Starting off with a quick omelet at Richie and Tara's at 9 on Saturday, I continued on to the Hunyadi ter market for my first shopping for 2 weeks with another friend. The flower/plant guy got in some coriander plants for me, so I stocked up on coriander, basil and mint for the balcony and garden. We finished off with a cheese-sourcream-garlic langos. I quickly unpacked my bags and whipped up some medvehagyma (bear/wild garlic) pesto with a huge bunch of medvehagyma Akos and Nori picked for me last weekend. It came out a bit tart, so I need to figure out what I can cut it with. There are 50 buildings around Budapest celebrating their hundreth birthdays with free entrance, so I picked the 13th district to explore today. It was a bit frustrating, since many of the gates were closed (Pozsony ut 4, Radnoti u. 40, Hollan Erno u. 3), but I did have a couple successes. Katona Jozsef u. 26-28 had some information posted about the Palatinus Palota complex, but the building itself was uninteresting. After 3 cycles around Jaszai Mari ter, I could not locate 1-3 and gave up. At Falk Miksa u. 24  I found out that the street was named after Peter Falk's (Columbo) great grandfather, a newspaper man and MP. Balaton u. 12 was very welcoming, and had a free book exchange at the inside entrance. This was the home of professor Laszlo Orszagh, author of the blue-red Hungarian-English dictionary everyone uses. The building suffered a massive gas explosion in 2010 that took out the 5th floor, but has since been repaired. Just before I went into Balaton u., Jon G. called and said he was going to the international coffee exhibition at the Corinthia Hotel. It was a great bargain for 1100 entry, as all coffee and most food, wine, and palinka was free to sample. Unfortunately, I was not well prepared for the exhibition, and should have brought information about Fair Trade coffee. Instead, I made it my duty to ask every coffee company if they had organic or Fair Trade coffee in their catalog. I only tried espressos.

• Cortesia Caffe - never heard of Fair Trade. Strong, bitter coffee.
• Pasco Caffe - never heard of Fair Trade. Coffee was OK.
• Goppion Caffe - never heard of Fair Trade. good 100% arabica. Probably the best coffee of the day.
• Manuel Caffe - have Fair Trade coffee in their catalog. Sublime 90%/10% arabica/robusta was strong with floral tones.
• Carraro Caffe - never heard of Fair Trade. Horrible coffee.
• Illy Caffe - claimed all their coffees were Fair Trade and organic, knew what it was, but I think it was just a sales pitch. There was neither Fair Trade nor organic certification of any kind on their coffees.
• Cellini Caffe - YES, have Fair Trade, organic 100% arabica coffee. However, wholesale for 1kg of beans is an unbelievable 9000 huf. Considering my retail price is 6000 huf, well...They did not have the FT coffee to try, just display. I do not know which of their coffee's I tried, but it was the worst at the event.

We also tried some wines and brandies. The Etyek brandy by Corvin was quite nice. The Postas (kekfrankos) siller was OK, as was the Heimann, but the Nemeth Janos (kadarka) was the best of the three. All three vineyards are in Szekszard. The FLOq shortbread cookies were nice. The most interesting was the orange-coriander, but I could not taste the coriander. Nor could I really taste the vanilla (the owner's favorite). The cranberry was good. The Servus apple palinka and inyenc cherry palinka were OK, while the Schiszler  gold medal winning plum palnika was strong and bright. We were not at all interested in the barrista competition. Hell, its just coffee, and I am not interested in the circus. I am just interested if it tastes good and is Fair Trade and/or organic. The exhibition reminded me of a good book I read many years ago, Memoir from an Antproof Case by Mark Helprin. The man has done everything, successful banker, soldier, bank robber, pilot, but his life is ruled by one thing, his hatred of coffee. You need to read this gripping tale all the way through to finally find out why. Helprin is also the author of other great reads, Refiner's Fine, A Winter's Tale, The Pacific and Other Stories, and A Soldier of the Great War.

I lost my map of the 100 Year Old Houses, so Jon and I walked around the corner to Kiraly u. 67. The house has beautiful metal doors, and was the most welcoming of the places I visited. The massive basement labyrinth was open to visitors, with an older female resident holding court and telling stories in a candle-lit room, and other tenants proving zsiros kenyer for visitors. There was an old coal chute and a pump (water? air?) at the end of the tunnels. Jon wanted to see a couple more places, so we took a walk along the gorgeous tree and villa-lined Felso Erdosor that connects with the top of Kiraly u. Jon knew of a "secret path," which turned out to be the hidden Benczur Koz leading to Benczur u. past a lively playground. At Munkacsy Mihaly u. 19/B we entered the Schiller Villa, home of the Customs Museum. The concrete exterior hides a very impressive interior with floor to ceiling stained glass windows, wooden stairwells, extremely detailed wood and mother of pearl decorative inlays on walls and doors, Zsolnay tile covered pillars on the internal balconies, scrolled and detailed metalwork along the walls and covering radiators, and of course the museum pieces themselves (old uniforms, swords, border siezures of artwork, passports and IDs, medals...). While in the Corinthia relieving myself after so much coffee, another guy at the spotlit urinals said, "I've never had my penis so well lit!" I laughed so hard I almost hit my shoes. I finished off the day by making corn muffins to go along with the medvehagyma pesto.

On Sunday, our luck was also hit or miss. Akacafa u. 51 the Fogashaz and Realtanoda u. 1 were closed, and Varoshaz u. 4, Klauzal u. 26-28 and Regiposta u. 19 were nothing special.  However, we lucked out with a couple houses. At Varoshaz u. we were given some religious/alternative medicine literature a chocolate bar as a gift. When we were leaving, I noticed my aquaintance Charles wrapping a tall blond with a roll of black trashbags, after which he then wrapped her to a sign post.  He was in the process of moving out of the building and packing a car, but I do not know why he was wrapping his friend in plastic. It was certainly one of the funniest and most memorable things I have seen in recent weeks. The real treat was Karoly Krt 3/A, former Broadway Mozi and now the Belvarosi Szinhaz. Habitat for Humanity Europe

used to have their offices here until they moved to Slovakia, but it still houses the offices of Levego Munkacsoport (Clean Air Action Group). There is a good button shop in the courtyard. The inside courtyard and staircase probably have enough decorative metal work to build a ship. It was built by the First Insurance Company (otherwise known as Hungaria) as their company headquarters. Up on the fifth floor there was an interesting photo exhibit, and some amazing views across the city. In particular there is a beautiful hidden inner garden courtyard, and an incredible view of the top of the Dohany u. Great Synagogue. Zoltan u. 12, our last stop, was a nice surprise and a great way to end the tour. I often deliver coffee to Glorious Day across the street and noticed the building on many occasions. The place was mobbed with interested people, and the residents put a lot of thought and energy into their exhibition. We were taken down in a large group to the refuge/bomb shelter built in WWII, TWO floors below ground. Thanks to smart phones, several people had flashlight apps and we could see somewhat were we were going. The guide then asked everyone to turn off their lights and the metal door was closed. For some reason there was no ventilation built into the shelter. It was easy to try to imagine what it must have been like crowded into a subcellar during an air raid. We were told that all the basements along the street bordered each other, and in there was a pick in every basement. If the house collapsed above, people were able to dig through the wall into an adjacent basement and hopefully escape back up to the surface through a neighboring house. Directly across the street is the site of the secret Rakosi Bunker.