Egypt - really, really old news

About 8 months late, I realized that I did not finish writing about the rest of my study trip to Egypt in January.

Cairo is a crazy big city that is impossible to get around. Most of my memories of Cairo are of being stuck in traffic in a cramped, hot bus in a suit. We had some cool meetings though in addition to the one with Orascom that I have already written about - a few government ministers, a non-profit, some energy companies, and a tech startup. But the cultural sites were what really stood out in Egypt.

The pyramids, though their size was impressive, were a bit of a disappointment. We saw them once during the day and once at a hoky light and laser show at night.

Luxor, a few hundred miles south of Cairo along the Nile, was really amazing though. We took a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the valley, and had amazing views of all of the temples, tombs, and ruins. I also found the Nile really interesting. While I guess I learned this in high school, the entire country of Egypt is desert, except for a stretch about 1-2 miles wide on either side of the Nile, which stretches all the way from its delta in the north of the country to southern Egypt. While this makes sense, it was still shocking to see firsthand how green the area around the Nile is, and how it instantly drops off to extreme desert just a few minutes walk away from the river.

During my travels through 33 countries over the past two years, I have seen a lot of really old stuff. But the sights in Egypt are staggeringly old. Many of the ruins that we saw were 4,000 to 4,500 years old! All of the ancient ruins that I saw in South America, India, China, Thailand, Japan, the Middle East, and Europe - none of them were more than 2,500 years old. And the Egyptian ruins including King Tut's tomb, Hatshepshut's tomb, the pyramids, and the many statues of pharoahs and sphinxes were as impressive as any of them. It puts the rest of the historical sights I have seen around the world in a different perspective, and also really challenges the American worldview where remembering things from 40 years ago seems like ancient history.

So while Cairo is not high on my list of places that I would go back to, I would love to spend more time exploring more of Luxor and Aswan, and explore the rest of the areas along along the Nile south of Cairo. Here are a number of Egyptian photo highlights.

Street market - Cairo

Boy carrying flatbread

Camels and pyramids

More Great Pyramids, Giza

Old building facade, Cairo

Hot air ballooning in desert over Luxor
Mosque in Egyptian desert Hot Air ballooning, fields by the Nile quickly become desert
Sphinxes, Luxor

Massive ancient columns
Hatshepset's tomb
Google satellite map showing the green by the Nile and the surrounding desert

Sapa - northwestern Vietnam

After spending a few days in Hanoi, we took a surprisingly pleasant overnight train to Sapa, near the Chinese border in the mountains in Northwestern Vietnam.

While Sapa was an ok little town in its own right, we spent most of our time hiking around and exploring the surrounding areas. The countryside around Sapa is the gorgeous lush green valleys and terraced rice paddies that you see in photo books. Little children played in the river with their water buffalos and local women sold the vegetables that their husbands farmed in town.

The area around Sapa is also home to a number of "minority tribes", with the Black Hmong and the Dzay being the two we spent the most time around. While the tribes have in many ways converted from their traditional way of life to surviving via tourism, they have retained their langauge, dress, and a lot of their social customs. We spent one day hiking on our own down into the valley from Sapa town to Cat Cat village, a Hmong village about 3 km from Sapa. It was a really cool hike, down a long winding path towards the town which was built by the river that runs through the Sapa valley.

Our second day in Sapa we joined a small group and hired a Hmong tour guide to show us around her town and lead us on a day trip through the rice paddies and bamboo forests. Ironically, my second weekend after quitting work in 2006, I spent three days and two nights hiking through northern Thailand and staying in Hmong villages. Now, in my second to last weekend of b-school travel, this hiking adventure made the Hmongs a surprising bookend to my past two years of travels.

Our Hmong guide - Cha - was a really smart 20 year old girl who spoke Hmong, Vietnamese, and pretty good English too. And, since Lizzle speaks Vietnamese, we got some extra insight into Cha's life. She met her husband at the "Love Market" in Sapa town at age 15. He is also Hmong, but from a neighboring village. They were married after two months, she moved in with his family, and they had a daughter when she was 16. Now, at age 20, she works guiding tourists while her husband farms part-time and finishes school. I am not sure how much of this was a sob story designed to elicit tourist dollars (I actually think it's not, but you never know) but she complained to us that her husband drinks and gambles away all their money. She wants to leave him, but she is so old now (almost all Hmongs marry in their early teens) that nobody else will marry him. And since he paid a dowry to marry her, she would have to pay a fee of 5 million dong (~US$300), 40 pigs, and 80 liters of alcohol to his family if she wanted to divorce him. She was also eager for her daughter to start school. Almost all Hmong boys go to schoool but many Hmong girls do not. And most Hmong girls who do go to school are not taught to read or write, they are just taught to speak Hmong and Vietnamese.

While her story was really sad, it was an interesting backdrop on the villages and countryside that we walked through which were stunningly beautiful. We hiked for a few hours in the morning, had lunch in a Hmong town (sandwiches, not Hmong food unfortunately), and then hiked for a few hours in the pouring rain in the afternoon. The trails became super muddy and by the end of the hike I had slid down countless slick patches and was absolutely covered in mud. Still though, I was not complaining - it was a really cool adventure.

Hmong women by old French church in Sapa town

Girl drying some corn on the side of the dirt road

water wheel by river in cat cat

children bathing and playing with water buffaloes

Green valley and terraced rice paddies
Dzay women resting by the side of the road
flowers
Me and our Hmong guide Cha by waterfall

Hoi An - welcome to Vietnam

After an amazing six weeks in Europe, it was time for one last trip of business school - a long trip back to Southeast Asia. In fact, I would guess nobody in the world has ever flown from Tarifa Spain to Hoi An Vietnam before. It's not easy to do - I had to drive two hours to Malaga Spain, fly to London, change airports, then connect in Singapore and Hanoi, arrive in Da Nang, then drive an hour to Hoi An. Phew. But, still I was really excited to see Vietnam - the last Asian country high on my list of places to visit.

Hoi An was a great start to seeing the country. It is a small town located in the central portion of Vietnam, a couple miles from the coast and a few miles south of the 17th parallel, so technically part of South Vietnam from the perspective of the American War (I guess not surprisingly, but still unusual to hear, the Vietnam War is known here as the American War. And the Vietnamese justifiably have a lot of pride about how they were able to expel first the French colonists in the 1950s then the Americans in the 1970s).

Hoi An is now primarily a tourist destination, for Westerners, Vietnamese, and Chinese alike. It has a really nice, very walkable old town (cars are forbidden though bikes and motorcycles, known here as xe om, are everywhere). Our first day we rented bicycles (Asian biking again!) and rode from our hotel on the riverfront a few miles outside town into the downtown. I luckily did not hit anyone. We explored the various temples, the sprawling market, the numerous tailors and art galleries that have exploded to suck in tourist dollars, and walked throughout the old town, trying to adjust to the heat, humidity, aromas, and chaos that were a stark contrast from Europe. The town was really pleasant though, and, despite the madness when compared to Spain, was definitely one of the calmest places I have been in SE Asia.

Hoi An was a trading center for thousands of years, and there are a number of Chinese style buildings and temples. Here are a few photos of temples in the old town.




We also enjoyed the markets which sold everything from dried fish to fruits and vegetables to clothes and furniture.


We also spent part of our long weekend enjoying the beaches around Hoi An. The 30km long white sand beach that stretches from Hoi An to Da Nang was a famous relaxation spot for American soldiers. The northern stretch of the beach is also known from a tv show as "China Beach". We were only 1km from the southern portion of the beach, so we took full advantage of the 80+ degree ocean water, beautiful clean beaches, and gorgeous palm tree and island views. Yet another amazing beach.

Our last day in Hoi An, we hired a car and drove to My Son, a really interesting and beautiful set of Hindu ruins about an hour into the countryside that were built by the Champas culture from around the 3rd century to the 14th century. This is the same culture most famous for its largest ruins, Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The collection of temples, buildings, and ruins partially overrun by jungle was quite stunning and fascinating. We really enjoyed the drive from Hoi An, through some very small towns and countryside, then hiking (briefly) through the jungle to get to the ruins.

Impressions of Spain

The rest of the two weeks that I spent in Spain was amazing. It is such an interesting, relaxed, and enjoyable place to travel. The atmosphere is so fun and relaxing, and having pinchos (Basque for tapas) and a some wine at a tapas bar is always a great way to end a day. We drove all the way from the Northeast corner of San Sebastian to the southeastern tip of Tarifa and I enjoyed every minute of it. Definitely one of my favorite countries I have ever visited, and even though I have already been twice, it's at the top of my list of places to visit again.

