Budapesssht.

For Easter break Clara and I went to Budapest, Hungary. It was a very pretty city and we had a fabulous time despite the less than perfect weather. Here are some fun facts before I start the blog:

1. Budapest is actually 2 cities in 1. Buda is on one side of the river and is hilly, while Pest is on the other side and is flat.
2. Budapest is actually pronounced Budapesht. This is how locals can tell if you're a foreigner.
3. The national currency in Hungary is forints. There are 192.975685 Hungarian forints in one US dollar. Let's just say we had a lot of fun with math! Thank goodness cell phones have calculators!

We began our journey to Budapest on Friday night. We went through an airlines called Wizz Air. Their planes are pink and purple, which I found to be very amusing! This was my first experience with a general seating flight. People were soooo intense getting on the plane! The second the bus doors opened, people sprinted. It was rather comical! Luckily we were on the first bus, so we got 2 seats next to each other and all was fine and dandy.

We arrived in Budapest around midnight. We were going to take a bus to our hostel, but some friendly traveler let us know that the buses stopped at midnight. Instead we ended up taking a cab. When we got to our destination, we thought there had been a mistake, as there was no sign for the hostel. The cab driver seeing our confused faces pointed to door on the street. Sure enough there was a piece of white computer paper taped to the door with the name of our hostel. Oh the things I do for cheap accommodation! After a few minutes of ringing the bell, the worker came and let us in. Thankfully it was less sketchy on the inside. We think that during the regular season it's either a school or a rec. center as we found out later it's only open during New Years, Easter, and summer.

Door of the hostel.

Library that lead to our room.

Our room.

Saturday we let ourselves sleep in a bit, as we did have 4 days in the city. We went to get a map from reception only to learn that despite what the website said, they didn't have any. Luckily for us there was a gas station near by and we were able to buy a map there. Our hostel was located in Buda so we decided to walk towards the river. Once there we got a beautiful view of Pest and the parliament building. We decided to get lunch at a cute little restaurant. The waiter asked where in the states I was from and on on replying Minnesota, his response was, "Min-a-what-now?" So as I find myself saying a lot, I told him I was from Chicago! Ha!

Church of St. Anne.

The parliament building.

After lunch we decided to go across the river. There was a market set up for Spring Festival. This meant a lot of good food, trinkets, and entertainment. This was a frequent location of ours over the weekend. We walked around to see some of the sights, including Budapest's biggest church, St. Stephens.

Pretzels at the market.

People decorating a giant egg.

This is the actual right hand of St. Stephen. Very bizarre.

St. Stephen's Basilica.

My friend Tanya was previously in Budapest and told me about this company that does free tours. So, after wandering we decided to go on a walking tour of the Jewish quarter. It was a very interesting tour and it lasted for about 2 hours. Some highlight included Europe's largest synagogue, the center of the ghetto, and pubs that are extremely unique to the area. After the walking tour, we just walked around the city taking in the beautiful architecture and the general atmosphere. We ended up watching the sunset as we walked along the river.

Budapest synagogue.

Last remnants of the ghetto wall.

Holocaust memorial.

Playing in the fountain.

Hanging out with Prime Minister Imre Nagy.

Sunset on the Danube.

Memorial on the river. The memorial is for the Jews who fell victim to the Arrow Cross militiamen. They were instructed to remove their shoes before they were shot into the river.

That night we went to the "First Strudel House of Pest" for dinner. I had chicken which was very good, but sadly the strudel was rather disappointing. There was no sugar actually in the strudel, so we both ended up dousing ours in powdered sugar. After dinner we decided to go to one of the pubs we saw on our tour. These pubs generally have hidden entrances, and can be in buildings that were once apartments, garages, or municipal buildings. Then once you make your way inside, literally everything looks like it is from a garage sale. It's a total mishmash of table, chairs, couches, car seats etc. Altogether it creates a very cool atmosphere.

One of the pubs in the day.

The next day was Easter, Clara is catholic so we woke up nice and early to try go to a mass at St. Stephens. The Internet said there was one at 9, but once we got there they informed us it wasn't until 11. Our plan for the day was to go on another free tour at 10:30, so we wrote down the name of another church for later, ate some breakfast and headed to the tour. This tour was a general walking tour of Budapest. It lasted 3 hours and we saw a ton of the city. It was really nice to hear more about the history of the city, I realized I really didn't know a whole lot about Hungary. Hungary has only been free of communism for 20 years, so it was interesting to see how the country has evolved since. Another random fact, is that no building in Budapest is over 200 years old. The city wasn't razed until after the Middle Ages by the Ottoman Turks.

More love locks.

Communist car. It's made from reinforced cardboard.

Fisherman's Bastion.

Royal palace.

