Zwacked Out On Unicum

Today was a long day for all of us. It started out with a terrific lecture by Dr. Yusaf (I call him "Admiral") Akbar at Central European University loosely covering the Hungarian economy as well as the economic situation in all of central and eastern Europe. I say "loosely" because he made many asides and non sequiturs throughout the presentation to keep everyone's interest. He also added in plenty of jokes about the Russians at Pavel's expense. I was a little bit worried when I saw on the schedule that he was supposed to talk for over two hours about the local economy, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting and enjoyable presentations that I've ever seen. The students also held their own very well during his quizzes about economic terms and political history.

After the presentation, we visited the headquarters of Zwack Unicum, the company that produces the quasi-famous liquor of the same name. After a brief presentation, video about the company's history, and a stroll through the company museum, we got to sample three of their products. This was not an entirely fun experience, as you can see from the picture above taken just after the tasting. Everyone except for one person thought that the traditional Unicum, the national liquor of Hungary, was some of the worst tasting liquid we ever had put in our mouths. The samples of the other two liquors that they company produces were better, but I think they were still outweighed by how terrible the first one was. The advertisement, known as "The Drowning Man" who sees his salvation in the form of Unicum, was all over the building and museum. Pavel was really creeped out by it, and I had to show a lot of restraint to resist buying him a t-shirt with the advertisement in the gift shop.

But it was nice to see that his trepidation did not deter him from becoming a part of the poster before we left the Zwack facility.

In the early evening we took an hour-long cruise on the Danube River, which divides the city into the "Buda" and "Pest" parts. Most of us sat outside on the outer deck of the boat, and thus we had to sacrifice the recorded guided messages that were playing on headphones in the seats inside the boat. That means that I'm not completely sure what buildings we saw, but it was definitely a magnificent sight. I do know that the large building above is the Hungarian Parliament (which we will visit on Saturday morning), and the building below is the castle and royal apartment building by night.

Tomorrow we're off to Alcoa and Lake Balaton, so we're preparing for a lengthy trip on the bus. Hopefully they give us the really nice Mercedes bus that we had when we arrived!