Long Walks, Falling Leaves, and Grand Pianos, Budapest Day 5

Above pic is from the Amsterdam Central train station on the way to Schiphol. It was a nice enough station, aside from this:

I wanted a Bounty bar. I paid for it. I didn’t get it (and it was quite a public place so I couldn’t start shaking the machine). What year is it now? We still have vending machines that do this? Argh! It makes me angry just to look at this picture.

Had this lovely breakfast at the Schiphol Airport waiting for my plane:

It was a bacon, egg, cheese and… mystery sauce sandwich. I thought it would be better if I didn’t ask what was in the sauce. Red Bull should seriously consider sponsoring me.

When I finally arrived in Budapest, it was sucky. Traffic was gridlocked throughout the city, one of the bridges is under construction, and police were blocking off random stretches of road. The taxi from the airport got within a half mile of where I needed to be and then we waited for 10 minutes before he told me to get out and walk (this is all in Hungarian as he caught me speaking a few words in Hungarian on the phone and then switched from English and never went back…). I paid him less money for his fare and got out of the cab (I was in a bit of a hurry). After walking 5 minutes up the road, the police block ended and the taxi drove right past me. What a bastard.

The next day people spent huddled in their homes in anticipation of the annual riots in celebration of… freedom or something. I was in Budapest in 2006 for the big ones which involved pepper spray, rubber bullets, molotov cocktails, and a tank. The only thing I remember from that time is that I was stuck in my apartment watching from above being kinda upset that I couldn’t go downstairs to buy a Coke.

This year’s Budapest riots were uneventful and involved nothing fun to write about. The following days were pretty uneventful as well. I’ve been working closely with the PDAmill game team at Nav N Go for the anticipation of the Arvale: Short Tales game for iPhone.

Yesterday however, I took a nice long walk through District I-II in Budapest with an old friend. I caught this pretty view from the top of a hill:

The camera on my G1 phone simply doesn’t do it justice. In the distance you could also see a perfectly framed view of the Parliament building.

I was also able to catch a rare sight (especially for someone from Arizona) of autumn leaves falling:

Even stranger that I never noticed it while I was living in Budapest for 3 years. Funny how life works like that.

I visited the giant super-double shopping mall, Mammut, in Budapest to have lunch with Tamas Frigyes, the CEO of an upstart GPS company, GPS Tuner. We discussed GPS in general and why his product is different than the other GPS stuff out there and then moved on to more interesting topics such as Japan, women, and gaming . I got some on record with my Flip Mino HD, but I have to clear it with him first if I’m allowed to post it (it will be posted though, believe me Tom!).

I finished off the day by heading to a friends apartment to test out their newly purchased grand piano. Seeing a grand piano in a Budapest flat is a rare sight in itself (since most people live in apartments that are 20-50 sq meters (that’s 160-540 square feet)… or less.

It was a gorgeous piano. European maker by the name of Bechstein:

The action of the keys were fantastic. The overall sound of the piano reminded me of a Bösendorfer with an overall dark sound and slightly muddy low end. Unlike a Bösendorfer however, the high end was a bit sharp/shrill sounding, closer to a Kawai piano (just, you know, not as warm as a Kawai). The dynamics of the piano were really, really good though (really pianissimo softs and really loud fortes). Piano sounds are pretty subjective and honestly, I’m not the best piano player in the world. (In fact, you can watch me sucking at it a lot in this video). The really nice thing about Bechstein is that it’s quite affordable in Europe. If you were to buy a Japanese (Yamaha, Kawai) or American (Baldwin, Steinway) piano it would cost 10 times as much. Either way, I’m jealous

One more shot (of the soundboard) of this beautiful instrument:

I went over whatever repertoire I could remember and after about 1 hour my fingers finally remembered how to use the keys. So I played for another hour or so. I can honestly be entertained in front of a piano longer than I can in front of a computer.

I then rounded off the evening by catching up on some Japanese SRS in Anki.

Tomorrow seems to be my last day in Budapest, so I’ll try to make the most of it by doing… something

See you tomorrow!

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