08-15-2016, 05:42 PM
For the trip, I brought $5500 dollars in Hungarian Forints with me. I also brought along an extra $2K in dollars. When I was walking out of the bank, I thought it was overkill. I didn't know how I was going to spend all that money. Plus, I was jittery with all that cash on me.
Sunday, I came to the conclusion I didn't bring enough money with me. Sandor wanted to be paid in cash. Xenia is going to want to be paid in cash. It comes down to the fact I need more cash. Hopefully, I can make enough ATM withdrawals between now and a week from Friday to pay off the people who need to be paid off.
As noted, I've been getting up at midnight for my day. Sunday was no exception. I'm using that time to write the questions for the interviews and write this blog. I also read a Jack Reacher novel. I hoped that it would be so simplistic it would bore me to sleep. Nope. The hours just keep going around while my brain refuses to shut down.
I had another breakfast of way too much food at the breakfast buffet. Buffets are the devils tools.
Sunday was our first scheduled interview. We were going to Buda to interview Jeno Hamori. Hamori was one of the younger guys on the 1956 team.
There was no traffic on the drive, so we crossed over the Freedom bridge into Buda with plenty of time to spare. We hung out in the wifi enabled Mercedes for about ten minutes before ringing Mr. Hamori's bell.
Hamori lives on the fourth floor of his building. The building houses one of the world's smallest elevators which necessitated two elevator rides to get all the gear up to Hamori's floor. From his balcony, you can see almost see the back side of the Budapest Castle. Two castle towers broke the ridge, piercing the cloud filled sky.
Hamori was a pretty good interview. He spent a good portion of the time cursing the state of modern fencing. He also gave a strong feeling of dislike for Piller's widow. As usual, the interview wandered around at the end as HK chased small points of interest or had to share stories of his own. All I know is my foot is killing me and I want desperately to turn off the cameras, but they are still chatting.
I wrapped up all the gear and carried it down to the car while HK scanned a bunch of photos Hamori had assembled. Most of them we had never seen before. I was done before HK so I spent that time playing with Hamori's Border Collie, Houdini.
Hamori agreed to go with us to lunch on the condition, we go to this outdoor restaurant that accepts dogs. Houdini stayed with us for a minute on the walk before dashing off to visit a german shepherd. It was a really nice restaurant that had a covered outdoor patio sitting next to a railway car. Since, we were outside most of our fellow restaurant goers felt free to smoke. A stiff breeze took care of some of the second hand smoke.
Hamori quizzed us on the state of politics and how we felt about the global situation. Houdini rejoined us, a ball stolen from the German Shepherd in his mouth. That had to be sorted out.
The waiters at the restaurant were in no hurry, so two hours later, lunch was finished. By the time we got back to the hotel, Sandor had put in two hours more than we had paid him for. I told him we would cut him loose early on Monday to make up for it.
Ferenc, the bellhop, is getting good at the drill of getting my gear from the car to the hotel rooml. Big tips are a great motivator. On the way out in the morning, he intervened between me and a Romanian who had got it in his head that I should give him a ride to the airport, along with a plea for money.
I charged batteries and ingested footage onto the hard drive for my afternoon chores. I also printed out my question list and release statement. I get this done by the fabulous method of emailing them to the front desk. I go down later and they hand me the printouts. I love the hotel Nemzeti.
For dinner, we went to the execrable Rackosi Grill. It was a buffet where you picked your chilled meats and the chef cooks them up for you. The assortment was bad. The food was flavorless. The deserts were okay. And again, I shouldn't be going to buffets. But we did learn a valuable lesson, the closer we go to the river from the hotel, the better are the restaurants. Rackosi was away from the river.
I also have broken my new international phone I purchased for the trip. At some point, while it was sitting in my camera backpack, the screen broke. I turned it on to make a call to Norbert Maday and all I saw was this weird black pattern filling the screen. I could still make the call because the bottom quarter of the screen was partially legible. But the rest of the screen was a waste. A call to my cel provider, informed me that there was nothing they could do about me breaking my phone. Time to find a cheap unlocked phone to replace the broken one. In the meantime, I'm taking HK's phone to use since he still has his iPhone with roaming on it.
As for the call to Maday, well, not so good. He's now on vacation with his family. He won't be back for I think a week. It is always tough with him on the phone. He seems to answer questions I haven't quite asked. And he talks fast like he has something to do rather than this phone call. I think he requested I call him later in the week to finalize a time for an interview.
