Third Week in Budapest

Welp, it’s time for the week three “Budapest 2019” wrap up post.

This post will summarize what I did during the past week, and I’ll also talk through an issue that I had while videoing the Hungarian Parliament at night and what I did about it.

I’m late writing this post again, lately I’ve struggled to write throughout the week, even though that is the way that I would like the process to go. It is much more relaxing when a blog post can evolve over a couple of days. My inability to focus on writing may also have something to do with not having a good cup of coffee in over three weeks now.

At any rate, let’s go ahead and get into things. Here is what I did over the past week.

Saturday and Sunday

Last Saturday started out here in my apartment. I woke up and slowly got out of bed. The tea pot was filled and soon boiled. A tea bag and some hot water were combined in a cup and the resulting beverage was consumed.

Nah… I won’t go into that level of detail. 🙂

Saturday morning I spent working on a number of little projects. One of which was editing and publishing last weeks post. I worked through most of my personal Asana tasks by early afternoon and headed out to explore a part of the city that I hadn’t gotten to yet.

So far, other than getting a taxi to get to my apartment from the airport, I haven’t used a taxi, or the public transit system. That means a lot of hiking, which is definitely one of the things that I enjoy because you never know when you’ll turn down a new street and see something fascinating.

Last Saturday a number of highlights included…

…coming across a small lot with a fence around it and food trucks inside KARAVÁN. I had come across this place in some of my original Budapest research, but stumbling across it while walking randomly was interesting. While I didn’t get any food (the lines were ridiculous) I did walk through and appreciate the investment of the vendors in creating a completely unique experience.

…I walked down a side ally a bit and there was a restaurant that had a flag over the entrance. Looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings or something.

…I came across a small chapel just off of a main street where literally hundreds of tourists were walking. There was hardly anyone in the church, except for a few people praying in the pews. The calm and quiet just a few steps away from the hustle and bustle was refreshing.

…I came across a rotating meat cooker in the window of a shop somewhere down near the Central Market and was hungry, so I stopped in and had the best kebab/gyro I’ve had since I got here. There is a little place that sells kebabs not far from my apartment, but this kebab was somehow better, maybe just because I had hiked a long ways before eating it.

…Just before I got back to the apartment last Saturday I stopped at a stall that was selling chimney cakes, basically a cylinder of dough that gets roasted and then covered in sugar and cinnamon. Let’s just say that chimney cakes have lived up to the hype. It was delicious.

Sunday I did a bit more hiking around, but not a ton.

Monday – Now

As with the first couple of weeks, most of the “daylight hours” of my week days were spent working. I did decide to start exploring in the evenings a bit more, so I had several good hikes throughout the week.

Up until this past week I had only gone south from my apartment which is north of most of the “attractions.” I decided to go north on a couple of these evening jaunts and found a couple of really cool buildings, one that I made a trip back to photograph and another that I made some plans to photograph.

And that pretty much brings us to today. It is Saturday once again. I did most of my personal task list last night and stayed up late because of that… but I didn’t get this post written, so most of that has happened this morning. I guess that means I’m going to head out early afternoon again.

The main thing I want to get to today is the Central Market. Last week I got there after they closed (either 3 or 4 p.m. on Saturdays), so I’m curious to see what all I can find there.

Only a Week Left

As this week has passed I’ve realized several times that I have just a little over a week left till I fly home. In a lot of ways that short amount of time makes me a bit sad because I know that I won’t have gotten everywhere and eaten everything that I wanted to. However, I am actually really looking forward to getting back home, back to the normal things (coffee, the gym, my large desktop monitor, etc) of life.

Above all though, the thing I’m looking forwards to most, is seeing my friends and family again. A couple of video messages from my niece and nephews this week really tugged at my heart strings. Yes, I am human, and yes I have a heart. 🙂

As far as weekly things that I need to keep you up to date on, I did post another video this week – Hungarian Parliament at Night . I had tried to shoot some footage of the Hungarian Parliament building at night, but noticed that I had a horrible time with the beautiful Parliament buildings flickering. After doing some research I found that the frequency that the lights “flicker” at was in sync, at least partially, with the shutter speed I was using. So, slowing my shutter speed down a bit from the 180 degree rule (generally you want your shutter speed to be 2x your video frame rate) I was able to get some decent footage of the lights at night. Just a warning though, if you do this you need to be super careful not to pan your camera too much or you’ll get “smearing” in your footage, at least I did.

While we’re talking about video, this week again I was really impressed with a Smarter Every Day video, so I thought I’d drop a link to it here. If you’ve ever wondered why the instructions on an airplane tell you to place your oxygen mask on before helping others… this will make it very clear. Also, I enjoy almost everything that Destin puts out, and you might too.