Budapest Towards Home

Woke up lateish (for me) and decided on the hotel breakfast which was an excellent choice. FaceTime with twins and Lindy before hitting the road made my day complete already.

Bought my two day hop-on hop-off pass and with the first bus being full walked the ten minutes to the Great Synagogue. I tend to visit most grand synagogues in cities where are is one but I must say this one (also known as Dohany) was one of the most beautiful. Built in a record four years in the mid 1800's it's Moorish Style is amazing. I also visited the museum and the hall of artefacts and war memorial as well as the memorial garden. All in all an amazing 90 minutes.

I actually hop on a bus and spend the next four hours cross crossing the city on the three different lines green blue and purple but not red, that's another company as I found out. I get off at the castle and cross the chain bridge but don't participate in too much else. Other attractions I may do tomorrow include the Citadel, Heroes Square and I certainly plan on a bath - I'd did bring my bathers.

I think I have fallen in love with Budapest it amazingly coexists as an olde world city in a modern era.  On the odd occasion that I wander off the main streets I can see some forgotten buildings and see some homeless people but all in all it is a city that tantalises my love of architecture.

I get back to the hotel around 16:30 and take an hour power nap and consciously get up before I settle in for the night which would be bad as I have made a dinner reservation at what sounds like a great restaurant. After two weeks of almost unabated "kafeteria" food I need a fix.

A cab ride across the Danube to Buda to the Halaszbastya (http://eng.halaszbastya.eu/restaurant/) restaurant. This restaurant is set in what is best described as a medieval series of rooms with lovely views to the Danube and City skyline. Playing gently in the background was a violinist and cimbalom but not the gypsy music that I like but very pleasant. It would be easy to imagine dining here two hundred years ago.

Started with goose liver pate, mushroom garlic soup and fried duck livers with chive mash. All very delicious and quit inexpensive for a fine dining restaurant in an amazing venue and location.  Back to the hotel for some much needed rest after stopping at a bar near the hotel for a quick drink - yes Baileys & Ice.

Tuesday morning also a late start around 10:30 without breakfast. I catch the bus to the Jewish quarter where I repeat yesterday's cappuccino as it sprinkles with light rain. 

After an hour it stops so I spend the next hour walking around the Jewish quarter think kosher restaurants and Judaica shops. Did a bit more hop-on hop-off stuff - Parliament House and such. I tried getting a tram following instructions I received from a vague sounding transport worker and wound up in nowheresville a place where there are no cabs. I backtrack on the tram to somewhere and manage to find a cab to the hotel only to find that it is already 17:00.

An hour catching up on emails work and things and off to the Kempinski Hotel for my dinner at Nobu. The restaurant is normal Nobu style but after the edamame the first course was disappointing - salmon tartar heavily over-seasoned with soy sauce to the point where the salmon was not even a taste. Oh well better to come I hope. The popcorn shrimp was good but the creamy snow crab had a massive amount of crab but buried in an even larger amount of creamy sauce - not great. Being my eighth Nobu maybe its run its course in my life. 

Wednesday morning decided I needed a very long walk - probably result of food overdose. Spent three hours just walking down the main street on which my hotel sits. Just randomly I end up in a huge modern food market (ground floor) and gift market (mezzanine). Lovely selection of fruit, vegetables, salamis, caviar, paprika and lots more.

Got back to the hotel around 15:00 feeling a bit tired but decided to try the baths as it appears in every guide to Budapest. Spent about an hour in pools of sulfuric thermal waters temperatures ranging from 30-42 degrees. Felt quite good afterwards but of course didn't last long.

Decided on restaurant Araz in the Continental Hotel for some traditional Hungarian fare but they also had French and a Zsido menu....

Mushroom truffle soup (wonder if truffles were part of Hungarian Cuisine), an excellent schnitzel with potatos and a rosewater scented rice mousse.

Well this is probably a good time to sign off. I believe the weather in Sydney has been horrible but is forecast to improve for my return on Saturday.

Best to all....

