Day 1-- Learning to love conspicious consumption

The flight landed at 9:30 AM Budapest time. First, a little family history:

Irma was born in 1916, last name Lichtmann. After much prodding from a German lad named Adolf, Lichtmann became Lakatos. Adolf and his closest Hungarian friends, still unsatisfied with this arrangement, gave Irma and her children seats on a little steam powered train to the quaint Polish town of Oscweicim. (I cannot spell in English, much less Polish.) In 1945 Irma returned to Hungary but her children did not make it. She and her husband-who spent the war running around the world from one teacher conference to the next, focusing on furthering his credentials in unoccupied countries, slowly meandered back from West Africa and in late '45 or early '46 they started trying for a family again.

This resulted in two daughters one of whom is either the most angelic or repressed soul on the planet. The angelic/repressed one waited with Irma at Ferihegy airport and then took me to her and her husbands new home in one of Budapests' never ending suburbs. The house is spread out over 2 or 3 acres. And they had a hot tub. An honest to goodness hot tub. With hot water. I dragged my abused body in there and can't remember.....
(Day 2 coming soon)