A Long Time Waiting...

Back in June I had to write an update for my book outlining things that have changed since it was published. This is entitled "What's New" followed by the destination and is standard for all Frommer's guide books. This is then posted on their web site and usually is a feature article on their newsletter when it is posted. I waited for months, checking each issue, but it never appeared. During this time, Frommer's online went through a major overhaul, updating the entire web site. Thinking this perhaps was the reason for the delay, I waited with baited breathe, but still it never appeared. Well today, just by chance I looked at their site and viola, there it was http://www.frommers.com/destinations/budapest/0047010001.html What prompted me to look was that Ron was checking out a restaurant here and came across the NY Times travel section review. It is my review from my book. The NY Times has an agreement with Frommer's and what goes into the books, goes online in the NY Times online.

http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/europe/hungary/budapest/restaurant-detail.html?vid=1231545938418 So bear in mind, if you are reading the NY Times reviews on a destination, they are from the Frommer's guide of that destination. It would be wonderful if our names were put on it, but they are not.

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Frommer's Reader Writes

This came from a reader of my tour book.

Hello, Ryan!

My wife and I have bought Frommer's travel guides for many years, as we have prepared to visit a place and then as working guides when we got there.

We've just returned from several days in Budapest -- we're Americans based in London for the fall for my job -- and we wanted to get in touch and tell you that your guide to the city is the best Frommer's guide we've read. We digested it thoroughly before going there and carried it around with us at all times after we arrived in Budapest. We think the best travel guides are those that provide realistic and practical advice for sight-seeing, dining and getting around, just like a friend who's been somewhere and has come back to tell you about it. As a matter of fact, we eventually just said to each other "Ryan said this" and "Ryan said that." So thanks for a guide well-written and a job well-done.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Budapest and would certainly consider coming back in the future. Maybe we'll stay at your place next time, as we read in the book yesterday about your B&B. Sounds nice.

Again, thanks for helping us enjoy our vacation, and if you don't mind, at the end of this message, we have a couple of notes that you might consider as updates in future editions of the book.

All the best,

Keith and Jayne

Charlotte, North Carolina

P.S. We dined at the Blue Tomato Pub on Thursday evening (biggest plates of food we've ever seen) and enjoyed the Trofea Grill Etterem last night. Both were very nice, but apparently, the Trofea no longer accepts MasterCard or Visa. We learned this to our dismay at the end of our meal. Fortunately, there's an ATM just around the corner which bailed us out. I don't know if this was just our unique experience, but we didn't find credit/debit cards very widely accepted in Budapest, and had we known that we might have brought more forints with us.

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From Two Thoughtful Book Readers

I received this note and pictures from Ivan and Jennifer. The subject line of the e-mail was "Enjoying our trip - Thanks for your help". The rest of the e-mail was "Picture 1: Holy Trinity Square

Picture 2: Orthodox Kazinczy Synagogue - The gate through the courtyard next to the Synagogue was closed and locked even though the sign said it was suppose to be open until 2300hrs. The other side of the courtyard was open when we went around. My wife had me pose being angry with the book because the courtyard gate was not open and we had to take a detour.

Ivan with with Jennifer" You have to admit, they do have great taste in travel guides.

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Spontaneous Americans

Earlier in the week, we received an e-mail from an American who was in Prague and needed a room for the next day. He was traveling with his girlfriend and her brother who was finishing up a semester abroad in Prague. After a couple of e-mails and a Skype call, we made the arrangements for them to arrive the next day.

They were the first guests to come to us due to my Frommer's guide and they had the good taste to bring it with them. Stephen said that Frommer's Prague & the Best of the Czech Republic (Frommer's Complete)when he went to shop for a guide, his mother told him to get the Frommer's as they were the best. He, Ginnie, and Tres seemed pleased with their decision not only on buying the book, but also their choice of accommodations. Thursday night we stayed up until 1:00 am talking, which did not bother me; I do not teach on Fridays. Tres left on Friday to meet friends in Croatia, but Ginnie and Stephen staid until today. They were totally delightful and pleasurable to converse with. I was just surprised at the spontaneity of Americans. It has been our experience that the Germans wait until the very last minute to book a place to stay.

At 8:30 pm last night, I received an e-mail from two more Americans looking for a place to stay. I e-mailed them as soon as I spotted it at 9:03 pm saying we had guests leaving and the room was free. They wrote back another thirty minutes later to say that since they had not heard from us, they made other arrangements. After responding with nicety of thank you for trying us anyway, about forty-five minutes passed when there was yet another e-mail from them asking for the room. Are Americans learning from the Germans or is this phenomena due to Rick Steves who claims he never reserves lodging until he is in the city?

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Showing off

I had great pride in showing the new laptop to my class today. They were so excited for all of us. Our rooms at the university have cable Internet access, so I just need to get the Information Systems office to turn on the outlet in my classroom. With an Ethernet cable plugged in we can use the Internet in class with a projector we already have. It will be perfect; for some classes, we blog as a class and for others I am using the Writing Lab at Colorado State University. Now when there are questions or concerns about how to navigate or do something, I demonstrate it right in class and project it on the wall. On the home front, we still don't have electricity in the kitchen. Balazs called the building management's electrician, but said the man told him he was too busy to be bothered with such a small job. Later he called the manager again was given another name for another electrician. This one was more gracious and came over tonight at 5:00. He will be back tomorrow at the same time to fix everything. Fingers crossed! In another vein, I was contacted by another editor from Frommer's, this one the editor for the Eastern Europe book. She asked if I would be interested in updating the Hungary chapter for that book, knowing that I just finished the full book and the Hungary chapter of the rail guide. The deadline is July 15th, giving me plenty of time. Of course I accepted it.

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Who Pulls the Strings?

We were really at a loss as to how to spend the day today having covered the major sights and attractions already, which is really a short list. We had passed the zoo on the city tour, but it had heartbreak hotel written all over it, so it was not a way to have a happy ending here. We both had different ideas for breakfast and thankfully many restaurants offer a variety of menus including Vietnamese, American, British, and even Mexican breakfast options. We went to the one offering French toast as well as a breakfast burrito settling for these choices. We chose well, both being satiated, we went back to the market to get t-shirts.

Strategically planning the door to enter closest to the clothes, we were able to avoid being mauled or maimed while at the same time avoiding mauling and maiming anyone trying to grab us. Successfully buying two t-shirts and one pullover with smiles and the rewarding feeling for the sales people as well as ourselves, we left to walk the city. I had found a stuffed dragon made by the Hmong people in one shop, but was not thrilled with the color. We went in hunt of another dragon of a different color. Searching high and low over blocks and blocks of shops, it seemed this type of craftsmanship was limited to the only store I saw it in. We walked a couple of miles in the meanwhile in a much longer period of time than it would normally take since it is usual for sidewalks to be parking lots for motorcycles or temporary restaurants, causing detours into the street where you have to play Ping with traffic. Crossing the street is another time waster; it reminds you of an old television show called “This Is Your Life”.

Ron had read about an ice cream parlor that is French owned while supposedly serving the best ice cream in the city. We sought it out and placed our orders. He was more gracious with his compliments than I was, but I did not think my choices were all that flavorful. While we were sitting there, it started to sprinkle. We were hoping for some rain as the sky had been overcast for a couple of days and the humidity was in the 80-90 percentile each day making it feel unusually warm with the heat and pollution from six million motorcycles.

Meandering back to the hotel, we had decided to buy tickets for the Vietnamese Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theater, the only water puppet show in the world, so they claim. Tickets were $4.00 each and the hotel sold them. The show was at 6:30 or 8:00 pm, so we chose the early show and had planned on a restaurant nearby for afterward. In the meanwhile, we read, wrote, and planned the rest of our trip out.

I was checking e-mail here at the hotel, where they had a cable I could hook up to my computer; no wireless was available. When I work off of the battery, the computer is extraordinarily slow. After minutes, Outlook finally opened and the mail downloaded rather quickly being a high speed connection. I spotted an e-mail from my editor, which was a stab in my stomach. I had submitted my manuscript, if is it is still called a manuscript when it is a travel guide, on October 8^th getting an immediate response thanking me for getting it in weeks early. I had then written him a couple of times before leaving having concerns about rewrites, but never received a response. Having fifty percent Italian DNA, I worried obsessively that there were so many things wrong with the book they had not decided not to use it and did not know how to break the news to me. Until we left for the trip, I was panic stricken about not getting a response, but miraculously when the trip started, I was able to let it go completely. Now, with a week left of vacation, the e-mail I had waited months for has arrived. Outlook corrupted and would not open any of my mail. Grrrrrrrr…

We walked to the puppet show not exactly sure of the location, but Ron with his map in hand and after asking for directions a couple of times, we found it. I had imagined a water puppet show as puppets being hung down over a pool of water, not really remarkable, but could be interesting. There was no preparation for what we saw, which was phenomenal. On the stage on either side sat three musicians: two woman and one man on the left and two men and one woman on the right. Center stage was an oversized red and gold temple type building sitting on a large pool of river water. The water was as muddy as the actual river making it as opaque as a black cat in the dark on a moonless night. The water had some other props as well. We half expected the temple to be the stage for the puppets, but wrong again. The water was the stage as many of the puppets emerged from the sides of the temple while others came from the water directly. Puppet dragons broke the water’s surface along with fish and ducks. People entered the fluid stage from the sides. There were seventeen vignettes in all accompanied by the musicians playing instruments and being the voices of the characters. Even without language, it was enthralling. All of the tourists were flummoxed as to how the puppeteers performed these feats. It seemed possible that they were all under water manipulating the puppets upward, but there were not enough disturbances on the waters surface to betray someone below. In addition to this, there were no air bubbles rising to the top to betray breathing apparatus below. When the show was over, the puppeteers came out for a bow, all ten of them. They were in the water, but only wet from the waist down. Their chests and heads were dry as a bone. The magic continues, for us, anyway.