XD

Last of Istanbul and Budapest Arrival

Well the bridge went exceptionally well with Norway, Sweden and France winning U26J, U21Y and U26G respectively. Australia failed to qualify in the U26J and the girls were on course to make the semi-finals but fell at the last turn. The 84 board finals were very interesting and commentating was a lot of fun. The Botswana U26J tea, won the Joan Gerard sportsmanship award hole a Swedish girl won the U21y and Australia's Jessica Brake won the Girl's award. 

Apart from the first day managed to get to nearby town one night and spend a day (after I finished work at 15:00) in Istanbul  where I had a great meal with Sue Picus and Alex Smirnov at the Fine Dining Restaurant (no that's it's name) on the rooftop of the Arcadia Blue Hotel. It is one of one magical settings looking out over the Blue Mosque to the Bosphorus and taking in the sunset while eating great food.  The Staff dinner was held at a great seafood restaurant on the water of the Bosphorus - delightful evening and relaxation. 

I really enjoyed this bridge tournament. Being somewhat isolated there wasn't a lot to think about or plan or such and I just relaxed big time. The weather during the first 5/6 days was hot and very humid and while the rest of the time was very warm the humidity settled back making it very pleasant.

Closing ceremony Saturday all packed and everything washed before bed. Sunday morning  and 08:00 bus to the airport for 12:15 flight to Budapest. Even though I sent some stuff back with one of the kids I was worried about weight but I needn't have been a few kilos over but no dramas.

Sat around for a few hours and boarded the flight which was running 45 minutes late. Smooth flight and arrival apart for lengthy wait for luggage. I have a game I play with myself to see how bad exchange rates are at kiosks etc. On arrival the buy and sell exchange rate for Australian Dollars were 19.8% from the midpoint. I think to myself who uses those services - well there was a queue of people to be ripped off. 

I get what I need from the ATM and get a cab for the 20km to the hotel. The taxi system is very civilised, you go to the booth tell them where you are going and they print a ticket which you hand to the driver. Welcome to Hungary as the driver hands me 3,000 change of 10,000 for a 6,030 fare. I asked him if he felt he deserved the tip to which he sheepishly offered me the balance of the change. 

The hotel I booked was the MGallery in Nemzeti. It is well located, a ten minute walk to the river and shopping centre of town. Like most MGallery it is a historic building redone as a hotel. 3 metre ceilings, grand stair cases etc. 

I "unpack" and go for a two hour walk towards the river and centre of action to get the lay of the land. It certainly seems like this city is about food as there are SOOO many restaurants EVERYWHERE. 

The architecture is stunning. Take the cars away and it feels like you are walking down pre-war European streets with people enjoying coffee and food in a much more relaxed time. 

   

I walked into the New York Salon, obviously an icon here, waited a few minutes to see an English Menu to be told by a pompous man that it was available outside. No thanks.

Budapest seems AMAZINGLY cheap, much cheaper than Turkey. Cappuccinos in some places just $1, two scoops of gelato/ice cream $1.50, baby clothes and other non-western brand labels very cheap indeed.

Back to the hotel and feeling tired I take the hotel special three course meal for $A15 option and it was lovely especially the Asparagus soup and Salmon Tartar. Certainly hit the spot, especially when all of the places near the hotel seemed to be Turkish ARGGGHHH. 

It was great to be in a king bed with fluffy doona, fluffy pillows, in a lovely hotel room after two weeks in a dormitory room with a single bed bottom sheet and blanket. I slept really well my first night here and look forward to some days of exploration.

Anyway I have a plan - buy a two day hop-on hop-off bus ticket and buy a three day city pass for free transport, admissions etc..

Let you know more at the end of my trip in three days time.

Best to all....

XD

The Bridge

I hadn't really planned to write a blog during the bridge but I wrote one for the bridge which never got published so here goes.

Each year I look forward to finding out where the next World Bridge Championships are to be held. Bridge has been very rewarding for me, in my role as Team Captain for Australian Bridge Teams or more recently VuGraph Commentator and/or Bridge Journalist the game has taken me to some amazing places around the world. Some of these I would no doubt have visited but it’s very different when you spend 10-14 days in a city like Monte Carlo, Shanghai, Santiago and others.

