Nancy's note from Budapest

Dear, dear Friends in San Jose,

First Unitarian's pilgrims have arrived in Budapest and begun our adventures. We are thinking of you often and striving to represent you well!

A group of us visited the "Buda Labyrinth" today--not a labyrinth like ours, though its flag looks exactly like ours, but rather a labyrinthine series of underground rooms, originally carved out by water, then paved with stones in the Middle Ages, and used as hiding places or military positions in the Renaissance and the World War eras (as many as ten thousand people would cram together down there during air raids in WW II). Now a whimsical mix of ancient cave and modern tourist attraction, we delighted in the dark watery rooms (a relief from the heat aboveground) and in the "Labyrinth of Courage" walk, tracing a path through the pitch-dark by holding onto a metal "thread"--"there is nothing of fear here," the sign said, "the fears are all inside you"--a good topic for a sermon, I thought. (Meg Trask and I managed to get ourselves thoroughly convulsed with giggles, especially when the thread ended just before the exit door, and we couldn't figure out a way to open it. We knocked; Rick Morris knocked back, helpfully, from the other side. Finally, Meg shined her cell phone on the door so that we could find a handle! Ah, how our youth can lead us! :-)). We were momentarily taken in by a tongue-in-cheek, completely anachronous art exhibit featuring petrified "relics" of "Homo consumeris"--Adidas footprints, computer keyboard imprints, and microwave shapes frozen in stone. Andy Warhol, move over!
 
Geoff and I particularly enjoyed a glimpse of a crumbling Bible in one of the big churches here--the first full Bible printed in Hungarian in 1626. On our return trip through Budapest, we plan to visit the Unitarian church here, too.
 
Our ears are full of the polyglot of many languages spoken by locals and visitors, and our tongues stretch to learn and pronounce a few words of Hungarian, often drawing smiles from the solemn faces of shop owners here.
 
We miss you all, and hope you too are having inner and outer adventures, which we will all pour together when we share the waters of the world in September. 
 
Hello!
 
Warmly,
 
Nancy