The photos now should load into this article.
Vicki and I practiced around 7:45 for an hour this morning. It was cool and a nice time to play…and it’s light early here, so pretty easy to arise early. After practice, Vicki went back to prepare for here “not before 12:30 match (which ended up starting around 2pm or so) and I stayed to scout players in my division since I had no match. I watched the other two players in my round robin group, then Pauline Fisher vs Jana Sedlakova. Pauline had a topsy-turvy match…she was down 4/1 then won the first set 76 and was up 2/1 when I left. She ended up losing the second set 63 but hung on to win 76 in the third.
I had lunch, then was off to find peanut butter. My research pointed towards Culinaris as a store which sells peanut butter in Hungary. I found one only 12 minutes away, so set off on my quest which turned out to be successful. There were 4 types of peanut butter…three brands (one had crunchy and smooth). I was tempted to buy the natural type but it came in only a 1 kilo container (2.2 pounds). Culinaris is full of imported foods including the ubiquitous marshmallows that all foreign food departments think Americans eat, some nice fruits and vegetables, spices, chocolates, pastas and sauces and more.
Better yet, next door to Culinaris is a Penny Market…somewhat similar to an Aldi. I found chicken lunch meat and asparagus; ice, even some different vegetables. Ironic that the gourmet expensive store is next door to Penny Market, sort of like Marshalls next to Dior.
On the walk to the market I went by the ruins of a Roman Amphitheater, not what I expected to see in the suburbs. It is the Auincum military amphitheater used as a military training ground from the 1st century. The auditorium was built on dirt with 24 u-shaped walls built of stone. it was capable of holding 10-13,000 spectators! It was excavated and restored in the 1940s.
Vicki won her quarterfinal match against a German player 60 63 at a different venue and when she returned we took the tram to the Danube near the Parliament building, the most beautiful Parliament building in Europe. I had downloaded the BuddapestGo app to buy tickets…and had researched where to go for a good view of the Parliament but did not research how to validate the ticket! You have to scan a QR code on the outside of the tram…or on the inside, which we figured out after we missed a tram trying to scan it before it left (I had to scan a ticket for each of us). You can buy various tickets within the app…I bought a few one-way tickets for 500 HUF (about $1.40). You can figure out routes pretty easily using google maps…put in your destination, then the app will show you what tram or bus to take and the number and names of stops.
The reason we took, the tram was to go to the fisherman’s grotto, which had a beautiful view of the parliament building. It was up quite a lot of stairs, but it was well worth it for the view.
The starting times for Wednesday did not come out till 930 at night which I think is about two hours too late. Neither of us play Wednesday however, but that’s a result we practice even earlier at 7:30!