BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

Budapest is the capital and most populous city of Hungary.

The metropolitan area holds 3.3 million, with 1.75 million in the city. Hungary has 9.9 million people, while the European Union population is 508 million.
The usual beginning for this region: Celtic settlement, transformed into a Roman town.
The three cities of Buda, Obuda and Pest were unified in 1893 and called Budapest.

The Buda side is hilly, while the Pest side has the city.
From left to right: Saint Anne Parish, Matthias Church, Fisherman's Bastion and Stigmatisation of St Francis Church.

There are thermal springs, and Budapest is known for spas.
11 casinos in Hungary and 5 in Budapest.
Has over 35 higher education institutions.
Sister cities include, New York City, Shanghai, Beijing Tehran, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Lisbon, Tel Aviv and Florence.

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe.

9.5 million people.
University tuition is free.
It is a unitary, parliamentary republic.

Like many countries of Europe, you don't know the president, who is Tamas Sulyok.
You do know Prime Minister Viktor Orban, pal of Donald Trump. He has held that position since 2010. The PM is leader of the largest party in parliament and heads the government.
Known for goulash, a Hungarian stew.

So how safe is Budapest? By most accounts, very safe. Just be smart and careful.

The Romani people, Hungarian Gypsies, form 3% of the population, the largest minority in the country. However, certain surveys show that this percentage could be 9%. They originated from northwestern India, beginning in the 14th century.
There is Romani crime problem in Budapest, but most say this is no different from other cities like Paris. The USA could well be more dangerous for tourists than Hungary. According to Nationmaster, Hungary is 53% safer than the U.S.

Well, this will be my final day of the 14-day cruise. Lunch started with two appetizers, a beets concoction and a salad something or another, with red wine and beer.

Lunch of pork and pasta.

Dinner began with a final briefing, presentation on departure from ship tomorrow and salute to the captain, who must be in trouble because of our sand bar incident.

Dinner menu

Started with asparagus soup and salad, followed by a Chateaubriand and noodles.

Dessert of sachertorte.

Walked 1819 on December 3.

This is our final full day on the Viking Tir. In Budapest. First lunch.

Artichoke soup and pasta, with white wine and beer.

I've been wanting to have the cheeseburger the past two weeks, so I ordered it on this final lunch. The end of the cheeseburger.

So off on our walk through the Pest side of Budapest.

Our ship was parked close to the city center, so waked to the Budapest Christmas Market.

Met by my Blue-Bar Pigeon.

Food.

Trinkets.

Walked back to the Viking Tir, parked alongside another Viking ship.

Tomorrow, we fly to Zurich.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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