October 9, 2010: Szentendre (Art Colony north of Budapest)

October 9, 2010: After doing two loads of laundry and some shopping at Tesco, I decided to pack a lunch and go north outside Budapest to the art colony Szentendre (pronounced "scent endre"). The bus station is in Ujpest and the bus station contains very clean buses.

Fig. 1 Bus Station at Ujpest Varoskapu

There are coin machines to purchase tickets. The cost of a one-way trip ticket to Szentendre is 365 forints (less than $2.00). I put 370 forints into the machine but the @#$% machine refused to accept my last coin, requiring exact change! Of course I didn't have a 5 forint coin so I asked a couple if they could change my 10 forint coin for two fives. The lady only had one 5 forint coin and I tried to give her 10 forints but she refused it and just gave me the 5 forint coin. By the time all of this happened, I had missed the bus by two minutes and had to wait an hour for the next one. Finally the next bus came and I sat in a window seat next to a woman who had brought her pomeranian(?) with her.

Fig. 2 Woman's pomeranian dog on bus


Looking out the window going out of town, we passed a lake where I could see people water skiing without a boat! I looked closely and saw a line of wire stretched over the lake between two poles. On this line was attached another line of wire that the water skier held on to and there was a motor that pulled that line across the line between the two poles. Pretty slick. The bus arrived in Szentendre a little over half an hour later and I dismounted the bus into the bus depot. Behind the bus depot was a less than inspiring village with buildings covered with grafitti. Not the Szentendre I was expecting. I walked a bit further in the direction of the "downtown" and was relieved to see a bridge that led to a very quaint village that was nestled between two hills. Church steeples could be seen here and there. Szentendre was first settled by Serbs and Greeks who were fleeing from the advancing Turks in the 16th and 17th centuries. They built houses and churches in the Serbian and Greek style. Cobblestone roads zigzag through the village and there are many shops selling paintings, embroidery, jewelry, fine clothing, and other knickknacks. I'm sure Ruth will love browsing this village.


Fo ter is the main square of Szentendre. There's a cross in the center of this square that the Serbs constructed as a "thank you" for having avoided the plague centuries ago.

Near this square is a Viennese style pastry shop where I sat to rest and had a piece of lemon cake. It was delicious.

Figure: Pastry shop


Szentendre is on the Danube and it is possible to get to and from Budapest via boat if time is no object since the boat trip takes two times longer. 

Figure: picture of boats at dock in Szentendre

After spending a couple of hours in Szentendre, I headed on back to the bus depot and purchased my ticket -- this time the machine gave me change. Strangely enough, the cost to return to Budapest was cheaper than to get to Szentendre. Perhaps the reason for this is that there were so many people on the bus that I had to stand all the way back to Budapest. At any rate, it was very enjoyable havng spent a sunny warm autumn day in Szentendre.


Speaking of autumn, I note that the trees outside my apartment are starting to change colors. It won't be long before the trees are all yellow and orange. I look forward to seeing an autumn again -- not like California where the weather is nice all the time but there is no change in seasons, thus no autumn leaves.

Some observations: I've lived in Hungary for almost two months now, and I'm surprised at some of my adjustments:

• I seem to have stopped drinking coffee every morning (in favor of tea) and I haven't really missed the coffee. I do drink an occasional cup when going to a coffeehouse though.
• I also have not watched television (save for the two times I watched it when I was in the suite in Buda) and I certainly don't miss it at all. Note that I do have a TV in my apartment but the reception is terrible (I'd need to subscribe to cable but there's no point in doing that since most of the stations are in Hungarian anyway.)
• I haven't missed driving my car. I'm completely enjoying the energy I see in the transportation system of Budapest. Granted I'm occasionally bothered when my bus doesn't come right away, but for the most part, I find the transportation system fun to ride here.
• I thought I'd miss going to the movies, but I haven't. There are movie houses here and I suspect that many of them show movies in English (with Hungarian subtitles), but for some reason I haven't gone yet. I suppose I should go at least once to see how a Hungarian compares to those in the US. (I can still remember going to my first movie in Kuala Kangsar, Malaysia and the movie house showed the reels of film for the movie in the wrong order! I don't suppose I'll face that problem here.)

Of course there are things I do miss from time to time about the US, but there are so many new exciting things to experience here, that I don't have time to dwell on what I miss about the US. We'll see what develops as time goes on.