My online photo album and captions will describe the trip in more detail but a few stream-of-consciousness highlights were:

Barcelona-amazing vibe and awesome Gaudi architecture all around...staying at Sancho's family's house in the countryside around Bilbao was really interesting - the tiny village does not see 25 American tourists very often!...The Guggenheim Bilbao was crazy and cool...Saw Guernica in Madrid again. Still super impactful...San Sebastian was a beautiful and really fun town on the Northeastern coast. Amazing food...Grenada was highlighted by the Alhambra which was not quite as cool as I had hoped but still very much worth seeing. Terrible audio guides though...Gibraltar was a weird escape...Tarifa was an amazingly fun and chill beach town

All in all, a great trip and a great finish to Europe. Next up, a long trip to Vietnam!

Gibraltar - a weird but cool British outpost in southern Spain

We spent a day visiting Gibraltar, a 30 minute drive from the house we rented in Tarifa, at the southern tip of Spain. In fact, Gibraltar is a 2.5 square mile rock outcropping at the southern tip of Europe. It's also oddly British - a fact that still causes some tension between Britain and Spain. At the rock of Gibraltar, Morocco is only 10 km away and is clearly visible across the Strait of Gibraltar, an obviously important and highly trafficked shipping channel for any boats leaving the Mediterranean and heading eastwards.

Gibraltar had three major highlights.

The first was the British atmosphere. While Spain has been fantastic, it was fun having a day long escape. We spent much of it eating amazing fish and chips and watching the final round of the British Open in an English pub. We also walked around a little bit down the small but British feeling town, complete with classic red English phone booths. Finally, there were tons of red-faced Brits speaking the Queen's English.

The second highlight were the macaques - the only wild primates in Europe. About 300 macaques, basically tailless apes that look like monkeys, roam in five tribes around the rock of Gibraltar. They are very used to human tourists though, and enjoyed running all around and over our cars, grabbing anything they could find (including a bathing suit out of the trunk), and generally entertaining us.

Finally, the rock of Gibraltar and the views were pretty cool. Most people know the rock from the Prudential advertisements. It is both imposing in itself and also has really cool views back towards Spain and also across the water towards Morocco. It feels a lot like the Cape of Good Hope to me, with a long high rock outcropping in a narrow peninsula out into the water. We finished the day with a tricky scramble up the rock to the highest point in Gibraltar, which would have been much easier in shoes instead of flimsy flip-flops.

Pamplona

The San Fermin festival in Pamplona was definitely my most memorable experience from the summer in Spain. Commonly known as “the running of the bulls”, San Fermin is one of the craziest things I have ever witnessed. Tens of thousands of tourists descend on Pamplona for a week every July for an incredible 24/7 party. Every morning at 8am, 12 bulls are released and hundreds of runners chase (and are chased) by the bulls through town on the way to the stadium. The race was much faster than I expected (bulls are fast – the race only lasts like 3 minutes!) but the surrounding fiesta goes on non-stop.

I went with 7 friends for a day and a night in Pamplona. We arrived just in time for the afternoon bullfight. The bullfight was a mix of enchanting and disgusting, with matadors elegantly performing an ancient ritualistic dance with the bulls, but also killing them in a gory mess that concludes with a stab to the head and horses dragging a dead bull covered in blood out of the ring. The packed crowd of Spaniards loved it though. An interesting tradition is the cutting of the ear. If the crowd thinks that the matador did a particularly good job, they call for him to receive the ear of the bull as a reward. A member of the royal family (of what family, I’m not sure) sits in the royal box. Like a scene straight out of Gladiator, he listens to the roar of the crowd after the fight, and raises his handkerchief if he determines the matador should receive the ear. We saw one granted in the six bullfights of the night.

After the bullfight, we reveled in the streets, parading around, snacking on tapas, and popping in and out of little bars. The scene was smelly, wine-soaked, and energetic, as a number of tourists come to town for the week and just nap in the park whenever they must before jumping back into the fiesta. The fiesta itself is aided by two surprisingly good Spanish drinks – the callemocho and tinto de verano – which are red wine mixed with coca-cola and red wine mixed with a Spanish drink kind of like 7-up.

The actual running of the bulls was quite a scene as well. Part or our group ran and part watched from balconies or wherever they could find a view. I was torn between running and watching but after a twenty-something Californian was gored and needed extensive surgery the day before we arrived, I opted for the balcony. I think it turned out to be a good choice. To run, you really need to scout out the section of the run you want to do ahead of time and prepare some escape options. Having seen it once, I am sure that I could do it. But running on your first day there is a huge mistake, according to both my Spanish friends who have been and having seen the race I would agree. The biggest risk in the race is not really the bulls but that you fall and get trampled, first by the crowd of runners (who will NOT stop to help you up) and then by some angry running bulls.

The runners are a mix of young European and American travelers who want to have an adventure and generally don’t know what they are doing and a bunch of experienced locals who not only want to say they ran with the bulls but who actually want to run as close to the bulls as they can for as long as they can. In my photo below from taken from our balcony, you can actually see one of the runners reaching out and touching a bull. Crazy. But an amazingly fun couple days.

Bullfight

Running with the bulls
The running begins
Fellow spectators
Even we got in the bullfighting act

Montenegro - Croatia for Russians

Montenegro felt a lot like a Russian version of Croatia. Slightly different food, different writing on the signs, and all the tourists clearly came from the East, not Western Europe. It all combined to give it a bit of a more rugged feel. The country's slogan is "Montenegro - Wild Beauty" and it seems pretty accurate to me.

We spent a few days at the beach near Budva. Budva had yet another cool Stari Grad. It was one of the smaller and cozier ones we had been too, but after 3 old cities in Croatia we didn't spend too much time there. We spent a lot of time on the beach. But the highlight of the trip was definitely the day we spent in and around Kotor.

Kotor is a beautiful town set on the edge of Europe's southernmost fjord (see below). It was a really cool natural setting, with mountain walls rising up over a crystal blue inlet of water. We hiked up for a few hours and found our way to the top of an old fort that overlooked the whole scene and spent some time chilling with a couple bird, surveying the bay.

Montenegro concluded our excellent adventures in the Balkans. And after waiting through an endlessly long customs customs that nearly made us miss our flight, we headed off to Spain for the second leg of the summer.

View of Kotor

Sun peeks through city (not my underwear drying on the clothesline)

Kotor old town

Kotor bay

Croatian beach time

Hvar was amazing. It was an idyllic, beautiful paradise of an island. Amazing scenery, buildings, and everything else. We also had no less than 4 of the best meals I have ever had - amazing italian seafood mostly - and took a few hikes to remote beach/coves, including one that culminated in a beautiful one man restaurant called Robinsons that was amazing.

But much like people do not like to hear stories about how cute other peoples pets are, I will not spend much time describing our awesome island beach vacation. I will just say that it was fantastic and the photos barely capture it.

After 3 days in Hvar, we took a boat back to the mainland and a bus all the way to the southern tip of Croatia to Dubrovnik. This old walled city was really cool, but a little over-run with tourists. The old town had really cool walls all around it which you could climb up then hike around to get great views of the city.

Instead of getting a hotel in Dubrovnik we ended up renting a Sobe, or private accommodation, from a nice Croatian couple Bozo and Rada. We rented an apartment in a 400 year old building that had been in their family for generations. Their kids had grown up though, so Bozo and Rada had just finished renovating their apartment for renters. It was really cool being able to stay in a unique place in the heart of the old town.

Despite the daytime crowds (nothing like Venice, but after Hvar almost anything would have seemed too crowded), Dubrovnik was pretty great. And while we have now definitely seen a number of Stari Grads (old town) this trip, Dubrovnik was probably my favorite. We watched an outdoor movie that was projected on the old city wall right across the street from our house. We went to Lokrum island (about 10 minutes away) for some more beach time, and generally enjoyed wandering around, stopping in shops and cafes, and taking in the views from the city walls.

Then, after two great days in Dubrovnik, we headed even further south into Montenegro.

Update after Hvar

Croatia continues to amaze. Hvar was incredibly beautiful and one of the most fun and interesting beach towns I have ever seen. We left by ferry this morning and got to Dubrovnik in southern Croatia earlier today. It is also incredibly scenic. In lieu of a further update, here are some photo highlights from the past few weeks.

Croatia - the real Little Italy

Saturday morning we said goodbye to Sarajevo and took a bus 3 hours south through some cool mountains and rivers to Mostar, a town in southern Bosnia. Mostar is most famous for its old stone arch bridge which was built in the 1300s. Sadly the bridge was destroyed in 1993. But a few years ago the restored/replaced it with a new version, and a nice downtown area of shops and cafes have sprouted out along it and the river front.

After a few hours exploring town, we hoped on another (hot!) bus and headed to Split, Croatia.

Croatia is tough to write about. It is just amazingly beautiful and hard to capture in words. Green hills, craggy mountains, amazing beaches, beautiful blue coastlines. It is gorgeous.

