Post #9 - Budapest

The train ride from Bratislava to Budapest was especially enjoyable because 1- it was a beautiful day, 2- I actually paid attention to which direction the seat that I chose was facing (i.e. not backwards, makes a huge difference) and 3- there were all these old castles up in the hills that were visible from the railroad.

After all the wonderful things I heard about Budapest, my first impression wasn't all that great. The person who worked at the train station's information centre was rude and unhelpful, the metro stations weren't labeled, and the few visible street signs were in unobvious places, at least around the station. It took me a really long time to find the hostel, and at that point I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay there the whole week I had booked.

But, it turned out to be not long enough! Budapest is incredible, and by the end of the week, it had lived up to every expectation and then some. Another perk was that Luis, who I had met in Bratislava, was staying at the same hostel as me for the same amount of time. This was especially great because there were VERY few other people staying there, so I doubt I would have made any other friends. Since we both typically try to see as much of a city as possible as inexpensively as possible, we mostly stuck together for the week and found tons of stuff to do.

We met Adam and Becky, who had arrived the day before us, at a complex of thermal hot spring baths called Szechenyi, which is the biggest one in Budapest. It was incredible! There are 3 big outdoor swimming pools that have fountains and whirlpools in them, and then indoors, surrounding the outdside part, are all these smaller baths (22 in total I think!) that are different temperatures ranging from super freezing cold to steaming hot. There was also a bunch of saunas and steam rooms. I think we spent nearly 4 hours there. 

Apparently the hot spring water that feeds the baths has special healing properties, and there's a particular sequence that you can follow to maximize the benefits of the baths: relax in warm pool - cold pool - sauna - cold shower - steam bath - cold shower - pools with different temperatures - shower - rest and relax. We tried everything a few times and spent the better part of our time floating around the warm baths, but finished by alternating between the hottest sauna and the coldest pool to see how long of each we could stand (instead of resting and relaxing, who needs that?).

                      (By the way these are google images, I didn't take my camera in for obvious reasons)

Then we all went to check out a ruin bar (spoiler alert - I may have mentioned these in a few postcards, apologies if you get repeat info!) which are these abandoned buildings from the communist era that have been turned into huge pubs. they're usually several floors, have really strange decorating like propaganda posters or old artifacts, exposed brick walls in some places, sometimes an outdoor courtyard, smaller rooms with tables that you can wander in and out of, several dance areas playing different types of music, and at least 4 bars. And in some instances, creative use of bathroom equipment as furniture:

One of my favourite parts about Budapest (besides the food, but I'll get to that later) was that the eventful and troubling history of the country doesn't really feel like history because the presence of communism is very recent and there's signs of it everywhere. Our tourguides pointed out all these ugly apartment buildings that pretty much everyone had to live in when the soviets were in power. They were cheap and quick to build, but have horrible insulation and are very tiny. One of the stories they told us was that the reason behind having such small rooms, like the kitchen for example, was because if people had their friends over for dinner, relaxed at the kitchen table, and chatted over a few glasses of wine, they would start talking about politics and opinions, which could increase the risk of revolts against the communist 'ideology'. If you look closely, you can see bullet holes on the walls of a lot of buildings too:

Luis found out that we could go see a show at the Budapest Opera House for a really low price if you were okay with sitting higher up. We got tickets for Puccini's Madama Butterfly (which was cool because I had learned about this opera in a music course I took a few years ago) for 1200 forint, which is less than $5. As an added bonus, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

It seems like every city I've visted so far has a river flowing through it, and Budapest was no exception. The Danube (which also goes through Vienna and Bratislava) separates the city into Buda and Pest. The main downtown area is on the Pest side, and so was our hostel, but we crossed the bridges to the Buda side a few times to see some pretty buildings and the ruins of an old castle. It also has a big hill called Gellert, which you can climb to the top of, and has an incredible view of the city and the river. Unfortunately my camera was having a temper tantrum and wouldn't turn on the day we did this, so Luis took a bunch of pictures on his camera, but I forgot to get them from him before we parted ways. Luckily, google images probably has even better ones (although no photo will ever do it justice):

                                         

I was expecting hungarian goulash to be the consistency of stew, but it was actually more of a beef soup. Delicious. They have these traditional pastries called Kurtoskalacs, aka chimney cake, which of course I had to try. It's basically buttery dough baked over an open fire, then rolled in sugar or sometimes other toppings. Sort of like a beaver tail, but bigger, and so much better!

On one of our tours, they told us about a chocolate bar called Turo Rudi, which is filled with something called quark cheese (sort of looks like cottage cheese). It sounds really weird but I wanted to try it anyway. I just got a little one, in case it turned out to be disgusting, but it was kind of like eating a bar of chocolate cheesecake (!!!!!) and ended up being a repeat purchase. I didn't even feel that guilty eating it, because cottage cheese is low in fat and high in calcium, so this had to be kind of similar, and just had a thin coating of dark chocolate, which we all know is packed with antioxidants. Practically a salad.

Another thing we heard about was called Langos, a frisbee-sized deep fried dough topped with garlic juice, sour cream, and shredded cheese. It's on the same level as poutine in terms of artery-clogging unhealthiness, and is completely delicious. It was fun to try, but definitely a one-time thing.

On our last day, Luis and I went to the island between Buda and Pest, called Margit-sziget. It was pretty much a huge park, but has the ruins of a monastery, and a menagerie type thing at the other end, with deer, ponies, rabbits, peacocks, storks, and a bunch of other kinds of birds. Luckily my camera was working again at this point!

That evening we found a free music festival in a park downtown, and went to check it out. After that, we met up with the other people I met in Bratislava the week before and joined them at a really fun bar. I love it when things work out! 

Luis is also doing a 3 month trip and is meeting some friends that live in Sweden in a few days. He didn't have any plans between Hungary and Sweden though, so he got a ticket for the same cheap flight to Venice. Even better, his friend Ewa (pronounced Eva) who is from Poland, but is living in Ireland, came to meet us! But more about that in the next post. On my way to Turin now to meet Ali again :)