"DOES YOUR DOG HAVE A TICKET, MA'AM?"

I need the help of all you out there in TVland. Can someone please check on Australia to see if they have any people left in the country? I think they might all be in Europe for the summer, because I met 1/2 of Melbourne in Istanbul, half of Perth in Budapest, and Sydney seems to be spread pretty much everywhere. I suspect if someone checks on Parliament, they'll find two janitors and a maid, playing parcheesi on the lecturn, and all the rest of the folk on holiday in Bermuda. You might check on Ireland as well--I think they may be running short of Random Irish Guys. They seem to appear just about everywhere, always traveling alone in a weird place, always having just finished up exactly three pints at the local pub no matter the time of day, and often with no pack, no money, and no map, trying to find their way to the Irish embassy to get home after having been, allegedly, "slipped a Mickey before they robbed me of me tote."

Well, we have left Istanbul, and we weep for the parting. You treated us well, Fair Constantinople. Before we left, however, we went to see the Basillica Cistern, which is a neat place underground. Justianian built it around 532 a.d., and it is a massive underground water storage vault, completely sealed and arched, like a giant underground temple. When the Turks finally took over the city in nearly 1000 years later, it was still functioning, but the Turks did not know about it, and apparently, no one thought to tell them. It stayed there, beneath their feet for 100 years, until apparently one day some bright young Turk wondered why the heck the local people were fishing in their basements. Having conquered Central Asia and major parts of Europe and Africa, the Turks are somewhat quick when given a super-obvious hint, and decided that Something Was Fishy, and it was probably carp. One thing led to another, and the next thing you know, they had a thousand year old fish-filled cistern on their hands. You can now wander down its arched halls looking at the water and the fish and listening to soft classical music. It would have been quite romantic if Mark and Seth had showered and hadn't smelled so rank.

Seeing as we were about to embark on another hair-raising plane ride, we decided to go to the Turkish bath to relax. This is basically a time-honored Turkish tradition where they heat you up for an hour in a sauna-like room made all of marble until you want to die, think you are going to die, and in fact, actually start to expire. Then they unexpectedly thrown buckets of cold water on you, and the massage and bath begins. You lie on marble slabs, and the massage basically consists of mashing you into the marble slab until you melt. Then they throw more cold water on you, and rub heck out of you with giant loofah sponges. I don't think I've ever been so clean in my entire life. The baths were designed by Sinan, the architect of Sulyemain the Magnificent, and have been in continual use for 455 years.

Just for those of you wondering, what with the current spate of plane crashes in little countries on little airlines and all, no, we are NOT flying on any of those airlines in any of those countries. We are flying on airlines almost exactly LIKE those airlines in countries almost exactly like those countries. So to get to Hungary, we got on a Malev Hungarian Airlines airbus without a worry in our heads, and, in the time-honored tradition of travelers everywhere, promptly fell asleep until the plane slammed us awake against the runway.

Hungary is an interesting place. It's a little disorganized, and has a few too many communist-era housing developments on the outskirts, but overall it's lots of fun. You can even take your dog on the subway in Budapest! But you have to muzzle it, and it has to have its own ticket. They're most particular about the ticket--not so much about the muzzle.

They also have this cool place, overlooking the palace complex, called Gellert Hill. It is completely surrounded by random parks, in which maintenance seems to be frowned on, and it is prime real estate with stunning views of the river and city below. The hill was named Gellert Hill long before the current city was built, and the story of the hill goes like this:

There once was a heathen town located on the Buda side of the river, before it had joined with the town of Pest located across the Danube, to form the modern city. They lived on the hill, and seeing as they were heathens and all, Bishop Gellert set out to convert them. However, being heathens, they rather resented his efforts, and one day, being a little bit fed up and never having managed to learn the Ten Commandments or the Virtue of Patience and Longsuffering, they corked him up in an old wine barrel and bunged him off the steepest cliff on the hill. However, they eventually felt bad about their disrespect and devaluation of a good wine barrel, and named the hill after the deceased bishop.

As a side note, we are now completely disoriented. After too many overnight flights and time changes and currency changes, we now no longer know what day it is, what time it is, what city we are in (some of the time) and how much a million lira is. A million lira is like 160 Forints, which is like 80 cents, which is like 5 Egyptian Pounds, which is like two-thirds of a Euro, and I think it is Friday at 7 p.m. I am not sure of the calendar date, but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in the September teens.

Coming soon: The Budapest Public Baths (Subtitle: do speedos beckon the Apocalypse?), and Driving in Europe, Asia, and Africa (Subtitle: We're All Going to Die Before We Reach the Speedo Shop).

JS®