Budapest

Budapest is made up of two parts, buda and pest. Really. Buda is the older section and Pest the more modern. I arrived this afternoon and after an hour of trying to obtain hospitality, i am now lodged at the mellow mood hostel in downtown pest. These past two days have been quite strange indeed. Last night in Vienna i went to a johnny cash tribute show in the first rock club i've found so far in europe. it was out on the outskirts of vienna (e.g. west roxbury in boston) and had a steep door fee, 15 euro, and i missed all the opening bands 'cause i figured it said 8pm, so that means doors at 8 right? Wrong. They start early in vienna. I got there around 10:15 and the last band went on at 10:30.. They did a great job with the covers. Opened with folsom prison blues, played that song "jackson" (not real title) and a really sad slow number about a girl named rose. Good stuff. felt like i was home again... until they started speaking german and people started singing along in sometimes broken english :) that made it quite surreal. The band was made up of the following characters: Rick Steve's (travel guide on pbs) german cousin was on acoustic guitar, his black haired brother on bass, and their grey haired father on lap steel. The singer looked like John Belushi and the drummer.. well, he was nothing special. They also had guest appearances by a british women who did vocals and some older gentleman who played the recorder (??). And also two young guys on trumpets for Ring of Fire, which they played twice, once to close and then again as an encore.. at which point i left. they also played folsom prison blues, again. I guess they don't have that many songs under their belt. or they like to really please the crowd. Great time though. Part two of the strangeness, or rather, americana wave i've been experiencing - tonight i walked around pest for a few hours and ended up taking the metro (oldest in europe by the way) to heroes square. And what do they have there but the biggest motorcycle rally i have ever seen in my life!! :) A conservative guess would be 1000 bikes. The majority were sport (non-cruisers) but i saw ever style imaginable, scooters, mopeds, dirt bikes, 4 wheelers, harleys, old military bikes, etc etc etc.


I like this building, real eastern europe flavor.
Basilica of Saint ???

Opera House
This was only half of the riders.. Heroes square to the right

At 8, everyone lined up on both sides of this street all the way until the buildings at the very very end. Maybe 8 city blocks