Life Around 40

Now anyone who knows me, knows that it has been a long time since I saw the age of 40. In fact my daughters will be that age within the coming decade! No, this is about life when the temperature is hovering around 40 degrees Celsius, and I felt even hotter when I did the conversion on my cell phone and found that means about 105 degrees in Farenheit.

On Friday I took the bus to Kaposvar to visit the Fulbright colleagues there. I arrive around 13:15. We wandered about the center of the city seeing the sights. I was for some unknown reason surprised by how beautiful this city is. Kaposvar has some Zsolnay, such as the fountain that appears above.

The  sculpture above is dedicated to one of the founders of Kaposvar, although he really is a recent founder. The history of Kaposvar goes back to the 5the century BCE.

Below I'm touching the jester's ball. The monument is found in a lovely city park. The tradition is that that touching the ball will ensure good luck.

Here is the beautiful Town Hall. Perhaps you can see bells by the flag in the middle of the photo. Sometimes they play on the hour, but unfortunately not at an hour we were near the Town Hall.

Kossuth Ter is also very beautiful. The area of Hungary is often referred to a Mediterrean and I think one reason is that the plantings look Italian. Plants is pots is very Italian -- different for example from the formal gardens one might find in France.

The evening found us at the Gergely Csike theatre to see a performance of A Falu Rossa. It was obviously presented in Hungarian and we missed a lot because often people would really laugh and we had no idea exactly what was funny. However, the play includes a lot of very good music as well as many sight gags, so we had a very good time.

It is a very beautiful theatre. This is a view of foyer are where one can buy drinks -- definitely needed when it is this hot -- and also check coats.

The next day we went to the City Mueseum. The first part of the museum is about the 1956 uprising. If I can understand what I read correctly, we should call this the Paul Revere motorcycle. Someone rode this around Hungary at the time of the 1956 uprising as a way to spread to the news.

This blog is getting long, so look for Life at 40 -- Chapter 2 for more adventures in Kaposvar and Pecs on a hot, hot Saturday.