Why are there no mosquitoes?

The early morning aromas are drifting thru the open window here on Vasar utca. The breeze is cool after a brief shower cooled things off last night. You can sit here in the open window and the cooking smells are intriguing. This morning I smell salt port and paprika. Occasionally the smells are a mixture of kitchen and diesel fumes with the kitchen generally winning. You may recall we are on the 1^st floor, which is actually the second floor by American standards, so we are about 15 feet above the street. We hear the various noises that accompany city life, great loud arguments that we have no idea what the subject is or who wins; the sounds of the delivery trucks that start arriving at the market at 5 am and the strange clop of one ladies shoes as she heads to work at 5:30.

One of the great benefits of Budapest and likewise Vienna and Prague is the complete absence of mosquitoes. I see mosquito spray in the markets, similar to our OFF but some scary German brand. German brands are always scarier. But in the time we’ve been here, over 2 months already, we have not seen a mosquito. There are bugs, a few flies but nothing like we experience in the US. There are no screens on the windows and everyone leaves their windows open at night. The generally accepted theory for keeping the buildings cool is to close everything up during the day, inner and outer windows and doors, then open everything up in the late afternoon. We have ignored this and keep our windows open if we’re home. We did test the theory on our Vienna-Prague trip. We had closed everything up when we left, we arrived home about 11:30 and heat of the warmest day of the summer in Budapest was still lingering. We opened the door to the building and the difference was at least 10 degrees, the flat was nice and cool also, the 18” thick walls keeping the heat out.

This bug thing is worth looking into. Those of you who have traveled more extensively than we have may have noticed this in other European cities. Clayton said there were no mosquitoes in London but the fact that it was December may had had a bearing.

It has been rather warm for Budapest, everyone is complaining but it’s actually very nice, the humidity seems low. We’ve had a nice couple of days recovering from the hectic pace we set in Vienna and Prague. Throw in the full day at Terezin and we figured we had walked over 10 miles the 5 days we were gone. A lot of it up and down stairs that don’t seem to match the modern mans stride. We headed out to the Echere Flea Market on Saturday. Clayton was curious and Lisa hadn’t been there either so she tagged along. Lisa bought a few beads, I bought a rug from a guy I felt sorry for, great colors and design, a little tattered but a nice Romanian weaving.

On Monday we were invited to lunch with Aniko and Peter. Their girls were at Day Camp so they had the day free. We had a nice lunch at an interesting Hungarian restaurant. They had many unusual items available in a buffet arrangement. We enjoyed sampling a few things we had not tried yet. Everything was made in house and they had videos playing of the preparation of each of their specialty items. As soon as a video would play we would go look for that item. Fun. They also took us to a nice park on the Danube. It was an old industrial site that is being converted into a park with several pavilions, a restaurant and a swim beach. It was a nice day. Clayton has been downloading movies for us to watch in the evenings. Her heads home on Wednesday. It has been a nice break for us having him here.

Here are a few photos. Clayton on the Danube, Lisa and Clayton with Aniko and Peter, fishermen catching what looked like smelt. An old Bayliner used as a Budapest Police boat.