tales from Budapest- long overdue..

Sorry it’s been a while- now that the sun appears daily I have a hard time sitting at my computer for any extended period of time.

Budapest was really, really great. I was traveling with my roomate Hannah and her parents who are here visiting, so it was a nice change from traveling with just students and I stayed in a real hotel! With a tv! And a shower! The weather was also absolutely incredible- perfect sunny skies and warm weather that was perfect for walking.

On Thursday we arrived in the city around noon and had some lunch before walking along the Danube. We stopped to sit right in front of the massive parliament building, and hearing us speak English, an Irish student came over to talk with us. He said he was studying architecture in Budapest and said it was funny that even though we just arrived we had decided to sit in front of the most important building in all of Eastern Europe. Of course we didn’t know yet it was the parliament and we were too embarrassed to ask him where we were, but it was nice to know that subconsciously we were drawn to the center of Hungary. After walking down the river, Hannah’s parents arrived and we ate dinner with them in a nice outdoor Hungarian restaurant right by St. Stephen’s cathedral. I have to say that overall, the food in Hungary was not very good compared to other trips we’ve taken.

Friday we started off early and after finding a local bakery with great fresh pasty, we got on the Hop-on-Hop-off tour bus. Usually I laugh at these tourist busses, but it was actually a good idea for Budapest. It did a big loop of all of the most important sights and gave some good historical background. We decided to “hop off” at the Hero’s Square, right in front of a big park. We wandered around there and then hopped off again on the Buda side to see the castles and Fisherman’s Bastion. Then we finished the loop back to the hotel. The whole city was much different than I imagined- it was a beautiful mix of old and new rather than just the old that I had pictured.

In the afternoon we went to the Turkish baths. It was so warm we were even able to swim in the outdoor pools. I don’t know if they really cured all ills like they claim, but it was really relaxing to sit in the pools and saunas after walking around all day. For dinner, we went to an Easter market to try some local street food. The desserts were definitely the best part.

Saturday we started off at the Museum of Terror, which is in the building that was used as Nazi headquarters in the 1940s. The museums itself was actually pretty poorly designed- it wasn’t in order and the audio guides did a poor job of explaining the historical background, but the overall effect was pretty deep. It showed the opposite of what we saw in the DDR museum in Berlin. While that showed that daily life in Communist Germany was pretty comfortable, this terror museum showed just how uncomfortable it was for anyone who wasn’t a loyal member of the party. The stories were all pretty gruesome.

After the museum we walked back over the river to Buda to see what we missed the previous day and to have some really good ice cream.
Sunday we just walked the main boulevards of the city soaking up the sun before we had to go back to Prague. We missed Obama’s speech by only a few hours!