On Budapest We got scammed in Budapest. Well, not really scammed. Scammed in the idea that we spent money we weren’t planning on spending and definitely got overcharged, but when you have six Hungarian men playing double basses and cimbalon at you, what are you going to do? … Backtrack. It’s been an odd week. We started off in Edinburgh. 18 degrees. Rain. A whiskey tasting at Devil’s Advocate, a little whiskey bar on a ‘close’, a tiny alley in between buildings. I was introducing Grace to my high school friend Megan who I hadn’t seen in ten years. Like most of my oldest relationships, the conversation start fairly superficial (what do you do for work) and dives very deep quickly (how’s your childhood trauma treating you). Grace got a pretty deep look into my teenage years, I got to re-examine a bunch of child-hood beliefs, we drank some smokey whiskey. Followed it up with a cod sausage and a late night train back to Glasgow where we spent the day exploring the first of many museums. We stayed at a ‘tenement’ in Glasgow, which is basically an apartment, but originally built as low cost housing. With the passage of time, what was a cheap flat in the 1800s that would have housed 12 people is now a trendy light-filled four bedroom apartment walking distance from town. This particular one had incredibly high ceilings, a grand piano in the living room and an odd slant to the doorways. Glasgow was bombed during World War II and half of the building came down. When they rebuilt it they braced up the still standing section as much as they could, but there was still some irregularities. Squeaky floor boards and doors that don’t quite shut. Continue reading “On Budapest”