Our last night in Prague was a very rainy Sunday night. We decided to get one more meal of cheap, awesome czech food and rounded up some hostel friends. I had gnocchi to avoid beef, but they all got the beef goulash with bacon dumplings. Needless to say, Jeremy was very happy.
We spent the rest of the night playing scrabble with some English travelers and packing up our stuff to travel on Monday.
Monday morning we were sad to leave. It was the best hostel and we made some awesome friends there. But that's how backpacking goes!
So on Monday we boarded the train to Budapest after grabbing some hostel breakfast and some easy Burger King for the ride. "Fast food" here is neither cheap nor fast, but you can't beat the convenience when it's in the train station. It is still tasty and bad for you :)
Our ride to Budapest was our most depressing, I would say. It was a 7 hour direct but it was delayed 25 minutes picking us up and 45 dropping us off. Most of the ride was slow. Plus it was pouring down rain or there was very dense fog for the entire ride.
We finally got to Budapest around 7:30 pm. It was getting dark and we were hungry and tired. I had looked up how to get to our host's apartment ahead of time, but there was a ton of construction going on at the station so we got a little confused. After stopping twice for directions we were finally on track for the 30 minute walk. We were so hungry so we stopped for a slice of pizza- literally the worst pizza ever. Yes, worse than Dominos from a gas station somewhere on I-20 at midnight. Awful.
We had one minor freak-out because I stupidly had forgotten to look up the Hungarian forints (money) conversion and when I got the bill for 500 HUF I was a little worried. An exchange shop window helped- we realized that was only about $2. Disaster averted. Lesson learned.
(Font change because I switched to another app to write on the train)
So our travel day wasn't spectacular, but we made it.
We finally got to the apartment and met our host. Ryan is 29 and grew up 4 minutes from me. He now works from home in Budapest, which is a pretty sweet deal. His apartment is very nice- big and spacious with a great location. He knows the owners of all of the local hostels and many of the local bartenders.
So, of course, we went out.
Ryan took us first to eat at a taco place owned by a Mexican woman. It was awesome. He then took us to a couple of ruin bars- Budapest's famous pubs. These bars are set up in abandoned buildings and lots. They usually have an open area, so people can smoke "inside". They are all themed differently, and the good ones are weird. One of the ones we visited has actually been named the 3rd- best bar in the world. I got a bad inside pic at night and a better outside pic the next day.
You can't tell much but you can tell its crazy and pretty cool.
We ended up at a bar that was having an open mic night and all of Ryan's friends were there. It was actually really cool because Ryan got up and did a song!
After that we did a horrible Hungarian shot and first heard the Hungarian word for cheers (sounds like egg-a-shay-ga-dre). We hung out for a bit and finally headed back to the apartment. It was our latest night out yet, but it was a blast.
The next day we slept waaaay in until almost noon. We really only got about 8 hours of sleep so I guess it's not so bad. We missed the early tour- and normal people breakfast time- so we headed out around 1:00 to find some lunch and the 2:30 tour. We took Ryan's suggestion and got sandwiches right around the corner from him. Most of them were weird like tripe and some kind of brain, so we both got the Thai chicken. Delicious!
This was our sixth walking tour, so maybe we are just burnt out on them. Or maybe our guides recently just haven't been stellar. Either way, this walking tour was just as bad as Prague. It was boring, long, and in-concise. I would be fine with a 3.5 hour tour and 3.5 hours worth of info. But recently I have felt like I could have learned and seen it all in 2 or so and it's a waste of time.
We will continue to do them because they are cheap and good for a first day, but we are both hoping they get better. Maybe we'll switch it up and do another bus tour or a bike tour somewhere.
Anyway, there is some cool stuff I have to share.
First of all, the briefest Hungarian history possible. Just like Prague, they have a long sad history. Constantly invaded and taken advantage of. Occupied by nazis and then communists and stayed communist until 1989. I guess that's most of Eastern Europe really.
So we were staying in the Jewish quarter- historically the only place where Jewish people were allowed to live. WHY did everyone hate Jews?? I mean really it makes no sense to me. It is now a pretty cool area of bars, ruin bars, and little local restaurants. It also has the 3rd-largest synagogue in the world. It is HUGE!
It was built by a Christian in a Muslim style for Jewish worship. Kinda cool.
Budapest (pronounced Budapesht) is actually a combination of 2 cities- Buda, the hilly, north western side and Pest, the flatter, southeastern side. The Danube river splits them.
Buda as seen from Pest. More on the statue in a minute.
Pest as seen from Buda.
So the communists built a bunch of statues that all had some political meaning. After communism fell most were destroyed and removed. The first one that was put up after communism was a little princess by the river.
And she means NOTHING. She's just cute!
I took a bunch of pictures around the city that I don't have stories for but they give you a taste of the city.
Honestly it's more European than I was expecting. It's the furthest east we're going so I guess I expected more of a Russian or middle eastern flavor or something. I don't know- wasn't sure what to expect at all really. Seems silly now that I thought that.
