Winter in London

We turned on the heat in our flat yesterday and I busted out my long wool coat to wear to work today. Winter has officially arrived in London.

Finding Religion on the Underground

I always wonder about people I see reading the Bible on the tube. It happens on a daily basis. Considering the fact that I find it hard to concentrate on my poppy-fiction books on the crowded underground, it seems hard to believe that anyone could really absorb what is surely one of the most difficult pieces of literature every written. Maybe the Bible is the only book they own? Maybe it makes them feel closer to God to just be holding the Bible, even though they're not really understanding it? Maybe they can find inspiration from this Book in even the most chaotic of situations?

Any enlightenment on this subject would be appreciated.

I do partially understand. I think there are only two places that could make a person grip onto religion so fervently: one's death bed and the London Underground at rush-hour (if there's a difference).

Budapest

Rule #1 when travelling out of London: Never, ever, ever fly out of Luton airport. According to Wikipedia, it is the fourth largest airport serving London, but considering that London City airport (the fifth airport) is both easy to get to and has amazingly short security lines, there is no reason for anyone to fly out of Luton airport ever again.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about our trip. The reason for our newly discovered hatred for Luton airport is that we managed to miss our flight at 08:05 on Friday morning. Granted, we had started cutting our flights closer and closer in recent trips, so it was bound to happen eventually. But mostly, it's Luton's fault.

In order to get from our flat to the airport, we have to take the tube from Bethnal Green to St. Pancras International (via Liverpool Street). Then we have to catch a train from St. Pancras to Luton Airport Parkway station. THEN, we have to get on a shuttle bus to get to the actual airport. Miserable.

In any case, a series of events (not feeling very rushed as we left the flat, waiting 8 minutes for the tube, waiting 10 minutes for the shuttle to leave the station) caused us to arrive at the check-in desk at 07:28 for our 08:05 flight. No problem. We've only go hand luggage, they've only just started boarding, we'll breeze through security and hop right onboard, right?

Wrong.

"Check-in for WizzAir flights closes 40 minutes before departure."

C'mon, surely that's not the end of it. First, who closes a flight 40 minutes before departure. Second, we're only 3 minutes late, you must be able to do something. Third, why do we keep booking these damn discount airlines? (Answer: because they're sooooo cheap and our memories of the inevitable disaster are magically erased whenever we calculate the price difference to a "real" airline.)

To make a long story only slightly shorter, we missed the flight, resigned ourselves to paying more money to the bastards at WizzAir (to change to the next available flight), further resigned ourselves to never flying WizzAir again, and got on a plane at 2pm that afternoon.

We met our hostel owner (Jim at the August Hostel - highly recommended) and he gave us one of the more informative guides to any city I've ever heard. Sitting around a tourist map at his kitchen table, he proceeded to circle, highlight and label all of the best sights, cross out the ones that were too expensive or too boring, and generally pave the way for our city adventure.

As we were told by Jim many times, "Walking around Budapest is like walking onto the set of a Dracula movie." While we didn't see any caped figures with sharp fangs lurking about, the analogy definitely fits. Check out the pictures.

Budapest at night

The mood of the city is very dark, walking around you see very few people, and the ones you do see aren't all too friendly. Jim's fountain of information also informed us that "nobody comes to Budapest to live. You move to Budapest to write sad poetry for 3 years and then jump off a bridge." When I asked him how long he'd been there, I don't think he saw the humor of his answer of "4 years." Oh well, I guess there's an exception to his 3-year limit if you run a hostel instead of write poetry.

In contrast to the dark feeling, it is a very safe city. We had no issues walking around at night, even if the streets weren't too bright. We walked around the first night along the river that divides the city into the Buda side and the Pest side. The main attractions are all brilliantly lit up at night, as you can see below.

The infamous Chain Bridge, splendidly lit up every night.

The big problem with Budapest (as a result of our missed flight) is that it really is a "3-day city". Some cities you can walk around, hit the main sights, grab some good food, and be done with it in a quick weekend trip. Some cities can even be tackled in a single day. Budapest is not one of those cities. The sights are both beautiful and completely spread out. Bring some comfortable walking shoes, and make sure you get on the earliest flight for your 3-day weekend.

We did manage to see most of what the city had to offer, and also squeezed in a nice 3-4 hour nap on Saturday as well. (What else should a vacation be if not a great excuse to nap in the middle of the afternoon?)

