A long hot bath

Up early today, we headed straight for the great market hall to see the acres of fresh fruit and veg, sausages, tourist trinkets, and a special floor devoted to exotic meats and pickled everything. It's the first time we had set our eyes on jars of pickled vegetables with smiley faces in them, and giant haunches of some type of meat hanging around in shopping carts.
The hall itself was designed by Eiffel, of the Paris tower fame.

After the marketplace we headed to Deak Ter Park to meet up with the free Budapest Tour. While chatting with the guide, we discovered the tour basically covered everything we had already seen on our own. We changed our plan and used the unexpected free time to head to the train station to pick up train tickets to our next Hungarian destination, Eger and our overnight train tickets to Romania. They use a ticket system for waiting in line at the station. You get a ticket and when your number comes up, you find the proper window. Easy, right? Except that the number flashes on the screen and is gone... Nothing until the next number. You really need to be paying attention, which is hard when you are busy making friends with the British guy next to you who just survived a tornado in Croatia! Two different buildings, two different lines later (one for trains within Hungary, one for international) and we were on to our next adventure.

We spent the afternoon at the Szchenyi Baths. It it a famous mineral bath with about 24 different thermal pools with temperatures ranging from approximately 54 degrees to 108 degrees. There are multiple saunas and steam rooms and a large outdoor swimming pool. This bath is the choice of most locals and it is housed in a beautiful old building in a local park. This is where we had our massages also. It was the perfect day to be in the water with air temperatures in the upper 90's. Our landlady loaned us towels and along with our bathing suits and my waterproof camera that was all we needed. The bath was amazing and the massages were.... Let's just say, quite the adventure!!! Tom had a good laugh watching three teen aged girls realize that one of them was getting a massage from a very large, smelly man but his massage was pretty standard (minus the candles and zen music we're used to at home). My massage on the other hand was hysterical! Sterile stall, sort of like a bathroom stall but with a metal table instead of a toilet. Ancient white sheet tossed on top of the metal table, lay down face first (no cradle for your face), and let the games begin. My masseuse said "top!" and suddenly my bathing suit top was unhooked, my bottoms were yanked down a bit and the massage began. Thirty minutes of this weird vibrating hand technique. It was all finished with him putting me in a headlock to crack my neck. Now don't get me wrong, even though I was cracking up the whole time it was a good massage.... Strange but good. As I read this back I realize this sounds a little racey. There was nothing improper about any of it. It was all very clinical, just not the relaxing, zen type experience I am used to.

Following our trip to the baths we visited hero's park. It is a grand plaza with statues of historical Hungarian hero's. Beautiful display and awesome statues.

Dinner was quick and quiet at our apartment.