The National Science Academy building was pretty, and has produced 14 Nobel prize winners. We also learned that the Hungarians have invented a lot of stuff, including the Rubik's cube. :)
We crossed the chain bridge, which is very pretty from afar and up close, from Pest into Buda.
We walked up to the castle district, where there is oddly no castle but there is a palace. We got the great pictures of Pest from there. It was a small hike up the hill but not too bad. Gorgeous view was totally worth it.
The castle district is a quaint little town on top of the hill where some government stuff happens and tourists go.
Their White House. President only works here, doesn't live here.
Ruins from when there was a castle.
Cute roads and shops.
Mathias Church. Absolutely beautiful. The crow is from Mathias' family crest. He was a king who added the large white tower.
Fisherman's Bastion, where the fish market used to be. 7 white towers symbolize the original 7 tribes that came together to create the city. It looks out onto the river and Pest.
That was the end of the tour.
We were of course starving so we got a snack- baguettes and these Hungarian candies that are basically cheese cake wrapped in chocolate.
So good.
We walked back to Ryan's and took a break. We showered and relaxed. When he was done with work he took us out to a traditional Hungarian restaurant for some local flavor. It was great. I got chicken and langos, traditional baked goods kinda like rolls crossed with pizza. So good. Jeremy and Ryan both got the gnocchi with duck. It looked really gross to me but they loved it! We also learned about traditional drinks. Beer, of course, but they also drink wine only it's mixed with carbonated water. It's actually great- it's light and refreshing while keeping you hydrated. :)
After dinner we went to just one bar. Had a nice long chat and played some fooseball. Actually that's a lie. Chatted and got our butts KICKED by Ryan. He is so good. Apparently you have to be good to live there. There's a table in every bar.
We called it an early-ish night. Earlier than the previous, at least.
The next morning my stomach wasn't feeling great. I think it was just all of the heavy food. I was up from like 7-9 not feeling well so I slept until almost 11. Really didn't want to get up and do stuff but a rain shower was clearing up and there was some stuff I really wanted to see. So we grabbed some bananas (YAYYYY FRUIT!) for breakfast and headed out.
The first thing we did was climb up this hill to the statue.
This is their lady liberty, and I absolutely love her.
She has an interesting history. She was built by communists, so they wanted to destroy her after the fall of communism on principle, but they also really liked her. So instead they covered her with a white sheet for 3 days and ten unveiled her as if she were brand new. So they made her their own. I'm glad too. She is so cool and very beautiful, up on the mountain holding a palm leaf with her dress flowing in the wind. Only 1 other statue remains in the city from the communists, and it commemorates the Soviets who died freeing Budapest from the nazis.
So I was glad we got to see her up close. Quite a hike though- we were both dripping sweat at the top. It was humid as hell.
The view was also worth it.
Back down near the bottom of the hill is a statue of St. Stephen, their biggest hero. It has a beautiful waterfall.
After that we walked back over the river and went to check out St. Stephen's basilica. Gorgeous on the outside...
Even prettier on the inside.
Easily the most gorgeous church I've ever seen. I'm not very religious, but I really do love churches. So peaceful and ornate.
They do have a weird thing here though- the alleged actual right hand of St. Stephen, mummified and preserved in a glass case.
It's in there... you just can't see it unless you pay to turn the light on. No thanks.
We got some easy lunch- a sandwich for him and a big salad for me. I was trying to go easy on my stomach. We walked a little further up to the parliament building to try to get a close look but there was a lot of construction.
It's the third largest parliament in the world. Why all the third place stuff in Budapest? Really couldn't tell ya.
We took a nice long rest at Ryan's after this. We were really quite tired after the 4 hours of walking. Jeremy took a short nap. I usually avoid naps because I wake up even grumpier.
We left at 5 for a long walk to the other side of the city. We also wanted to see if we could get cheap train tickets to Vienna to save a pass day.
We walked down the Main Street through the city, which was very pretty.
We passed the opera house...
Heroes square...
And the prettiest McDonald's I have eer seen in my life.
We did end up getting tickets for 25 Euros, which is pretty cheap, so now we can do another day trip in Italy on our pass :)
After the walk we went out to dinner with Ryan again, this time to a great Chinese place near the river. The dumplings were great- almost as good as the views.
Mathias church and the fishermans bastion from across the Danube
Chain bridge and palace at night.
After that we were completely beat. This put us close to 8 hours of walking in a day. So we elected to stay in and Ryan went out. We took showers, packed up our things, and went to sleep.
That FINALLY brings me to today!
It's a travel day, so nothing tooooo exciting is goin on. We got up and left around 11:15 am for the train station. We picked up some food on the way and used the rest of our money for Jeremy to stock up on cigarettes. They were cheap in Budapest and that way the money is used instead of paying to exchange it. So it worked out.
Our train ride was 3 hours and we just got to the hostel. Need food soon....
Sorry this post is so late. I hope it's worth the wait. Now off to find food!!!
Miss you
<3
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