Budapest

Budapest will forever be remembered in our minds as the city where we found "hot stuff" also known as "Eros Pista"! Hungary = paprika and as most of you know both Michael and I enjoy spicy foods. We were in heaven trying Goulash and different stews with this wonderful spice. Budapest was somewhat of a shock at first in a culinary sense as well as with the hustle of city life, it was quite different from the calming effect Vienna had on us. Budapest is a big city and learning to navigate it was a bit hard but once we accomplished it, then it was just a treat to experience.

We started with the old Castle district, basically poor Budapest managed to get bombed a lot in its history so they had this castle rebuilt several times. The views accross the Danube from the Castle district were fantastic, you can see for yourselves from our photos. There is parliament as well as other buildings along the Danube. On on our walk to the district we passed Gellert Hill, named after the cardinal that was thrown off the hill when he tried to convert the infidels back in 1046 (tough crowd!)

In the afternoon we decided to visit the "Terror Museum", a building that was used as a Nazi police headquarters during the German occupation and then the headquarters for the communist party during the Russian occupation obviously because the Nazis weren't enough..... Michael thought it would be an interesting museum experience but he didn't know just how interesting. Since the museum is dedicated to the wrongs of oppression and harrassment it was quite funny (a long time after this actually happened) that we were harrassed in this museum. Basically at my suggestion Michael took a picture of the tank that was on display even though we were told not to take any pictures, never in a million years expecting what happened next. Just when we thought we had gotten away with it the wall behind us moved and a woman in uniform comes out and demands our camera, she has us show us the picture we just took, makes us delete it and then proceeds to follow us around the entire museum. If we took to long in a certain area she came back and "escorted" us to the next room. Once, Michael got pissy since she was making us nervous so she disappeared only to send another clone of herself when we reached the next floor. All in all it was GREAT to get the HELL out of this museum we don't recommend it at all. Just because it gives us a good laugh we have included the "Tank picture" direct from their website as a silent protest to our ordeal (seems quite silly to get mad if they are going to post the said pic, don't you think?)

Overall the best experience we had in Budapest was a lazy afternoon in the Széchenyi baths in city park. The mineral baths were a heavenly experience with everything from saunas to whirpools. Michael even figured out what kind of pool to get when we get to design our own house, basically a jacuzzi in the middle and an outside ring as a whirlpool all in one swimming pool.

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