Castle Hill, Hockey and Other Observations

Headed to Buda's Castle Hill today - went to the top of the rotunda of the National Gallery (the building you see in the title picture of the blog), and then stuck around to see the paintings. There was a big street festival going on the Chain Bridge (behind my left shoulder) all weekend - lots of booths and music. Heard everything from traditional Hungarian music to a percussion master to a string quartet to a trumpet fanfare ensemble to a high school band (which had a bari sax, which I was happy about) and so forth. Also, percussionist friends: I saw a street musician playing A MARIMBA. That strikes me as a very difficult instrument to transport.

Fourth night in, and I've already played ice hockey. It was a lot of fun - half-court 4v4. I was the only woman and the only non-Hungarian speaker, but the guys were really nice and I got the puck a lot. I also learned that "non-check" hockey at Johnny's Ice House in Chicago is a little rougher than "non-check" hockey elsewhere. I think I led the teams in hits... I will need to work on that if I want to make friends. Also, apparently the other half of the rink was being used by some famous Hungarian musicians.

Now, a few items:

• I need to learn Hungarian, and I need to learn it now. My goal is that every day I will have a conversation incorporating new vocabulary where the other person thinks I am Hungarian. Mission complete yesterday with "thank you" and today with a grocery store check-out. The only English language channels I have are CNN and TCM (and commercials on EuroSport), so I went to a bar to watch the China-US bball game. (I got to see both teams play live in Athens!)
• Zimbabwe's central bank is removing TEN ZEROS from the currency in an attempt to cut back on inflation. Perhaps someone more economically savvy can help me with this... but won't that only change how much people are paying absolutely for items, not how quickly prices are increasing as a percentage of an item's nominal value? Perhaps I need to do some more reading on this topic.
• Chicago isn't as green as one might think - Trees cover 37% of metropolitan ATL, 21% of Boston, 17% of NYC and only 11% of Chicago.