We ended our tour in the castle district, so we grabbed some lunch, walked around, and then just decided to wait until six and go to mass at a church nearby. Matthias Church was built as a church, but during the Turkish occupation, it was converted to the city's main mosque. To this day the inside is still painted in the typical style of a mosque. As just coming from Egypt, we found it highly appropriate that this is the church we attended. The actual mass was all in Hungarian, and was rather intense. Luckily just as I was getting a bit tired, two little kids got baptized and it was adorable! I managed to shake my weariness and enjoy the rest of the service, especially the old woman in front of us who was belting it out during the songs! :)

Matthias Church.

Wall of Matthias Church.

After the mass got out we ventured back to Pest to have dinner. We ended up in a small restaurant called Birdland. I had the goose leg with mashed potatoes, a cooked apple, and a fabulous chardonnay. Fifth random fact of this blog: Hungary is actually a wine nation, not a beer nation as I originally thought. They have 6 different wine producing regions. So after we stuffed ourselves full our waiter suggested we try a traditional Hungarian spirit called Palinka. It is a fruit brandy and if drunken after a meal it supposedly helps with digestion. I got pear and Clara got strawberry. I don't know if it helped with digestion, but it definitely burned going down!

Me with my Palinka.

The chain bridge with the royal palace in the background.

Monday we decided to go check out one of the many caves in Budapest. We took a metro, a train, a bus, and did some walking to find the cave, but eventually we got there. We were hoping we would get hardhats and overalls, but it ended up just being a walk through cave. It was still a lot of fun though, the tour was in Hungarian, so they gave us a pamphlet to follow along with. Instead we made many jokes about Chester Copperpot, One Eyed Willie, and zombies. The best part is when our guide shuffled us into a corner and shut off all the lights. I'm sure he gave a warning, but since we clearly don't speak Hungarian we were a bit surprised.

Chester Copperpot.

After the tour we went to the spring market again and got lunch, we split a kebab, a sausage, and potatoes. Then after wards we got a magnificent pastry called a Kürtőskalács. It's a pastry that's covered in sugar and cooked over an open fire on a spit. It was sooooo good! We got cinnamon sugar, as on Saturday we had gotten the plain vanilla sugar.

Deliciousness.

We then decided to walk over to hero's square. Behind the square there is a huge park that Clara and I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around.

Death eater.

Ducks sleeping in the park.

Clara.

We got back to Pest and decided we weren't hungry enough to get a huge dinner so we decided to just get wine and desert at a restaurant by our hostel. We got a Hungarian pancake and a cheese platter, plus some of Hungary's famous sweet wine. It was a great meal, even if the waiter's did give us a few weird looks for just getting desert.

Our last day we had to check out by 10, so we had to get up slightly earlier again. Our plane didn't leave until seven thirty so we had all afternoon to do things. We tried to store our luggage at the hostel, but unlike their website assured us, they did not have luggage storage. So luckily, Clara had picked up a free guide book that told us where we could stash our stuff at the train station for the day. We dropped off the luggage and then decided to climb Gellért Hill. Like the day before it was rather rainy, but we made our way to the top. On Gellért Hill there is a citadel and one of the last remaining communist statues. Once we did make it to the top, we only stayed about a half an hour because we decided the citadel wasn't worth the money. Also, because the wind was terrible up there. We found a better path down the hill, with beautiful views of the city. When we got to the bottom we discovered a cave that was made into a church. It was one of the weirdest things!

I'm a talented soul, and broke my umbrella. :(

View from Gellért Hill.

Statue on Gellért Hill.

Cave Church.

We then crossed back over to Pest to go to the central market. It's an enclosed building that has a food market on the bottom and souvenirs and goods on the top. We grabbed lunch, I got goulash soup and then for desert we got some amazing pastries! I think we have a problem! :/ We left the market and walked for a little bit, going into two old churches. Then we went back to the station picked up our bags and headed for the airport.

Stand in the central market.

My favorite part of our last day came when we landed in Rome. As we were still taxiing to the gate, a bunch of Italians got up and were pulling their stuff from the overheads. The flight attendant came on the loud speaker and told them to wait until we had stopped. Then about 20 seconds later the flight attendant came back on and announced for everyone to sit down. Nobody did, even after she repeated herself. Then either by chance or because our pilot was amazing, he stepped on the brakes, causing half the people in the aisle to fall over. I was very amused, and after that almost everyone sat down. There were two men about two rows behind us that stayed standing. The flight attendant came on the loudspeaker and told them to sit. This happened two more times before she said, "I do not speak Italian, but I think it's pretty obvious that the two gentlemen standing need to sit down." She sounded pissed! They didn't get the memo, but after other people started yelling at them they sat down! Oh Italians! They are so impatient, but they provide me with endless entertainment!

So that was my journey to Budapest! I'm going to just stop saying I'll write less, because at this point we know I won't! Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Ciao!