Afternoon Delight: Mostly Pest, but some Buda, too.

This post is a little overdue - but aren't all of my entries? On October 14th, three friends of mine and I went to Budapest, Hungary (after all that drama that I wrote about in a previous post). Our train left at 8:04 am and we were there by noon. We headed straight for our hostel and found it fairly easily. Walking down the street, all the buildings looked really cute, except for one. Belle even commented on how ghetto it looked. Well, it turns out that was the building that our hostel was in. Swell. We walked into this apartment building and walked to the top floor, where the actual hostel was. The building was actually kind of pretty, once you got past how run-down it looked, and the ground floor was definitely the worst part of the building. Once we got to the 3rd floor (European), it was kind of pretty, especially with the sun coming into the courtyard. It's a hostel run by a father and his son and it was actually really cute. Everything was from Ikea...but actually. The sheets, the shower curtains, the window curtains, and I'm pretty sure even the beds were. It was great. The father and son helped us to get a little more situated in the city and gave us all maps and pointed out a few places for us.

After dropping off all our bags and having a few minutes of relaxation, we leave to find the House of Terror - a museum about the communist (Soviet) and fascist (Nazi) regimes in Hungary. The museum was put together really nicely and was just beautiful. I only wish I could have understood more of it, since most of it was in Hungarian. But they did have English information sheets in each room explaining some of the historical context and meaning behind part of the exhibit. I still have a stack of those to read through - I'm just very interested in their history. I feel like Hungary has had an insane history and is a country that has been constantly rocked with political and social turmoil. Even without having understood everything, this museum was able to evoke a sympathetic response from me. You can still tell that Hungary hasn't completely recovered from the Soviet regime. The city looks run down and definitely has a more impoverished feeling than other European cities (such as Vienna).
After spending a little over an hour in the museum, we started to walk to the City Park. On our way to the park, we walked by a bakery that had cupcakes in the window! If you know me, you know about my love for cupcakes. So, naturally I got super excited because I haven't had a cupcake since I've been in Europe! However, this turned out to be false advertisement and they didn't actually have cupcakes there :[ But some of us did end up getting something sweet to eat. I had a massive cream puff while Rachael and Kelly ate some sort of Hungarian pudding thing...I forget what was in it, exactly.

At the entrance to City Park is a huge monument called Heroes' Square. To each side of the monument is the Museum of Fine Arts and the Palace of Art. This monument was beautiful, along with the rest of the park. We walked around and explored the grounds of Vajdahunyad Castle, which included a church and an agriculture museum. We then walked further into the park and stumbled upon a very large building that kind of reminded me of Schönbrunn because of its bright yellow color. It turns out this building houses one of the many Hungarian baths and spas! We looked at prices and decided that was the one we would go to on Sunday afternoon, Széchenyi Bath and Spa.

We left the park and walked to a restaurant that our hostel recommended. Unfortunately, it was closed when we got there at 5pm. We guessed that it might reopen at 6pm for dinner, but since we had a ballet to go to at 7pm, we had to find somewhere else to eat - soon. We walked toward the opera house, found a street lined with restaurants and cafés and decided on a place to eat. I ordered a soup that was not what I was expecting, but oh well. Everyone else had some great food. Also, just in case you ever go to Budapest: they DO have a service charge. Vienna doesn't have tax or anything like that, but Budapest does. So that was a fun discovery...After eating, we went to the opera house and found our seats...or so we thought. For some reason, there are two rows that are called "row 2" in the balcony and BOTH of them had the seat numbers that were on our tickets. So we were confused and just chose the ones that had a better view. It seemed that we were in the clear, until the lights started to dim and we actually got kicked out of our seats by some people who apparently had tickets for those seats...after an awkward first act of the ballet, we found empty seats during intermission that had better views and sat there for the remainder of the ballet. The opera house was beautiful and the dancers were amazing. None of us completely understood the storyline for the ballet, but it was still cool! We all headed back to the hostel after a long day of traveling and walking around Pest.

The next morning, we all got to sleep in a little bit and ate some food provided by our hostel's kitchen...aka a couple of eggs and some bread. Whatevs, FREE FOOD. While walking around the city, we found some Hungarian markets that were filled with booths selling bread, cheese, yogurt, sweets, toys, clothes, etc etc. I bought this bread roll thing that was quite delicious and snacked on it for the rest of the afternoon. We made it to St. Stephen's Basilica and went inside. It was so elaborately decorated with gold leaf everywhere, an amazing organ, and a smaller chapel attached on the side.

Our next stop: Parliament. Parliament is located right on the Danube and looks beautiful from across the river, especially when it is lit up at night.

Then, we walked along the Danube, past Parliament and across Margaret Bridge. Half way across the bridge, it splits off and connects to Margaret Island. We took that detour and walked around the island for a little bit. The island is basically just a huge park in the middle of the Danube. There were a bunch of sports activities going on when we were there and we saw several soccer fields set up in the outdoor sports center. There was also a huge fountain that shot up water so high that we could see it from the bridge, before we even got to the island. We stopped to eat some food at a booth on the island - including the first hamburger I've had since high school..yea, weird. The man also seemed very surprised that I wanted onions on my burger. He didn't speak English, but it seemed like he was trying to tell me that they'll make my breath smell bad. When I said I still wanted them, he just kind of smiled and said "okay.." Awkward.

Finally, we walked across the bridge to Buda and were on our way to Castle Hill. Here, we saw the Mary Magdalene Tower, Matthais Church, found some more markets and touristy booths, and saw some awesome views from a lookout terrace in Castle Hill. Then, we walked to Buda Castle, ate a delicious Hungarian desert that's basically fried dough covered in cinnamon sugar. DELICIOUS. Here, we also went to a wine museum followed by a wine tasting. It was my first official wine tasting and I absolutely loved it. Hungary has some delicious-tasting wine and it was a perfect way to spend our evening.

Afterward, we got to walk around the castle at night and it was completely gorgeous. We walked down the hill, took tons of pictures, and crossed Chain Bridge back into Pest. We also stopped at the Four Seasons, which was right at the end of Chain Bridge, and used their fancy bathroom. That hotel was definitely the nicest hotel I've ever seen. The city actually looks really nice at night. On our way back to our hostel, we grabbed some cheap dinner and stopped in a bar to sit and hang out for a while after our long day of walking around everywhere.
The next morning, we packed all our backpacks and saw a few last minute things, including a synagogue in the Jewish district. We passed the same markets we had found on Friday and walked further to find a square. Here, we walked around a little bit and then sat down and drank cappuccinos and ate sandwiches at a great café that I never wanted to leave. All I want in life is to sit with friends in a café, drinking good coffee, eating good food, and having great conversations that make me laugh and love life. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently it is.
Then, it was time for the baths and spa. We spent several hours just hanging out in all the pools and steam rooms. The best part was outside. The pools were gorgeous and filled with people from all over the world - locals and tourists. We also had perfect weather. It was sunny, but still cool outside; cool enough for the pools to be a great blanket of warmth, but still sunny enough so that our heads weren't cold. After getting adequately pruney, it was time to leave so we could catch our train.
We thought we had given ourselves plenty of time, but the walk ended up being more of a trek than we had expected and we had to rush around quite a bit. But we were able to grab some food before boarding the train, found seats, and relaxed on our way back to Vienna. Budapest: check.
Here are some more pictures for you to look at, just in case you haven't seen them already: