In order to get out of the castle, you have to walk down.  Central European castles are on perches for obvious reasons, and even though they have since politely added stairs, the trek down and back up again is a good way to work these off any day:

Which is a good thing, because since I’ve been here I’ve eaten about 35 loaves of bread.  I’m not sure what these things were called, but they were from a stand outside of the grocery store.  They were crusty on the outside, warm and fluffy in the middle, crisped with butter and filled with some kind of herb goat cheese.  O.  M. G.  I haven’t found a reliable cardiologist here yet, but I think if I continue to live in the castle district I can put it off for awhile.

So, as I was saying, one of the faster routes down to the river (Danube) and the main drag is through Fisherman’s Bastion, which is especially cluttered with tourists this time of year.  Yesterday on my way to the store I saw a cute little couple enjoying a rest on the statue of St. Stephen:

In the evening it thunderstormed for over an hour, which is even more amazing when you can reach your hand right out of the window and feel the cool drops.  I don’t know why there are so many screened-in windows in America, but it seems like everywhere in Europe you just unlatch the wooden locks and push the windows open.  Haley posted a great example of this from Paris last week, and I recall it from my time in Italy as well.  It’s peaceful.  It encourages outsideness.  Seriously, America, unscreen yourself.  You’ll be a lot happier.

And yesterday, while I was running in the a.m before the flocks of tourists spilled from their big luxury busses, I saw many such windows open to the morning.  And from one window in particular at the far end of the court by the military museum (which overlooks the Buda hills) I even heard, swooooon, the sounds of someone using a typewriter.  Oh Budapest, I love you.