in retrospect, we probably should have bought a program or did a quick wikipedia check of what Don Carlos was about before going to see it at the opera house. As expected, it was all in Italian. we forgot that we didnt understand Italian. Luckily, there were Hungarian subtitles translating the dialogue. unfortunately, we didnt understand Hungarian either. at least the music was really moving. we just didnt follow the plot at all. when the halfway intermission came, we thought the whole opera was over and started to walk out. luckily the usher alerted us that there was still another two hours. sigh. so much for gloria being cultural.
annie and i also checked out St. Stephens Basilica, the biggest Catholic church in Budapest. its also the home of the mummified hand of St Stephen. yep, i said it. mummified hand. its in this glass box, and if you put a few cents into the slot of a machine, it lights up all pretty like a christmas tree. the mummified hand. a christmas tree. Catholic people are a strange breed.
now we are in the czech republic in the city of prague. managed to take the magic school bus that JP told us about. despite the gratuities, it was still a long 8 hour ride...and we barely made it. Igor the hotel dude managed to screw us over royally when we tried to check out, so we almost missed the magic bus. maybe he did it because he found out we call him Igor behind his back. ah well.
time to explore the famous Czech beer...
