Russia Trip: She Said, She Said

Ah, Budapest. Before we left, Trish and I talked about writing a joint travel blog we would title She Said, She Said, one "She" being me with my heterosexual female perceptions of Eastern Europe, and the other being Trish with her lesbian perceptions. We had our first opportunity to explore that theme yesterday while walking along the Danube on our way to the Pest side of the city.



First, though, let me say how awesome it is to travel with someone who values a good natural thermal pool as much as I do. We arrived Thursday late afternoon with just enough energy left in us to scope out a place to eat dinner, down a few glasses of the complimentary wine we found in our excellent hotel room at the St. George Residence in the castle district, test out the internet connection, then fall into a deep, travel-tired sleep. We promised each other we would write a fabulous review of this place on tripadvisor, but for the moment suffice it to say that the beds in Room 3 are hands down some of the most comfortable beds either of us have ever slept in.

We only had 2 full days in Budapest. Under the circumstances, it could be a lot to ask to dedicate almost the entire first day to soaking at the bath house. But Trish was up for that. In fact, I think it was her suggestion. We found our way to Szechenyi Furdo, purportedly the largest spa facility in Europe, and there we found a veritable spa smorgasbord. I was in heaven. Indoor thermal pools, outdoor thermal pools, swimming pools, weight class pools, steam rooms infused with a variety of aromatic essential oils, saunas, even a corner where old men congregate to play pool chess. It was awesome!

Trish's neck was out of whack because the person next to her on the plane couldn't quite fit into his own seat and had flowed over into hers, forcing her to sit a bit cock-eyed for 10 hours. She got her first ever Thai massage at Szechenyi Furdo and got herself stretched and pounded back into alignment. After that, we found the covered food market, figuring we would buy a few things for a simple dinner back at the room. Through no fault of our own, we broke the rule about not shopping while hungry and soon enough the forints were flying left and right, not stopping until both of us was burdened with heavy bags full of fruit, cheese, bread, sliced meats, Hungarian yogurt and, especially for Trish, 4 prize fresh chicken eggs. She had to do a lot of negotiating to get someone to throw in an egg carton to carry them home in, which, of course, made them taste that much better.

The morning of our second full day, after our leisurely breakfast of yummy market foods, we set out along the river to see what Budapest had to offer other than thermal spas and fresh local foods. That's when we had our first She Said, She Said moment. We'd both vaguely noticed the day before that people were staring at me. Mostly women as far as I could tell. Trish thought it was both women and men. I had attributed the stares, which seemed to me to focus on my shoulder area, to the fact that I was wearing a gray tank top. "Maybe it's kind of masculine," I said. "I think it looks like a men's undershirt to them."

"Patti, you don't look masculine," Trish said.

"No really... you don't see women wearing this sort of thing here. I think I must look really butch. They see this and they think John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever or some gang member from West Side Story."

"You have no idea what butch looks like." She proceeded to explain it to me... something involving short buzz cut hair among other features. "They're staring at you because you have long hair and you're showing a lot of skin."

"I am?"

"Relatively speaking." We looked around. Sure enough, most women did have hair above the shoulder line, and very few were wearing shorts.

"So you don't think they're trying to figure out if I'm a guy or a woman?"

"I think they know you're a woman."

"You think they're looking at me because I'm dressed like a slut."

"I think they're noticing that you have skin and hair and they're giving you the stay-away-from-my-boyfriend stare."

"I can deal with that. I prefer that to slut." We stared at the river for a moment. "Still, maybe I'll ditch this tank top when it's all sweaty rather than washing it out in the sink."

Trish sighed and we changed the subject, remembering something about the museum we had stumbled upon earlier that morning. We meant to find our way to the metro station at the bottom of the Buda hill where we're staying, but we'd taken a wrong turn and instead ended up walking near a garden strangely decorated with metal statues. We only had to pause for the briefest of moments to get the attention of the curator, who was outside trimming bushes. He waved us in so vigorously that we could not resist his pull, and found ourselves inside the museum of non-ferrous metallurgy eating cookies with the curator and learning about Hungarian technology of the Industrial Revolution. This was a fascinating place and highly worth visiting, and if I can figure out how to use my new blog-posting app I'll upload a photo of Trish with our suspender-clad new best friend.

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