinka to take back to the States. Next we enjoyed an espresso at Café Gerbeaud, where the city's elite have been meeting over coffee for the last 150 years. It was a bit overpriced and filled with tourists (funny how annoying tourists can be even when you are one yourself), but it was an "obligatory" stop according to the guidebook. The inside was ornate and there was a little gift shop.
We had a couple hours to kill after we had to catch a cab back to the airport. I was in desperate need of a stamp for a postcard, so we stopped at the main post office. Add a significant language barrier to the apparently universal nature of post offices the world over to be slow, inefficient bureaucracies and you can imagine my frustration trying to accomplish what should have been a simple task. There was a long service counter with many different windows, each of which evidently had a very specific purpose, because I waited in line at 3 or 4 of them before being referred elsewhere (although I wasn't sure where to go other than try yet another window, being given just head-shaking and negative gesticulations in response to my earnest inquiries). Finally I got to one that I felt confident about, seeing some visual aids taped to the window. After a few minutes of fruitless communication with the older woman behind the counter (no English and no real attempt to try to help), I was aided by the young guy behind me in line, who thankfully spoke english pretty well and helped me get the appropriate stamps. This ordeal lasted much longer than it should have and I felt sorry for Jeff waiting for me outside, but I found him across the street at the Amstel River Café, which we would later discover to be the most expensive place in Budapest with a total bill of 3.700 Forint for a few Heinekens. After that we headed out to the airport for an uneventful flight to London.
Budapest is an amazing place. I am very lucky that I was able to go for a rather serendipitous reason. I had, I think, the perfect mix of touristy and traditional; sightseeing and simply experiencing life at leisure in a foreign city. There is nothing else quite like it in my experience. On the whole the people were very friendly and helpful, whether in the tourism or service industries or simply strangers on the street. I was pleasantly surprised with the cuisine - really excellent for the most part. The hungarian diet is heavy on meat, pickled vegetables, hearty soups and stews, paprika, deep and layered flavor profiles, pilsners and pálinka. Budapest is also very reasonable in terms of cost. The exchange rate at the time of my visit was 162 Forints (Ft.) to $1. We saw the same .5L beers range from 350 Ft. to 850 Ft. (from a bit over $2 to about $5.25). There was a significant variation even in a small area in Pest center, depending on the swankiness of the place and its touristy traffic - not a phenomenon unique to Budapest of course, but it seemed more noticeable. Our most lavish meal, complete with soups, appetizer, main courses and several drinks came to only 12.360 Ft. for three people. That's just a shade under $80. One's money definitely goes a long way, but it seems that prices will only increase with the influx of tourism dollars and a growing economy. Hungary is in the European Union although they are not yet using the Euro currency (despite its prevalence on price listings everywhere for the ease of tourists). They are in the process of meeting certain economic and infrastructure requirements before they can be yet another country using the Euro. The time to visit Budapest is now, even with the weak dollar.*
Prague is the premiere novel of Arthur Phillips, a young and talented author. Prague received a good deal of critical acclaim when it was published in 2002, and it is deserved for the most part. I read Phillips' sophomore novel, The Egyptologist, last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Prague actually takes place in Budapest in 1990 shortly after Hungary became a democracy following the Communist era, and it follows the lives of several American expats: Charles Gábor, born in Hungary but raised in the US, returning to his homeland in the hopes of business success; Mark Payton, listless grad student, working on his interminable, impractical research; Emily Oliver, Nebraskan goody two-shoes who works at the US embassy; Scott Price, caustic teacher of English who makes good (if morally questionable) use of the Hungarian girls in his class; John Price, Scott's brother, aimlessly following his brother to Budapest in the hopes of adventure. The novel is mainly told through the eyes of John, and as such he is a protagonist of sorts. The novel has autobiographical elements, although Phillips maintains these are limited (he lived in Budapest for two years in the early nineties). The novel is "modern" (or post-modern?) in that it lacks any real plot. It's filled with the details of quotidian twenty-something existence - sex, drugs, romance, drama, music, parties, depression - flitting between melodrama and ennui as such topics tend to do. Phillips is a talented writer. He has a flair for wordplay, irony, and can turn an excellent phrase. It's certainly a highly literary novel. The novel felt a bit long - its last 50 or so page anticlimax was a bit tough to slog through. But on the whole it was a good read.