Split was founded around 200AD by the Roman Emperor Diocletian who built it to be his retirement palace. (Italy is only a few hours west of Croatia by boat across the Adriatic Sea). While the "palace" still stands, it would best be described as a small complex, complete with city walls. Amazingly, not only is the palace still largely intact, there are over 3,000 people who still live in apartments and houses in the various alleyways and rooms of the palace! The whole area feels like a clean, largely undiscovered Venice.

We spent a pleasant night and day just walking around the Old Town, hanging out on the Promenade, admiring the nearly 2,000 year old columns, walls, archways, and art (including some Egyptian Sphinx sculptures that Diocletian imported for decoration). We also watched the Euro Cup final in a huge crowd outside and were ecstatic when Spain - who we've been cheering for throughout the tournament - pulled out a 1-0 victory.

We also spent a relaxing day and a half playing in the sea. We stayed at a nice hotel just outside town so we had a sweet pool and beach access right outside the door. Really pretty, though the rocky (not sand) beaches took a little getting used to. Still though, it was great.

Next stop - the island of Hvar. We are taking a big catamaran out to this increasingly popular Croatian island for 3 days of fun and sun.

Note: Uploading pictures so far has proven difficult. But, finally, I got a couple photos uploaded for the previous posts.

Bridge in Mostar

Cheesy B&W picture of tower in Split

Street corner, Split

Sarajevo - Minarets and Cappaccinos

Sarajevo is gorgeous. It has a unique feel to it due to the cool mix of cultures that formed it. The city was founded by the Ottomans in the 1500s but was always an east-west crossroads. There is a cool old turkish quarter with tons of old shops and kebab stands. There are a number of old (and new) mosques whose minarets populate the skyline. But there are also a number of churches and synagogues and a massive cathedral in the town center. And the city is in a beautiful setting. There are cool hills and mountains rising up above the town which sits in a valley with a nice river running through town.

Sarajevo is also extremely energetic at night. The central downtown area is all pedestrian-only and walkable. During the two Euro Cup games there had to be 3,000 people in all the bars and cafes that had set up outdoor tables chairs and tvs for watching the games.

We also ate really good food. Two favorites of mine were the doner kebabs from street vendors and the local dish of czevapi which was like a very onion-y hamburger in a grilled pita. Excellent.

The city seems very safe and pleasant too. Something I read here quoted a resident as saying, While we have war criminals hidden throughout the city, you will never feel unsafe wandering the streets. So there's that.

During the day, the biggest past-time in Sarajevo must be cafe sitting. Bosnians are big fans of the "Cafe-Bar" which serves alcohol, coffee, and sometimes ice cream. Everywhere you look around town, people are sitting. Sometimes sitting and smoking. Sometimes sitting and sipping. Sometimes having some ice cream. No one is eating though, and most cafes don't serve real food.
Coffee drinking seems to be a bigger part of Bosnian life even than elsewhere in Europe. There are even three different Bosnian words for coffee - one for the 1st coffee of the day, one for daytime coffee taken with friends or colleagues, and one for coffee served at the end of a meal or gathering intended as a polite way to tell guests that it's time to leave.

Still though, the rocky last century's worth of history are barely beneath the surface. Tour maps highlight the bridge where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated (starting WWI), the Holiday Inn where journalists hid out during the 1992-95 siege of the city, and the Sarajevo roses (when particularly deadly mortar attacks hit town, the sidewalk holes were repaved with red cement) which are all over town, including right in front of our hotel. And finally, this may just be in my head, but people here, especially the older people, seem to look like they are somewhat weary and distant below the surface. There also seem to be more than the average number of beggars missing limbs and many people seem to be shopping but nobody seems to be buying anything. While this NYT article gives a darker perspective we generally experienced the city as very happy, lively, and energetic.

I would definitely recommend Sarajevo. It was culturally unique, felt authentic (almost no Western tourists), really energetic, and very scenic.

View of downtown and mountains from our hotel

Old mosque

China's stock exchange

It's been a rough year since I last wrote about the Shanghai Stock Exchange. After peaking just over 6,000 in September, the SSE is down about 56% to around 2,700 today.

Pecs, Hungary

We had our first encounter with Soviet-era infrastructure on the train ride from Budapest to Pecs. Unsurprisingly running late (due to unforeseen broken ticket machines on the Metro) we arrived at the train station hot and sweaty and barely in time to catch the final train of the day to Pecs. We hopped on the train and were immediately faced with brutally hot and cramped conditions on a train that was far older than me. Needless to say we were eager to disembark 4 hours later in Pecs.

