Budapest

Technically, I'm not in Budapest anymore, but this post is about it. And I have to say I'm writing from a city for it to show up on my little map.

Ok so I apologize for the length of this puppy…just remember, however long it takes you to read…I actually had to write it all out! I’ll probably post the whole story of my week in installments to make it easier on all of us.

So as most of you know, last week was our first vacation. We had a week off of classes and the five of us went to Budapest, Hungary and Prague, Czech Republic. First off, I’ll post our travel itinerary for the entire week, to give you an idea of what we went through.

Friday, February 15: train from Perpignan to Girona, Spain at 1:40
One night hotel-stay in Girona
Saturday, February 16: morning flight from Girona to Frankfurt, Germany (really it was a tiny town called Hahn)
One night hotel-stay in Hahn
Sunday, February 17: 7 am flight from Frankfurt (Hahn) to Budapest, Hungary
Wednesday, February 20: morning train (duration 7 hours) from Budapest to Prague, Czech Republic
Sunday, February 24: 5 am train from Prague to Bratislava, Slovakia
12:45 flight from Bratislava to Girona
5:45 train from Girona to Perpignan

Crazy, I know. But now to the good stuff.

The train ride Friday was without problems…no late trains, no missing the train, stuff like that. The ride through the mountains and along the Mediterranean was beautiful and I took some pictures. We got into the city of Girona and from the train station had to take a shuttle bus to the Girona airport (there was a lot of that the whole week). We found a hotel next to the Girona airport for the night. We had to be at the airport at like 7 in the morning (or something like that, we’ve had to do that many times and its hard to keep them all straight). Then we took a Ryan Air flight to Frankfurt. At least we thought it was Frankfurt, it was actually Hahn, which is 124 km from Frankfurt. So we were stuck in the middle of nowhere for a day. Seriously, for fun we went to the airport. We did have some good meals there though. Libby and I got dessert at the airport while the other three girls went “sight-seeing” in Hahn…they got lots of great shots of the whole 10 buildings along one main street. I’m glad I chose dessert. We also watched a lot of TV in the hotel. There was some winter sports championship on. Of course it was in German, so I didn’t understand what they were saying, but sports are universal. I watched with my mouth-hanging open, the American women’s bobsled team crash halfway down the track and throw up afterwards. It was really fun. MTV was in English though. The next morning our flight left at 7 for Budapest. Finally, after two days of travel, we were getting to our first destination.

