I like airports, just like railway and bus stations: I love the feeling of travelling. I like seeing new places, especially cities. It’s good to arrive somewhere I have never been before; it’s good to see something new. Interestingly, I like almost as much coming back. When I have arrived back from Bristol where I was visiting  a a friend of mine, it was a wonderfully cosy feeling arriving here.

A few years ago, as a job, I had to greet the participants of a conference here. I also had to arrange their transport to the conference. Since the airport has two terminals, occasionally I literally should have been at two places at the time. This happened when one plane was delayed, another landed earlier, but at the same time. Probably I will never forget my terror when looking for the Korean delegation for half an hour — until it turned out that they could make it without my help. Fortunately, they went to the right place.

I remember, when I was a kid, this place (or, more precisely, the elder building, which serves the low-cost airlines now) meant a lot of dull waiting and my grandfather arriving  back home. Being an ambassador, he showed up at home rarely, but fortunately he always brought me some Mars bars . That time, it was not available in Hungary at all. I remember, me and my sister usually played hare and hounds or hide-and-seek in the hall. Mum was a bit scandalized by our behavior, but we didn’t really bother .

When these small stalls were built in the tunnel, I occasionally bought doughnuts, buns, or crescent rolls with cheese instead of a hamburger. My parents never really liked this, especially Mum; however, I simply could not resist to the very first doughnut shop in Hungary.

On my way, I also met with this small statue — it is at the end of the street I first lived at; as a kid, I always found it very mysterious. It was surrounded by a hedge; since I was much shorter, I was just able to see it’s head and it’s upper body. Back then, he also had a fish in his right hand. I could see more of it only if my father lifted me; one of my secret wishes was to be able to climb across the hedge and feel it with my hands. Maybe I will even do it some day.

The job interview went fairly well; I was tried for the position of editor-in-chief at an on-line magazine starting now. I have never taken part in such a large project, so if I get the job, it surely will be a huge challenge. But I always enjoy creating something new, and this position would surely need every single skill I have obtained in the last eight years. So fingers crossed till next Monday.

I was walking to the bank (Mum and me started a brand-new enterprise last week and I had to open an account) when an other company called me, looking for a manager assistant. The job would be to help the American manager to open an office here, in Hungary. Once the office is rent and furnished, I would become it’s office manager.

It’s interesting, but since I am actively looking for a job, I always have at least two potential job opportunities. This is good, because it makes me feel that I eventually will get a decent job. I became so enthusiastic that I decided to cross the Erzsébet Bridge on foot — and I saw that crashed car in the outer track of the bridge. The owner of it obviously just called his buddies to the scene — they were making jokes about the incident and were making photos of the wreck. One of them suggested the owner to lie in front of it and act as dead to frighten his girlfriend with the photo later. It was relieving to see that they haven’t taken the situation too seriously.

When Leah was here from the States, I did consider showing it to her — however, since the temperature remained above 40 Celsius degrees all the time, I chose alternate programs instead. After all, getting a heat stroke among old pieces of stone surely wouldn’t have been fun at all. So on Sunday, when Mum suggested visiting it, I became fairly enthusiastic, especially because V. hadn’t seen it at all.

Going back to such an important scene of my childhood would have been nostalgic enough, but since I left my camera at home, I had to borrow my previous one from Mum. It was funny using this good old soapbox for making photos. I wanted to try whether I am able to make acceptable pictures with it, and after some practice, I seemed to succeed. Of course, on the scene, I could concentrate only on the composition, but after some photo editing at home, the results became quite satisfactory to me. These pics are much better compared to the ones I shot when last used this little Fuji. It seems true that if your pictures are not good enough, you should blame yourself, not the camera.

Back to Aquincum: it was sad to see that the local government doesn’t really care about this unique sight. The leaflet coming with the ticket is amazingly and unbelievably misinformative. There are very few information signs at the important sites of the ruin; you have to browse the miniature map on the leaflet for minutes just to find whether you stand in the hot-water or the cold-water pool of the bath. There is no designed route, your must wander around freely, sometimes finding, sometimes loosing the decaying paths; the ruins are dirty and neglected, and sometimes harshly violated. Some decades ago some crazy architectures built some brutal, concrete stairs above the bath, and scattered the site with “modern”, now rusting pavilions; they should have been definitely demolished by now.

There are some really good ideas, though; the exhibition is really nice, and there is a “chronoscope”. It’s a movable telescope, which instead of showing the ruins, contains a panorama picture showing the reconstructed sight of the city, so you can see how the buildings originally looked like.

With some proper management, it could be turned into a really spectacular sight of the town. Of course, it would definitely need an overall reconstruction and they should provide much more and much more organized information to the visitors. Someone should think it over what a curious tourist would like to do at the remains an ancient Roman city. I would also risk that there are even EU tenders for goals like this. And, although it’s a bit far away from the center of the city, it can be easily reached by public transport. And, on the very least, it is still a genuine Roman city.

On the whole, I did enjoy myselft, though; the place still has a very special athmosphere, and we had a lot of fun with Mum and V. I am always very impressed how much Mum is convinced that I can answer any questions with the greatest of ease — I have to admit that I am not remotely omniscient. I couldn’t even come up with a plausible theory about why the Romans insisted on being buried in stone sarcophagi. Shame on me.

On Wednesday, while going home, I heard renaissance music on the street. I like it very much (it always reminds my of one of my favorite cartoon series on the TV about our most famous king, Matthias), so I followed to tune to be able to listen it for a while. It turned out that it is a part of a one-week program organized by the Catholic Church called the New Evangelisation in Budapest. It was hold in the last four years by the church in a five different cities; finally it takes place here. As the brochure said, it is for “preseting the richness of their faith”.

Unfortunately the majority of the priests in the Hungarian Chatolic Church are very rigid, demanding and intolerant; probably partly because the leading positions are taken by old men who grew up under a completely different political system. As I took religious studies for eight years (and became a materialist in the end), I can also testify that there are young and open minded priests, too (unfortunately rarely in important positions); if this cultural event is just one step towards their more open, modern and friendly image, than it’s fine with me.

I did enjoy the music, made some pictures (these are the first ones that were shot especially for the sake of this blog), and continued my way home. In the underground station there were some “revolutionaries”; actually there were three of them, most probably a family. The young guy were pacing wordlessly with a national flag on his shoulder; a middle-aged woman were collecting signatures for their cause (they wanted the government to leave), and the guy were shouting in his megaphone. He ordered anybody who was hurt by their presence at the station to go to him and explain it to the (almost completely ignorant) crowd. I played with the thought of going there, but I was not hurt by there presence at all. Of course, I thought that they were completely driven away by their delusions about some imaginary dictatorship of the current government, but I also thought that they have the right to explain it to everybody who is willing to listen. Too bad that nearly no one was.

And maybe it wasn’t the best way to spend such a sunny and peaceful afternoon; but then again it’s SEP, as Douglas Adams said.