We strolled along the river, wandered inside Saint Stephen's Basilica, saw the mummified Holy Right Hand of King Saint Stephen (he's a pretty big deal), enjoyed the thermal baths that the city is famous for, and went up to see Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church.

Saint Stephen's Basilica

Outdoor section of the baths, a very intellectual crowd

It is definitely a city that's been put back on our list to visit (a list which has not stopped growing for the past two years). There is simply too much to see for a two day trip.

Matthias Church & Fishermans Bastion

One thing you can count on: if we do go back, we'll be HOURS early for our flight, and it won't be out of Luton Airport.

Thanks Mom!!

A big thanks to my mom who spent $30 to send us 3 boxes of Velveeta Shells and Cheese!

Best present ever!

My big plan for friday night is to try and find some hot dogs so that we can have the most fabulous American dinner ever. And some rootbeer. Man, rootbeer would be great.

Budapest

We went to budapest this last weekend. Look for bobby's blog on the trip coming soon!

Vice Presidential Debate Preview

In keeping with our political theme, I'm going to throw my punditry hat into the ring and give you my predictions for tonight's debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin.

Be warned, I have no experience in doing this and this post is likely to be completely biased and very long-winded (maybe I should be the VP candidate?).

I've been keeping up with the US Election pretty well from across the pond (YouTube is my friend), and from all the commentary, it seems that the tide has turned against Palin and McCain over the past few weeks.

There was the nonsense about "suspending the campaign" last week, single-handedly saving the economy, the absolute hilarity of the Palin/Couric interview clips, as well as the beautifully crafted SNL jabs from Tina Fey (here and here).

But what I think will happen is not a landslide victory for the Democrats, even though the McCain campaign seems to be imploding. Tonight, Biden may very well mop the floor with Palin's inexperience, her lack of foreign policy knowledge, and lack of any real substance in general. But I'm worried that's not how it's going to play out.

The expectations have been set so low for the Governor, that as long as she leaves the debate without having collapsed on the floor after exhaustively repeating the phrase "I can see Russia from my house", she'll be viewed as a winner. It's a sad state of affairs.

The other hand I expect what will get played out a lot during the debate is the question "Is Biden being condescending/paternalistic/mean?" You may have seen the clip from the last major debate between male and female VP candidates Bush and Feraro (thanks again YouTube). Anything Biden says tonight that calls into question Palins (obvious) lack of experience or knowledge is going to be twisted by the McCain campaign as "mean", "sexist" or "elitist".

Guess what people, it's not sexist if Palin doesn't know the answer to something. He's not beating up on her because she's a woman. I thought Hillary did a fine job over the past year of tackling the question of "Can a woman be president?" head-on. It's not because she's a woman that she doesn't know (I thought Hillary cleared up that misconception quite well over the past year). It's because she DOESN'T KNOW THE ANSWER.

It should be a no-contest debate. We have the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (and 4-term senator) going up against someone who didn't get a passport (and hasn't been outside of North America) until last year. Biden is able to pull out years and years of foreign policy experience and extensive knowledge of how the world works, and Palin simply is not. There should be no point of contention. A more productive debate might be "Is the sky blue?" or "Does the Pope wear a funny hat?"

As an aside, the idea that labeling Obama/Biden as "elitist" is one of the funniest campaign techniques I've ever seen. Why do people seem to want their president to be "one of us"? I'm not smart enough to be president. Why would I possibly want you or me, or someone "like us", to run the biggest superpower in the world? I haven't got a clue how to run this country. I want the best educated, most internationally acclaimed, MOST elite person in the country to be president. I don't want my neighbor to have the job; they can hardly remember trash day, much less negotiate with dissenting world leaders. I want, and I think we need, somebody to bring America back into the fold of international politics, not keep them as a pariah.

So, here's my final prediction for what happens tonight.

• Sarah Palin sticks to Republican talking points, gets flustered a few times in the back-and-forth, but general sticks to her message.
• Biden stays calm through most of the debate, but then gets flustered and lashes out at Palin once or twice with real questions that she can't answer.
• The media completely ignores the lack of substance coming from Palin and focuses all their energy on repeating the 10 second clip where Biden was "mean" to Palin.
• Republicans view the whole night as a victory, blame the "liberal media" for taking jabs at Palin.
• Democrats view the whole night as a victory, blame the "conservative media" for ignoring important questions about Palin's readiness.
• Somebody says something about a pig or pitbull wearing lipstick.
• The public, in desperate need of a debate about real issues, watches Dancing With the Stars instead.