Maďarsko: Nejdelší Záznam Vůbec Někdy

(Translation: Hungary: The Longest Entry Ever)

This weekend my Student Agency Bus total reached twenty seven hours in nine days as twelve of us traveled seven hours each way to Budapest, Hungary.

Budapest was an interesting city, and boy do I have stories. I'll try to write each little anecdote in its own paragraph, so if something bores you, just skip to the next paragraph!

We arrived in Budapest Friday afternoon and checked into our hostel, ironically named Casa de la Musica, where we were brought to our twelve-bed room. Ten of the twelve people were from my program, but the other two were JENNY! and a friend from her program.

So that you can all enhance your cultural knowledge, I'm just going to point out a couple of Budapest-related things. One is that Budapest is really pronounced "BudapeSHt," something that I hadn't known until I came to Europe. Also, historically Budapest was two cities, Buda and Pest, and it wasn't until the second half of the nineteenth century that it united to form the present city. We stayed just over the Danube in the Pest district of the city.

Friday afternoon we ventured into Buda to explore. None of us had eated since breakfast, so we split up and grabbed an early dinner. Karen, Blair, Megan, and I ate at a little cafe, and we were quickly introduce to several aspects of Hungarian culture. One was their annoying currency. The Hungarian forint (which is often abbreviated as the HUF, leading us to refer to it as the Hufflepuff), has way too many zeros. For example, I paid 52,000 forints for our hostel. How ridiculous does that sounds? Anyway, that wasn't our only cultural discovery at this cafe; we also learned that they put the unit price of the drink on the menu, not the total price, so Blair's 100 HUF/dl lemonade was not the great deal that we had thought it was. Blame in on our American ignorance towards the metric system or else we would have realized that one dl is pretty small. Besides that we also learned that the Hungarian language, Magyar, is very difficult and strange sounding. Despite the fact that there seems to be a lot more tourists in Prague, I felt that people in Budapest spoke English much better, so the language barrier wasn't really an issue.



After dinner we trekked up the hill to an area known as Castle Hill. There we saw the famous Fishermen's Bastion, a sort of wall with turrets overlooking the city. Fishermen's Bastion itself was very picturesque, sort of resembling a sand castle, but the views of Budapest and the Danube that it provided were beautiful. Right behind Firshermen's Bastion was a great statue of St. Stephen on horseback, as well as a very intersting church called the Matthius (I think). After enjoying the views there, we walked around Castle Hill and found a strange Labyrinth Museum. Built in underground caves near the castle, this museum makes an obvious statement about the progression of humanity. Despite its somewhat annoying displays, it was pretty fun because it was pitch black and we had to carry lanterns. It was like my haunted house experience for the fall! After that experience we headed down to Buda Castle where we saw even more gorgeous buildings. Whereas the castle in Bratislava was clearly the stereotypical castle, Prague castle and Buda Castle are more complexes of palaces than fairytale castles. Don't get me wrong; they are still beautiful, but they are more of a sprawling series of palaces, chapels, and random fortifications than a single actual castle building.

After all that sightseeing, we met up with everyone at the hostel. They all headed to the famous Turkish bath houses, but Jenny, her friend, Karen, and I went to a jazz club. Called the Jazzgarden, it was a cute place that wasn't too touristy. They had twinkling lights and vines that gave the impression of a garden terrace, and there was a great live band that played 'till midnight.

Saturday was a jampacked day. Karen, Blair, Megan, Alexa, Claire, and I got up early and were at the famous Hungarian Parliament building by eight. We knew to get there early to buy tickets, so we got tickets for a tour at noon. We then decided to search for breakfast, but we couldn't find an open cafe ANYWHERE. We ended up at the famous hotel/pastry shop/restaurant, known as the Gerbaud. I just had a great latte, but everyone else had an impressive breakfast platter. It was a classy way to start our day!