So I was very excited to hear that the 2014 World Youth Championships would be held in Istanbul, Turkey. I captained a team here in 2004 and instantly fell in love with this great and welcoming city. For those who aren’t familiar with Istanbul the population is north of fifteen million and it is actually possible to stand on a bridge with one foot in Asia and one in Europe.

The people here are of course Muslim but don’t regard themselves as Arabs. They don’t speak Arabic and their language, Turkish, is written using Latin letters.

I arrived here on Monday night with the general timetable being:

17:00 and 18:00        Wednesday Captain’s Meeting

19:00                         Wednesday Opening Ceremony

10:00  

13:00              

15:20  

17:40                          Thursday to Wednesday  

Finals                         Thursday to Saturday

Closing Ceremony     Saturday

There are three divisions

Under 26      22 Teams           Hereinafter J25      (Juniors)

Under 21      16 Teams           Hereinafter Y20     (Youngsters)

Under 15      7 Teams             Hereinafter K15     (Kids)

Girls              13 Teams           Hereinafter G26

So with seven players and officials per team and a staff of maybe 50 people there are around 500 people involved in the tournament. Fifty Staff (!!) you say, it would be hard to organise a tournament such as this with much less:-

12       Organising Committee

6         Directors

1         System Appeals

9         Hospitality/Secretariat/Registration

7         Office and admin

8         VuGraph, Video and Presentation

7         Communications and Technical

3         Daily Bulletin

4         Board Duplications

There are some additional Volunteers such as caddies, Online Broadcast (BBO) Operators and others.

So the venue for the Championship is the non-profit Koç University which is located about an hour from the most central point of Istanbul but with a population of the size of Istanbul it is within the City. The University, which focuses on Social Sciences and Humanities, Administrative Sciences and Economics, Science, Engineering, Law, Nursing and Medicine, started in 1993 but the beautiful new 25 hectare campus opened in 2009 sitting picturesquely on top of a hill in a forest. It is named after Vehbi Koç whose philanthropy led to the establishment of the University.

So how did the Championships find a home here? three years ago, Ata Aydin an academic at Koç  University as well the Chairman of the World Bridge Federation Youth Committee and past President of the Turkish Bridge Federation decided to switch his Academic speciality to head a course in Bridge at the University since which he has been teaching a two semester course in bridge for which students receive full credit – something all bridge administrators would love to achieve. As a result of this association the staging the bridge here made a lot of sense.

Well there is the background to the event and here are some links:

Results Page

http://worldbridge.org/repository/tourn/Istanbul.14/microsite/Results.htm

Home Page

http://worldbridge.org/2014-world-youth-teams.aspx

As with most WBF Youth events, almost all participants and officials are staying on Campus at the University. The accommodation is dormitory style - some shared some singles (thank you WBF) - some with private facilities (thank you WBF) and some with shared facilities.

Regrettably for some the gymnasium and pool are only available to students and not to the bridge participants. That said there is a large grassed area immediately outside the dining room and there seems to be a regular American Football game held there open to all.

The accommodation package includes all meals. These cafeteria meals are held at the central facilities block and to date I have found all of the meals to be perfectly acceptable. The menu changes every day and while there isn’t a huge variety, what they present is tasty and well prepared. I think the concept of everybody eating together is excellent and engenders a very positive atmosphere to the event.

Regrettably for some of the Aussie players, alcohol is totally banned on campus, but I have heard on the grapevine that a simple two or three bus stop ride will get you to a very adequate drinking hole – not a problem for me. 

The actual playing area is in what is known as the sports centre. It is well laid out airy and most importantly well air-conditioned.

I arrived on Monday evening and spent Tuesday in the centre of Istanbul which is an hour by bus then train then bus from the University. You should know that temperatures here are around 30ºC/86ºF which is usually quite pleasant but he humidity is HIGH HIGH HIGH. With walks between rooms, dining and playing areas being not insignificant it is possible to get hot and bothered without much trouble.

Wednesday was team registration day where captains had to show all passports, collect welcome bags and player identification badges.

A captain’s meeting alerted all team captains to important information about the logistics of the tournament, disciplinary matters, taking electronic devices into the playing area, dress codes and much more.

Following that was the opening ceremony. Some welcome (and welcomingly short) speeches and so the battlefield was ready for the start of play at 10:00 the next morning.