Reading the novel was a special joy for me, having spent some time in Budapest this summer, and reading about several familiar places - the Chain Bridge, Vörösmarty Square, Café Girbeaud - added another layer of meaning to the book. According to an interview with Phillips at the end of the book, the title is inspired by an emotional disorder - the idea that "if only I were somewhere else, doing something different, with a different person, things would be better." It's that "grass is always greener" feeling. At the time, Prague was the hot city to visit for young Americans - Phillips' point is that those in Prague probably felt envious in the same way about their counterparts in Budapest. A good novel from a talented up-and-coming author.
This is one of a series of entries from my travel journal chronicling my recent trip to Europe. You can click here for the archived entries.
Day 9 | Day 11
Budapest photo gallery.
The Great Hungarian Plain, Hungary 15/06/08
I'm currently on a shuttle bus traveling back from the wedding in Lajosmizse to Budapest. It was an amazing celebration. The bride and groom, Katinka and Don, were more than generous and hospitable despite my being a complete statistical outlier, having come as Jeff's platonic date in the absence of his girlfriend. We were at the Gerébi Kúria, a hotel in the middle of the countryside about an hour's drive from Budapest. It was a really nice setting for a wedding. Quiet, serene, picturesque. We arrived yesterday around two or so, checked into a very nice room at the hotel, and headed to the restaurant for a while before the reception. I had a plate of smoked salmon.
We then put on our finest duds (I received yet another compliment on my $100 three year-old suit from Filene's Basement. Perry Ellis. It's the man that makes the clothes!) and headed over to the pre-wedding reception. Don and Katinka had a fairly small group of friends from Europe and America - mostly Brits plus a French girl - who were all very friendly and cool. We hit the reception early and made quick work of a few bottles of white and blush (blush? I think the last time I drank blush it was in boxed form some years ago) and the appetizers (stuffed puff pastries with doe and cabbage, from what I could glean from the extraordinarily friendly and helpful bartender who unfortunately did not speak English very well - although to be fair, his English was far better than my command of Magyar). I decided that the bartender was Vassily's brother. Vassily himself was a glum Hungarian in a track suit who was sitting on a stump and turning a spit upon which was an entire pig, roasting over a huge pile of coals. The heat was so intense I could barely get within a few feet, yet poor Vassily was sitting on top of the thing turning that spit. The pig must've just been put on because it looked raw, but it would certainly be delish in the future.
We met Dani, a Hungarian friend of Katinka's (who was born in Hungary and has family and friends here - the entire reason for this escapade) who was very cool and helped us out with the local custums and taught me a bit of Hungarian. Evidently the direct translation of the phrase for hors d'oeuvres in Hungarian means "beer ice skating," because you eat a little bit of food at a time. Dani tried explaining this to me several times but I still don't understand it at all. The rest of the guests eventually arrived and there was a ceremony for the parents' giving away of the bride and groom. It was very nice to see. The guy heading the show was a hired MC of some sort. A real card - hamming it up big time, cracking jokes in Hungarian to the titters of delight of the numerous old Hungarian ladies in the crowd. I even found myself laughing and I had no idea what he was saying. He was a dead ringer for Vassily's brother the bartender/waiter and I honestly thought it was the same guy for a while. At dinner I saw them together, however, and figured that he was yet another brother of Vassily's.
After the giving-away ceremony we went to a hall for the actual wedding ceremony. It was initially going to be outdoors but it had started drizzling. Vassily kept turning the spit throughout. The ceremony was very nice, with English translation following the Magyar. Don's dad was in full kilt regalia with his military service medals pinned on his chest - a very impressive display. After the ceremony we headed back to the main hall for an unbelievable feast and celebration - the alcohol flowed copiously, with huge glass steins of beer, bottles of wine on the table, and shots of this curios apricot brandy (pálinka, the national liquor). The food was wonderful, consisting of a banquet entitled "Sir Gerébi's Favourite Meal." I snagged one of the menus from the table:
We started with Ujházi Gyöngytyúkleves (guinea fowl soup), Vadpörkölt Galuska, Sós burgonya (a stew of the most tender, flavorful wild meat poured over gnocchi and boiled potatoes), Odény vegyes saláta (a salad of lightly pickled vegetables - pickled veggies are big in Hungary), and a Sültes büfé, or buffet of roast, including Pulykamell érmék kelvirággal csöben sütvi (coated turkey breast medallions), Ropogós sült libacomb (scalloped veal lightly breaded), Borjú bécsi (goose thighs - delish), Grillezett zöldségek (grilled veggies), Rizs (rice), Petrezselymes burgonya (potatoes with parsley), and Párolt zöldköret (more veggies). There was dessert, of course, along the lines of Almás (apple), Meggyes (sour cherry), and Túrós és káposztásré (cottage cheese, cabbage, and strudel). The scheduled Éiféli büfé, or midnight buffet, would have Ropogós sült malac (roast pork), hagymás tört burgonyával (mashed potatoes with onion), és párolt káposztával (braised cabbage), Sajtkóstoló (fruit), and of course Gyümöles (cheese). And let me tell you, typing this passage with all those accents took a long time.
Ah ha! A midnight buffet of roast pork - Vassily's long, hard day at the spit would finally pay off. There were a lot of MC-driven hijinks involving the newly married couple. There were four dancers - two men and two women - in traditional Hungarian dress who put on an uptempo show, replete with high pitched yelping, whistling, singing, snapping and boot-slapping. Several costume changes occurred. The two men did one number with long staffs which they banged upon the ground and clashed with one another's sticks. At the end of the dance the older man smacked his stick on the end of the table right in front of me (I was sitting at the very end of one of two long banquet tables among the other three American guests). Great entertainment. There was also a live band playing folk music comprising a bass, a couple fiddlers and something called a cymbalon, a sort of grand piano without a keyboard with the cover torn off. The musician sat on a bench in front and hit the strings with mallets that he held in each hand. An interesting sound. He played very well, including an impressive solo. Evidently this instrument is becoming a bit of a lost art, however. He was on of few players left, at least locally. One woman, who was the translator during the ceremony and also Dani's mother, told us that he wasn't going to teach his sons how to play (presumably because they weren't interested in doing so but who knows). And all the while Vassily kept turning that spit. The party was a blast. I ended up dancing with ladies from ages 4 to 64, including one French girl. I got fairly bladdered as the festivities crept along towards the wee hours, and Jeff and I called it quits after an unsuccessful attempt to crash the other wedding going on nearby (it was dead over there).
I never did get a chance to taste that roast pork. Poor Vassily...and poor me!
In June, after having spent a week in Ireland, I flew from Dublin to Budapest to meet up with a friend and attend the wedding of a couple he knew. We ended up spending three nights and the balance of three days in Budapest and Lajosmizse, where the wedding was. It was an incredible experience. You can read about my travels here. ... See my Tabblo>
This is one of a series of entries from my travel journal chronicling my recent trip to Europe. You can click here for the archived entries.
Day 8 (Part II) | Day 10
Budapest photo gallery.
Cafe Kör, Budapest, Hungary 14/06/08
Now today we are experiencing the Real Budapest! We found the metro and took it into the Pest city center. Budapest is actually comprised of Buda and Óbuda (Old Buda) on the western bank of the Danube River and Pest on the eastern bank. We've been walking around checking out some buildings - some of which are impressive architecturally, including Szent Istfán Bazilika (Saint Stephen's Basilica). The flavor of cosmopolitan Pest is truly Parisian, finally justifying Budapest's universal epithet. We found Cafe Kör, mentioned in The Lonely Planet, and sat outside to take some refreshment. After some mineral water and a local beer - Dreher, a tasty lager - we're off for more.
St. Stephen's is unbelievable. Just incredibly ornate - a lot of gilded work inside, domed roofs, alcoves off the main area set aside for the worship of individual saints. Packed with tourists from Asia, Europe, and America. Quite an amazing site - finished in the 19th century, although I had guessed it was much older. Beautiful architecture. I lit a candle and made a donation - a little good will for the chance of divine influence on my behalf never hurt. The plaza outside the basilica is quite nice (although there is a boxy, fairly hideous office building breaking up the otherwise pleasing visual). And as I write this here on the steps of Szent Istfán's the bell in the tower tolls out midday.
