Archaeotek Summer- Budapest Castle District

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June 3rd

Wow, I though that being up until two would help me sleep for a long time, but nope, I woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep for EVER! I finally snoozed for about an hour between seven thirty and eight forty-five. Ouch. Elizabeth knocked on our door at nine and we were barely moving around. It is so hot here, and humid. Gah. So our plan for the day was to hike over to the Castle District in Buda and explore for a bit, and then maybe join Francis on a tour of the caves and such under the city. We made the hike, which was a bit longer than we were anticipating. Walks seem so much longer when it’s hot!! I wish I had a pedometer. I’m pretty sure we’ve averaged at least eight miles every day that we’ve been here. We were malting by the time we walked across the bridge over the Danube, so we rode the trolley car up the very steep hill, an action that I’m going to attribute to Jacklyn’s sprained ankle, although I’m not going to lie, The ride was nice, and the trolley car was all glass, so we had a terrific view of the city on our way up. I’m having communication issues with my camera, but once I sort those out I’ll post some pictures. At the top of the ride we arrived at the Royal castle, so we sauntered around there a little. There is the loveliest statue in the courtyard of a couple of kids wrestling a catfish. The expressions on their faces are so wonderful, I must have taken 15 photos just of the statue. From the castle we wandered up past a bunch of old foundations towards the little neighborhood there. It’s kind of like a little town in itself, because it’s all up on a hilltop with parts of castle walls and there are bastions and stuff. It’s quite cool. We had lunch up there in a nice looking restaurant with very German food and horrible service. We were kind of hoping the weather pattern would imitate the previous day’s and it would rain a little in the afternoon, but did not. It stayed very hot. Right close by was the Cathedral of St. Mathieu, with a roof tiled in stunning colors and patterns. Below that is a cool little bastion called, I believe, the fisherman’s bastion, with beautiful views of the parliament building across the river. We toodled around a bit, checking out the scenery and the souvenirs. I was tempted by a bottle of cannabis flavored absinth, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t make it across any of the borders I need to cross before I got home. Still, it would make a unique piece of memorabilia! To escape the heat we headed into these subterranean tunnels that honeycomb the hill. They are called the labyrinth, and I’d love to tell you what they were, but all of the signs were in Hungarian. All I can say is that it was pretty awesome, and very very cool compared to the heat above. The walk back to the hotel seemed to last forever, and it was six thirty by the time we got back. We took and hour and a half to rest, write, nap, whatever, and then headed out to eat on Andrassy Ut, which is sort of like Budapest’s Fifth Ave. It was pretty awesome, and our tired, quick meal ended up lasting until one in the morning. It is now two thirty, and I’m headed to bed to rest up for our thermal bath day tomorrow. Tomorrow is our last day of holiday, because Sunday will see us all on the train to Cluj to start the osteology program, which, according to our syllabus, will be extremely intense, involving ten hour days and volunteer time on the weekends in order to get what we need to do done. Plus writing up a report, taking quizzes, and learning osteology. I am the only undergrad student that I know of so far, and the only one I’ve met who hasn’t had some sort of human anatomy/human osteology course yet, so I’m going to have to study SOOO hard to keep up! Eek! Goodnight to you all! Claren

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Comments

[Claren]

Hey Bets!
I think malting was a spelling thing... The underground tunnels were limestone drip caves formed naturally that the Turks made into cellars under the castles. They were also used as bomb shelters during WWII. Pretty nifty stuff.