I would not be telling you the whole story of my trip if I did not include my near-death (exaggerated, Mom) experience. You all know my love for Target. Well before I left I bought a great pair of boots at Target with the intention of them getting beat up on the cobblestone and me throwing them out to make room in my suitcase on the way home. Unfortunately my beloved Target failed me in this case because it is the third week of October, and the rubber on both heels is fully worn out. This means that not only does it sound like I am wearing intense heels all the time, but it also means that I have no traction. Despite this, I was wearing them on our breakfast search, when I stepped onto the curb from the sidewalk to wait for the walk signal. The curb was wet and when my bare heel met it, my feet slid right out from under me. Dad would be proud that I did not simply land on my elbow since I was holding things in my arms; instead I ROLLED as I fell so that the impact was distributed on not one joint but three, as can be seen by the lovely bruises on my elbow and knees. As if the spell wasn't embarrassing enough, I sort of fell into oncoming traffic, but some guy ran over and shoved me back onto the sidewalk. You should all feel honored that I willingly shared that embarrassing story, and I also want to appeal to you for suggestions of how I could repair those heels so that I don't have to buy some new boots! I don't wnat to give up that suitcase space!

After breakfast we went to the Basillica of St. Stephen. Since it was constructed fairly recently, it was unlike most churches we have seen in that it included many different styles of architecture. It was enormous, and the entire interior was done with colored marble and baroque (or would it be neo-baroque?) decorations. It also had some pretty mosaics which was nice to see since they are not prevalent in Prague.



From the Basilica we headed to Parliament for our tour. While waiting we made friends with a couple from Texas, and it was nice to talk to some Americans who weren't in their twenties! The tour of Parliament was amazing. The Hungarian Parliament is the third largest in Europe (behind the British in London and the Romanian in Bucharest), but I bet that it's the most beautiful. Since their government was originally bicameral, but is now unicameral, there was an entire wing that we could see. For those of you who know my weird affinity for symmetry, you will understand how much I appreciated that this absolutely enormous building was perfectly symmetrical. The tour was in English, and somewhat witty, which after six weeks in Europe you come to appreciate when someone knows English well enough to crack jokes in it!

After Parliament came my favorite part of the day. We went to a museum called the House of Terror. It was all about the terror inflicted upon the Hungarian people by first the Nazis and then the communist regime. I had never known about this part of history, so it was very informative. The museum was in the actual building that was used as a prison for these two regimes, so that was pretty cool too. It took us almost three hours to get through the museum!

After the museum we walked through City Park and saw a castle there, as well as Heroes Square with statues of Hungarian heroes. We were so exhausted that after that we just grabbed some dinner. (I just want to add that we had heard that Hungarian food was so good, but I honestly thought it was TERRIBLE. I didn't eat my meal that night and ended up buying other food on the way home 'cause it was so bad. It actually made me appreciate Czech food.)

Sunday was a tiring day as well because we walked everywhere on Sunday. We walked to the top of Gellert Hill and saw the Citadel and the Independence Monument. It was quite the hike. We were all exhausted by the time we got to the top, but we were also pretty impressed that we had done that mush by nine in the morning. After Gellert Hill we walked back over to Castle Hill and visited the Budapest History Museum. I think I am spoiled by the Smithsonians and museums in Prague, but I wasn't that impressed with this one. It was also difficult to appreciate a lot of things when only half of it was in English. After all of that we continued walking and went to a park on Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube River. We didn't have much time there, but we got to see a nice soccer field and some fountains. Over the course of the weekend we also got to see the second largest synagogue in the world (behind New York), as we passed it on our way to the hostel every day.

All in all, I really liked Budapest. It had a lot more history and a lot more sights than I had expected. It wasn't the most beautiful city-I definitely like Prague better-but I bet that when it's sunny (not gross and gray like it was for us), then it is very beautiful. Everything has a sort of dingy tint to it, but I really think it was just lack of sun (besides the graffiti).

I spent most of yesterday recovering from the busy weekend, but a few of us did leave the cafe long enough to go to a gallery at Prague castle that has free admission after 4 on Mondays. I liked seeing art because that is one thing that we did omit in Hungary. Blair and me and a few other people also explored a new establishment last night, so classes today weren't as enjoyable as they have been. It didn't stop us from going to our Tuesday night places though, so there was no problem!

P.S. I'll put the Budapest pictures up as soon as I can. Took me long enough to write this post, so I can only imagine how long it will take to go through the pictures!