The first thing we did when arriving in Budapest, was get ourselves to the metro station and from there, Daek Square…the main part of town. Budapest used to be two towns: Buda and Pest, divided by the Danube. Buda is the older part of the town, but Pest is more lively. After a trip to the Tourist Office and a hostel service, we were pointed to a cheap, centrally located hostel in Pest. It was really nice, I have pictures of it as well. Its also probably a good thing to know that Budapest was FREEZING cold, like Michigan cold…it was terrible, so we were also jumping in and out of buildings to keep warm. In Budapest, all of the museums and stuff like that close on Mondays, so we had to hit up the museums on Sunday instead. After settling in at the hostel, we started towards the House of Terror. We passed the Opera House, beautiful, and found a little Moroccan-ish themed restaurant. I got gnocchi, and had pretty much the same thing every day after. After refueling we go to the House of Terror. It is a museum of the Nazi and Communist occupations of Hungary. It used to be a big official government building during those times and was used for torture and questioning. It was very informative and moving. I have lots and lots of literature…each room had a sheet of paper explaining a part of the Nazi/Communist reigns and whatever was in the room. Later that night we went to an Irish pub for dinner. I had a cheeseburger.
The next day (Monday) we went to Buda on the other side of the Danube to hit up the non-museum sights. We crossed the Chain Bridge and walked along the Danube for a bit. We went to Buda Castle first and had to climb a ginormous hill to get to it. We didn’t go inside but apparently we had just missed a government concert thing because on the other side of the castle there were buses full of Hungarian army guys and other guys dressed up in military uniforms (I’m sure the pictures will be able to explain better than I can). We were really hungry and found a tiny little restaurant. It was full of high-schoolers from Italy. They were really loud and annoying and kept staring at us and showing off their English with random words like “boyfriend.” Eventually they asked us if we spoke Italian, obviously we said no. It was a great relief when they finally left. After eating we walked towards the big cathedral. It was under a bunch of construction so we could barely see the outside, and we had to pay to get in…we didn’t go in. There was a big wall thing that we played on for a while until we were frozen solid and decided to head somewhere warm. We had walked down a street with some cute little shops and we walked in and out of those for a while. I bought a few souvenirs and some postcards. Once we spent all of our money we tried to find the labyrinths. On the way we stopped at a bakery for some deliciousness. Eventually we found the entrance to the labyrinths underneath the Castle Hill. It was really neat down there…and warm. I have lots of pictures that again will explain it better than I can. There was also free internet (random) and some of the girls checked their email. Then because we are really cool, we decided to call it quits for the day. We somehow ended up on one side of Castle Hill and had to get to the other side and the Bridge to cross to Pest. We found a tunnel for cars and walked through it. When we got to the other side and were taking night pictures we noticed a sign that warned pedestrians to not take the tunnel because it’s polluted. That would have been nice to know on the other side.
For the next day’s adventures it is necessary to explain that there are some major personality clashes in the group…mainly between me and one of the other girls. This always happens, I don’t understand it ; ) So we kind of split into two groups a lot. On Tuesday that’s what we did. Ashley, Libby, and I went off together, while Becca and Nicole did their own thing. Its really funny that we split because we basically did the same thing. I really wanted to see Parliament and get a tour. So we headed back to the Danube and walked north towards Parliament. It is a beautiful building modeled after the English Parliament. We walked around it taking pictures and looking for the entrance when we saw a sign saying it was closed to visitors for the day…hooray. I was bummed, but it was ok. The three of us then went to the train station to buy our tickets to Prague for the next day. We ate some lunch and then we walked towards St. Stephen’s Basilica. It’s a really big church with lots of gold on the inside. Most of us know that Catholic churches usually have a relic of the saint it is named after…usually a splinter of bone. The big attraction of this Basilica is that it was the entire hand of St. Stephen on display. Kind of cool. There was also a little exhibition on Cardinal Josef Mindszenty. He played a large role in first opposing the German Nazi occupation and then in the Hungarian resistance against the Communists. I tried to find a book about him in English, but I couldn’t. His life is really interesting. Throughout this day I had been trying to find some cool European boots to keep my feet warm. Any store that had shoes, we looked in. I didn’t find anything that 1) I liked and 2) fit over my calves. I suppose it’s a good thing that I didn’t spend that money…After shopping and what not we walked to the other side of Pest to find the Jewish synagogue and the Holocaust museum next door. The synagogue was supposed to be the largest in all of Europe…we couldn’t find it, but we found the Holocaust museum…guess it couldn’t have been that big then. The Holocaust museum was amazing. I’ve always liked that sort of stuff, it might be a bit sadistic, but its interesting. I’ve been to the Holocaust memorial in Washington D.C., but somehow, this one hit me more. Afterwards, the three of us were floored. I think it was a bit more personal than the memorial in D.C., which makes sense. It was a museum by Hungarians about other Hungarians persecuting other Hungarians. It was intense. I always thought I knew a lot about the Holocaust, and I guess I did, but the Hungarian story isn’t one that’s too well known. They not only had the Nazis after them, but the (at that time) Czechoslovakians kicked out people of Hungarian descent (Hungary then did the same to Czechoslovakians), and then of course the Communists took over. A lot of the pictures and movies and quotes were cited as being from the US Holocaust Memorial. After seeing that, we weren’t all too excited to do much more sightseeing, so we pretty much turned in for the night. Also, my legs were about to fall off, so I didn’t want to walk anywhere except straight into bed.
The next day (Wednesday), we took a morning train to Prague. It was seven hours long.

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