Sunday funday

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After a good night’s sleep, I set out this morning on a day of touring Budapest. My first stop was the Central Market a few blocks from the hostel. But it’s Sunday so it was closed. I did get a peak inside through the window and it looks enormous. I think I missed out on this one.

From there I took a leisurely stroll over the bridge to the Buda side. I had my eyes set on climbing to the top of Gellert’s Hill and taking in the views of the city.

Towards the base of the hill, I took a path that led to a cave chapel called St Gellert’s. Sunday mass was in process so I waited outside the cave’s entrance for a few minutes until it concluded. At the end of the service, probably 100 or more people left the cave through its single small doorway.

Inside, it looked much like I expected to look - it was a cross between a cave and a church. It had chairs, stained glass windows, altars, religious symbols, rock walls, stalactites, stalagmites…

After a few minutes in the chapel I proceeded up the hill, eventually making it to the Liberation Monument and the Citadel at its peak. The views were the finest in the city. I could see throughout the Buda and Pest sides of the river, including the Budavar Castle and Parliament where I would head after sitting on a bench for a while.

On my walk along the river I was thinking about today being Sunday and wishing I could catch some of the games. Wait. I can. There has to be a sports bar around here. Evening plans were set.

I passed by the castle on the near side of the river and Parliament on the far side. I made it to a bridge to cross and get a better view of Parliament. Being a Sunday, there wasn’t much activity there so I headed back to the hostel.

With all the walking it was already around 5:00. I found a sports bar called Champs to go to where they would apparently play some of the NFL games along with numerous soccer games from different countries.

I headed down to Champs, which was only about 10 minutes away and found that they would be playing two early and two late games. Excellent. This was the first time this year I’d be seeing any football (except the couple minutes of a lousy game in Lucerne).

After killing a little time, I came back partway into the pregame show on ESPN, which started at 6:00 pm here.

The area of the bar where football was being shown was all the way in the back but it was the most open area with a large big screen that would show one game and numerous small ones showing that game and the other one. The Giants vs Saints were on the big one with the Ravens vs Vikings on some of the smaller ones.

The area wasn’t exactly packed but there was a large group of college aged kids at one table that looked like they might be Americans that do this every week while they study abroad. That’s just a guess.

The Saints game was great. First and foremost because the Giants lost. But the Saints played really well, too. So well it was fun to watch. But they might be tough to beat.

The Ravens blew the game with an opportunity to win it with a field goal at the end.

I had originally planned to leave after the early games since they were only showing the Patriots game and some other game I didn’t really want to see in the second set. But a guy with an Eagles jersey came in with his cousin. I found out that he was from Philly and joined the two of them.

We shot the breeze while hardly paying attention to the Patriots annihilation of the Titans. We paid more attention to the scores, seeing if the Eagles could actually beat the terrible Raiders. They didn’t.

At halftime, we all parted ways and I headed back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel there was still a large group of people up. Most were relaxing after a few nights out on the town. I joined them for a bit before heading to bed. Most of us were leaving town tomorrow. While a bunch of them from California were heading to Bucaresti, I am flying to warm weather in Greece.

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Photos

St. Gellert's Cave Chapel
Stained glass windows were installed in the cave's walls.

Budapest
Views of the city from Gellert's Hill. Buda sits to the left of the river and Pest on the right.

Parliament
The Parliament building's Gothic design reminds me more of a cathedral than a government building.