While I had never heard of Pecs until stumbling across it a few weeks ago in a guidebook, it turned out to be a fantastic stop on our journey towards the Adriatic coast. Recently named as Europe's Cultural Capital for 2010, Pecs oozed charm. It also showcased the multicultural legacy of southwestern Hungary. Our hotel was next to a beautiful and massive old synagogue, the main square was dominated by the 'Mosque Church' whose steeple features a cross atop a crescent moon, and rising above the city is the massive Basilica of St Peter.

In addition to wandering around, sampling gelato and coffee at various cafes, touring some of the old churches and museums, and hiking up and around the turrets of the old city walls, we were also lucky to experience Pecs' Gastronomy Festival! We had a great night full of sampling Hungarian wines (deservedly not famous), amazing food (lots of fried stuff in red sauces and some amazing grilled sugared donuts, like round Hungarian churros), and live music and dance. It was another great night.

Main Square, Pecs

Train to Bosnia

After four days in Hungary, we hopped on another train, this time for a long, winding trip to Sarajevo. We traveled briefly south through Hungarian countryside to the Croatian border, spent a few hours traveling through Croatia's interior rolling hills and cornfields to the Bosnian border, and then rolled through Bosnia to Sarajevo. While there is only one 2-car train per day that makes the trip from Hungary to Bosnia, we had a relatively new, though still AC-less, empty cabin to ourselves. Much like US airlines, we have a 9 hour ride with no food service. So we packed a lunch/dinner of clifbars, and salami, mustard, and cheese sandwiches from the grocery store and set out on our way.

I am excited and lucky to report that Bosnia is the 50th country that I have visited in my 20s (I just turned 29). More than once in the past few years, I've though I would only probably make it to 10 or so more countries in my life. But the more I travel, the more I keep finding places I am eager to see! And I have continued to be lucky enough to find time and opportunities to experience them. Like a number of places I have visited in the last 9 years, Bosnia was not really on my travel radar screen until just a few weeks ago. And yet somehow, here I am. So we will see - I once again am at a stage where I suspect that I will not visit too many more new countries. But I am really lucky and surprised to have made it to 50 so far! And, more immediately, I am excited and a bit nervously anticipating this next country, which is supposedly fascinating, lively, and recovering well from the wars that have ravaged it for most of the past century.

Budapest, Hungary - Summer Adventures begin!

Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. Give up? The countries that border Hungary.

We arrived for our summer tour through the Balkans in Budapest on Saturday afternoon. After a quick trip to the ATM for some Hungarian Forint (Hungary is EU but not Euro, though equally expensive it turns out) we quickly settled into life in strikingly beautiful central Budapest. We were fortunate enough to land here on Midsummers Eve and found festivals celebrating the longest day of the year. After a quick nap, we ventured out and found some numerous awesome sidewalk cafes full of Euro Cup fans, fantastic goulash, and not enough air-conditioning. For Midsummer, Budapest was holding a MuseumFest and kept all its museums open until 2am. So after some drinks, festive soccer, and a great dinner at a restaurant called Mensa we found ourselves venturing through the Hungarian National Gallery at 1 in the morning, contemplating our good fortune on our first day of summer.

As the frequent comparisons suggest, Budapest reminds me a lot of Prague. The Danube winds through the middle of town, dividing the two halves of Buda and Pest which merged in 1000 to found the current capital. Buda is dominated by Castle Hill, which rises quickly up from the riverbanks. It has beautiful old churches, winding streets, and views of town. We stayed in Pest which had more hotels, restaurants, cafes, and pedestrian shopping streets.

In addition to just wandering and running around town (a summer of health has begun to try to remove some of the excesses of business school), some of my highlights of Budapest were nightly viewings of Euro Cup games with avid fans, great Hungarian food - sausages, salami, goulash, mustard, sauerkraut, pork, and paprika everything, and a trip to the baths. Budapest has a huge bathing tradition, and we spent one evening in the huge public baths in the city's main park, rotating between pools to cool down and warm up, and all the while playing in the bubbling jets.

For a while in the early 20th century, Budapest was called Paris of the East. While I expected to see more signs of the country's occupied past (the new republic is less then 20 years old and for a number of years received less attention and investment than its central European peers), Budapest today was a booming, clean, expensive, culturally and visually impressive metropolis. It was an awesome place to begin our summer adventures.

Hungarian Parliament

View across the Danube