As is the case with the late Riviera Hotel Portrayed in the previous post.
Every once in a while there are things that I wish I didn't see. And no, I am not talking about the pharaoh, his costume is actually rather hilarious. 
There was a magnificent sunrise here the other day. I have missed these for quite some time. In both meanings of the word, I would presume.
Sometimes the pace of this world seems way too hectic. Everyone seems to be in such a terrible hurry to somewhere that no-one remembers to take it easy anymore. I for myself have noticed that when ever I go to the town with a schedule the time always just seems to run out. “Oh heck, I gotta run to get in time to these other places!”, “I’ve been here for too long!” and “Now I won’t have enough time to go to that one place anymore!” seem to be very common thoughts then. But when I go out to town to just stroll and visit the same places without any kind of schedule I have no hurry to anywhere. And still I manage to go to all the places I had intended to. Funny isn’t it?
Eventhough this picture is not taken from any japanese garden it still radiates the aura of zen garden.
In the computer gaming world there is a way to increase the fps rate by adding a fog to the world. This way the drawing distance is lower and the stress on GPU is lower and thus the game runs smoother.
'Nuff said. Thus in Vienna Austria.
So it is autumn already it seems. Where did the summer go? Oh, right, it is September already after all. As a true friend of summer and warmth I am always a bit disappointed each fall when the temperatures start to fall. Autumn in itself is still ok. The colors are beautiful, the crisp air enjoyable and such.
On St. Stephen’s Day in Hungary there were all sorts of entertainment for the masses. It was the national day of Hungary, the founding day of the kingdom and a public holiday. A Red Bull Air Race was held over the Danube and after that there was a grand fireworks display.
I don’t have the faintest idea what this building is. It could be a hotel, conference center or something like that. It has “Johann Strauss Cafe & Caviar House” on the second floor, some shops on the first floor (or so it seemed when I peeked through the front door). What ever is the purpose of this building, I can tell you it looks amazing! Well, I guess you can see it yourself too.
On my recent posts about the looks and the state of the buildings in Budapest I have focused on the side that is not too obviously visible. That is the sad truth about the city, but luckily there are plenty of beautiful and renovated buildings too. Some of the buildings are covered in advertisements but as long as the ads are of this quality I don’t mind.
The Danube might not be the cleanest river in the world, nor the dirtiest for that matter, but I would not recommend you to take dip there. And when the river is flooding its current is pretty strong it isn’t the safest swimming place on that perspective either.
Every picture needs a story. Otherwise they are just some random pictures from random places at random times. Totally uninteresting.
During the three months I spent in Budapest I came to the conclusion that the city is actually very photogenic. At night. Or at least late in the evening when there isn’t that much light to see and spot the numerous imperfections the city has. I mean, the buildings in Budapest are, were, beautiful but are in miserable shape. The facing tiles are falling off of many buildings; the stone arcs of some buildings have totally crumbled leaving only the supporting frames visible and so on. Sad thing to look at really.
It is somewhat amazing how I find myself wondering over things gone. The Roman ruins of Aquincum (and more here) were a place of marvel to me. The old towns of Rhodes, Vienna, Tallinn, Kotor and so on are the exact same thing. I see some glimpses of things that once were and in my mind kind of rebuild them.
As I said in my earlier post, sunsets come and go. They do, but every so often the sunset is something spectacular. This time the orange-red clouds and turquoise sky made a really unusual combination. The black mountains cropped the pale blue part of the sky in the horizon leaving only the most vivid colour visible.
And this here is an old Hungarian castle on the bank of Danube. Or for the most of the people it is. For me it is pretty clearly a place where my character based on Saint Jerome, portrayed in the previous post, just might live.
If you are an RP gamer then I am sure you know what I am talking about here. Ever since I started playing pen and paper (PnP) Role Playing Games (RPG) I have looked the world around me very differently. For example this statue here, as you can read from the base it portrays Saint Hieronimus, a man who translated Bible from Greek and Hebrew to Latin. This here statue can be found at St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, which in itself is a sight to see.
We were at the jungle house of the Tiergarten Schönbrunn, the Zoo of Vienna and found these large bats hanging from the ceiling there. All of a sudden my wife started to giggle and pointed at one of the bats “Is that a boy or what?”