Around the corner and two blocks away was the restaurant the hotel recommended. When we reached it, there was a crowd of about forty people waiting to be seated. We took a taxi home again and ate locally.

When we returned to the hotel, I booted up the computer and tried the Internet and Outlook yet again. Finally, it worked and I was able to open the letter from my editor.

“Hi, Ryan,

At long last, I'm getting back to you. I apologize for the delays. It was ridiculously busy around here in November and December, and I realized that I never emailed you in the chaos leading up to the holiday break...

I assume you were busy with end-of-the semester activities, so hopefully not hearing from me was a blessing in disguise... The good news is that things went smoothly on my end and I've already shipped files off to the copyeditor. I think the book's in great shape, and I'm pleased with all the work you did... I mentioned earlier that I didn't think I'd have a long list of queries for you, which turned out to be true, though I do now have one substantial query here for you, and I hope you'll bear with me and this tardy request: I'm wondering if you could rework the introduction in chapter one. I think you did a nice job of explaining how you came to live in Budapest, which is just what I requested, but I think you maybe steered a bit too far off the topic of the city and what it's like to live there now. I think this would be a good opportunity to discuss what the city was like when you first got there and sum up how you've seen it change, with a few historical references thrown in. I would possibly cut the story about September 11th and shorten up your "getting there" story to 1 to 3 sentences and then focus the intro on living in Budapest, since your stories of teaching courses, opening up a B&B, etc., would be more interesting to readers... Also, anything you could add about Budapest *right now* as opposed to even a few years ago would be great to include. I know you added a lot of these notes and observations in the What's New chapter, but unfortunately, I had to cut some of those anecdotes to tighten the chapter (and keep us on page count). I'm attaching a copy of the current What's New chapter so you can see its final form, and I'm pasting your original chapter 1 intro below for reference... Please let me know if you're game for reworking this intro; again, it shouldn't be more than a page and a half, but I think it contributes a lot towards setting a tone for the book, introducing you as the writer and getting the reader excited about the book; so I think it's important to get it right, and I apologize if my initial instructions didn't help us to do that on the first take... Would it be possible to get a new introduction by the end of this month? Please let me know... I hope all is well, and hope you enjoyed the holidays... Best, Steve”

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I am back

It seems like a lifetime ago since I was able to write here regularly, but yesterday, I sent off my manuscript for "Budapest & the Best of Hungary" to the editor. I was actually ahead of schedule since the deadline was not until October 22nd, but for some reason, I had October 1st in my mind. Actually, when I realized I was pushing myself toward the first needlessly, I maintained that schedule just to be free of it. I was becoming obsessed with reviewing everything that came my way. With the maps, it came to 328 pages. Yes, the authors have to do the maps too. Fortunately for me, Ron loves maps and he spent over 24 hours cumulatively plotting all of the different things on each map. The worst was the restaurant map; I had over 75 restaurant reviews that needed to be plotted on the map. What makes it most difficult is that they don't give you a clean map, but the preexisting one, so you have to cross out old markers and re-do everything. Even if a restaurant is still the same, the numbering will change with the new list. This writing project started on June 5th and other than our ten days in Scotland in August, I have spent 6-12 hours a day working on the book and the chapter for the Rail guide. Normally, over the summer, I would have devoured at least thirty books, but I did not pick up one book. My compulsive personality would not stop with one and the conflict between reading or writing would be too great. I still have photos on my camera from the end of May that I have not put onto the computer yet. My contract arrived when we returned from Rome when Earl was here, so I never did anything with them. The most difficult part about writing a travel book is trying to make 40 hotel rooms sound different and engage a reader as they read 70+ restaurant reviews. Imagine making 25 Hungarian menus sound diversely appealing. My thesaurus, Flip Dictionary, and Illustrated Reverse Dictionary are in tattered condition. Now I can read again. Now that I have some free time, the student papers are starting to come in and I am actually looking forward to reading them. I need the diversion. It is good to be back, but if this brings more travel writing work in the future, it will have been more than worth the effort. It was exhausting, but fulfilling. It will be thrilling to see my name on a book. Sadly, my reader rate for this blog is almost as low as Bush's approval ratings. I am sure in time, I will be able to get them back up faster than he will. I have also added an Amazon.com store to our web site with books from Hungary on it as well as the current Frommer's guides, so when it changes I will have my own there as well. Soon, Ryan

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Reality Check

It did not take long after returning from vacation to have the reality set in of a writing deadline to hit. When so many hotels have complained about the drop in occupancy this year, over last year, one would think that would welcome a chance to put their property in a travel guide, where it doesn't cost them a thing. Yet, I have had to charm and persuade many to give me a tour. Strangely, for the poor occupancy, they seem to be too fully booked to show me a room or worse yet to offer me a complimentary night. I am done with those, they were exhausting.

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