The beautiful fin de siècle architecture and numerous cafes in the upscale, tourist-friendly city center are entirely incongruent with the eerie oppressiveness of the ugly concrete monstrosities of Warsaw Pact-era Budapest. Budapest is a curious juxtaposition of Western and Eastern Europe. Once a popular destination for Western Europeans, Budapest became closed off to liberal civilization for years under the weight of Soviet influence, to once again become a major tourist destination after the collapse of the Communist system. Hungary had a rough time of it in the 20th century, having been on the losing side of both World Wars, coming under the heel of the Soviets (who crushed resistance with a massive military invasion during the 1956 Revolution) and has only been a democracy for the last 20 years. One can still see bullet holes pockmarking the walls of older buildings all around the city - permanent reminders of the violence.
Now we are off to catch a shuttle bus to Lajosmizse for a wedding!
This is one of a series of entries from my travel journal chronicling my recent trip to Europe. You can click here for the archived entries.
Day 8 (Part I) | Day 9
Budapest photo gallery.
Hotel Rila, Budapest, Hungary 13/06/2008
I met up with Jeff at the airport right after passing through customs, snagged my bag off the claim without difficulty and took a shuttle to our hotel, situated somewhere southeast of the city center in a grey concrete jungle reminiscent of the glory days of living behind the Iron Curtain. We mucked about unsuccessfully for a while trying to find the metro to take us downtown but ended up going the wrong way once we left the hotel despite the receptionist's directions. After strolling through a neighborhood of what appeared to be dimly lit gulag blockhouses for some time, we cut our losses as it got late and decided to get a good night's rest after a long day of travel and get an early start on tomorrow's activities.
They call Budapest the "Paris of the East." So far I'm underwhelmed - I've seen a Burger King, McDonald's, and a Pizza Hut in my first couple hours here amidst hideous Brezhnev-era tenement buildings. The Hotel Rila is functional (it used to be an old workers' barracks back in Hungary's gay Soviet puppet-state days) with hallways decorated in the asylum style. Institutional green, the vague stench of old medicine/bad food/death, and entirely pitch dark upon entering. The green-minded Rila has its lighting operating on motion sensors, which I applaud for its energy efficiency. However, it was a bit unnerving when we first stepped off the elevator. (Jeff coined the nickname "Rape Alley" for our floor.) Jeff's currently reading the Lonely Planet guidebook to Budapest and tossing out tidbits now and again like "Budapest can claim to be Europe's gayest city with over 20 gay bars."
I can't wait to hit the town this weekend!
Tickets are purchased and I have my renewed passport in hand.
I'm traveling to Ireland, Hungary, and England from June 6-22 (wow that looks really cool to type!) This has been in the works for some time. An aunt, uncle, and cousin are staying in a house in Baltimore, West Cork. It's a small village on the tip of one of the southwestern peninsulas. This is actually the same place to which another aunt took me and another cousin way back in 1991 to take sailing lessons. Baltimore is a quaint, quintessentially "Irish" experience and I very much look forward to going back. I'm able to go thanks to my very generous aunt, who is treating me to airfare and room/board. My Mom decided to go as well, so I am flying over with her.
Once over there we will be staying in the same house for the first week (6/7-13). Baltimore will be our base of operations and we will explore from there. Day car trips but nothing more - better to see "more of less" with limited time. And frankly I think there's no better way to experience a foreign country than simply hanging out with the locals.
With Porkins in Cambridge, England right now I decided to extend my trip for a week and go over to visit him since taking the extra time was no problem and it's just a puddle jump to England. As I was planning the trip, Rigs mentioned that one of his friends from Oxford is getting married in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday, 6/14. Jek asked me if I wanted to accompany him as his platonic date and I said, "Sure, when will I next have the opportunity to visit Budapest?" (Which I hear is fantastic.) So I'm flying from Dublin-Budapest on Friday 6/13. Jeff and I will likely do an extra day or two in Buda to check it out, then it's Budapest-London and I will spend the remainder of that week exploring JCB's haunts (Cambridge, Oxford, London). Foonyor also has his thesis defense at the end of the week so I plan on heckling him during that. [For those of you confused by this, Porkins, Rigs, JCB, Jek, Jeff and Foonyor are all the same person. And yes, I did that on purpose.]
I'm extremely psyched for this trip. I can't believe it's next week! I haven't been out of the country in years.
The Old Country awaits.