Woohoo, tonight is the night I'm going to sleep well. I'm exhausted and I stayed up late, so I'm sleeping in.
Sunday, I came to the conclusion I didn't bring enough money with me. Sandor wanted to be paid in cash. Xenia is going to want to be paid in cash. It comes down to the fact I need more cash. Hopefully, I can make enough ATM withdrawals between now and a week from Friday to pay off the people who need to be paid off.
As noted, I've been getting up at midnight for my day. Sunday was no exception. I'm using that time to write the questions for the interviews and write this blog. I also read a Jack Reacher novel. I hoped that it would be so simplistic it would bore me to sleep. Nope. The hours just keep going around while my brain refuses to shut down.
I had another breakfast of way too much food at the breakfast buffet. Buffets are the devils tools.
Sunday was our first scheduled interview. We were going to Buda to interview Jeno Hamori. Hamori was one of the younger guys on the 1956 team.
There was no traffic on the drive, so we crossed over the Freedom bridge into Buda with plenty of time to spare. We hung out in the wifi enabled Mercedes for about ten minutes before ringing Mr. Hamori's bell.
Hamori lives on the fourth floor of his building. The building houses one of the world's smallest elevators which necessitated two elevator rides to get all the gear up to Hamori's floor. From his balcony, you can see almost see the back side of the Budapest Castle. Two castle towers broke the ridge, piercing the cloud filled sky.
Hamori was a pretty good interview. He spent a good portion of the time cursing the state of modern fencing. He also gave a strong feeling of dislike for Piller's widow. As usual, the interview wandered around at the end as HK chased small points of interest or had to share stories of his own. All I know is my foot is killing me and I want desperately to turn off the cameras, but they are still chatting.
I wrapped up all the gear and carried it down to the car while HK scanned a bunch of photos Hamori had assembled. Most of them we had never seen before. I was done before HK so I spent that time playing with Hamori's Border Collie, Houdini.
Hamori agreed to go with us to lunch on the condition, we go to this outdoor restaurant that accepts dogs. Houdini stayed with us for a minute on the walk before dashing off to visit a german shepherd. It was a really nice restaurant that had a covered outdoor patio sitting next to a railway car. Since, we were outside most of our fellow restaurant goers felt free to smoke. A stiff breeze took care of some of the second hand smoke.
Hamori quizzed us on the state of politics and how we felt about the global situation. Houdini rejoined us, a ball stolen from the German Shepherd in his mouth. That had to be sorted out.
The waiters at the restaurant were in no hurry, so two hours later, lunch was finished. By the time we got back to the hotel, Sandor had put in two hours more than we had paid him for. I told him we would cut him loose early on Monday to make up for it.
Ferenc, the bellhop, is getting good at the drill of getting my gear from the car to the hotel rooml. Big tips are a great motivator. On the way out in the morning, he intervened between me and a Romanian who had got it in his head that I should give him a ride to the airport, along with a plea for money.
I charged batteries and ingested footage onto the hard drive for my afternoon chores. I also printed out my question list and release statement. I get this done by the fabulous method of emailing them to the front desk. I go down later and they hand me the printouts. I love the hotel Nemzeti.
For dinner, we went to the execrable Rackosi Grill. It was a buffet where you picked your chilled meats and the chef cooks them up for you. The assortment was bad. The food was flavorless. The deserts were okay. And again, I shouldn't be going to buffets. But we did learn a valuable lesson, the closer we go to the river from the hotel, the better are the restaurants. Rackosi was away from the river.
I also have broken my new international phone I purchased for the trip. At some point, while it was sitting in my camera backpack, the screen broke. I turned it on to make a call to Norbert Maday and all I saw was this weird black pattern filling the screen. I could still make the call because the bottom quarter of the screen was partially legible. But the rest of the screen was a waste. A call to my cel provider, informed me that there was nothing they could do about me breaking my phone. Time to find a cheap unlocked phone to replace the broken one. In the meantime, I'm taking HK's phone to use since he still has his iPhone with roaming on it.
As for the call to Maday, well, not so good. He's now on vacation with his family. He won't be back for I think a week. It is always tough with him on the phone. He seems to answer questions I haven't quite asked. And he talks fast like he has something to do rather than this phone call. I think he requested I call him later in the week to finalize a time for an interview.
Woohoo, tonight is the night I'm going to sleep well. I'm exhausted and I stayed up late, so I'm sleeping in.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm