Budapes[h]t

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Szia!

I'm sure you're all dying to hear about my most recent adventure, I would be, too. Before we begin our tour, however, I'd like to point out some aspects that will make what I say and the pictures I have a little bit clearer.

#1. Hungary is a weird little place. It shares a border with Austria, so to get there from Graz is only about an hour with the train. To get to Budapest, however, is 6 hours from Graz with the train.
#2. Budapest is the capital, of course. The proper way to say Budapest, though, is Budapesht. In Hungarian, which is one of Europe's most difficult languages with a system of 17 cases , "s" is pronounced as "sh," whereas "sz" is the typical English "s."
#3. Budapest used to be three cities, but then became two, Buda and Pest. On one side of the Danube there was Buda, and on the other side there was Pest. Though they've combined now, they still refer to each side as Buda and Pest.
#4. Hungary has entered the European Union, but is still in the "initial phase," and therefore not a complete EU member. Euros aren't used there. Instead, the Hungarian Forint is. Basically, 400HUF is the equivalent of 1euro. In other words, my acutely mathematical mind had a real ball this weekend.
#5. Move over, Italy, we've found a country in Europe with worse English than you. I know, I know, nobody thought it was possible, and you're probably taking the loss as the best worst English speakers pretty rough, but indeed, nobody in Hungary can make a competent English sentence. Newspapers, advertisements, restaurant workers, TOUR GUIDES, nobody. Their German is even worse. We literally were in a bubble of our own languages all weekend.

Alright, well, now that you have some of the basics of Hungary, I think we can continue the tour.

Friday morning I woke up at the ungodly hour of 5:14am. After spending the night before doing laundry until late, I was in the mood to sleep in and relax. Instead, my cell phone had other plans for me. I had been talking to some of my friends online the night before, and when I woke up, I IMed Julie, who got quite the kick out of the fact that I had barely slept and it was already morning for me, but she'd yet to go to bed . After throwing together some things, I had to run to the bus-stop to catch the 5:40 bus to the train station. We met at the train station at 6: me, Libor, Borja, and Thomas. After finding our train and getting on the right wagon, we actually ran into three other exchange kids we knew: Austin, who is from Mississippi and lives in my building, Matt, who is from Wisconsin and also lives in my building, and Lens, from the funky little country of Belgium. We ended up sitting with them for the trip, and we all read, slept, relaxed, played cards, got assaulted by an old obnoxious Canadian man who didn't think we were adequate students for visiting another country on our week of vacation, the usual. The trip, as I said, lasted 6 hours, but it actually went by relatively quickly. After about an hour/hour and a half, we crossed the border into Hungary. We were expecting dogs and police and men with fur coats and hats to jump on board, but instead, we just got a fairly harrassed looking man who stamped our tickets . The Hungarian countryside was nothing too excited. For about 4 hours it was mostly just farmfields, but really no houses or anything. Just wheat and wheat and wheat and wheat. It wasn't until we were within about 40 minutes of Budapest that things started to appear.

We arrived in Budapest at 11:59, a minute later than our ticket claimed we should've. Liars. First things first, we decided we needed some money in order to function. I exchanged 150euro for...$28,000. Just kidding. 28,000HUF. We were droppin' hundreds and thousands like it was our job all weekend. I had the directions to the hostel, and since Austin, Matt, and Lens didn't have a place to stay, they followed us and got a room in the same place. After missing the same bus several times, and meeting two girls from Graz who were separated because of the buses, and traveling with one of them to the hostel, we finally found it. It was really nice, right off of the main shopping street of Budapest, Vaci Utca, recommended to me by Orla. It was about 14euro a night, but I have absolutely no idea in Forint. Libor, Borja, Thomas, and I had our own room since there were four of us, which was nice. There were two more beds in the room, but luckily they didn't get used by anyone all weekend. When we were all situated, we went out to explore this new region of Europe. As it was about two o'clock and none of us had eaten all day--the "food" we were promised on the train was nasty chips and coke--we decided to search for something to eat. We found a huge market with all kinds of stuff, but instead, we wanted to go traditional. We were in Hungary, after all, why not sample the local cuisine?! Thus, we promptly marched across the street and into Burger King. After paying something like 1500HUF for my meal, I was set. The Americans got a kick out of how much busier fast food joints are over here, and also how even more cliche' American they try to be. Oh well.

We then went and just wandered around the city. It's actually a very pretty city, as long as you stay in the tourist areas. We wandered down Vaci Utca, which is very long, got harrassed by lots of people to come to different strip joints and nightclubs, and then eventually found ourselves along the river, the Danube, which runs from Germany through Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria, until eventually emptying into the Black Sea. It was a massive river, and we decided to cross it to get to the other side, where the city's enormous castle stood, the former home of the king. We crossed the Chains Bridge, which is without a doubt the most impressive bridge we saw in Budapest. There are TONS and TONS of bridges spanning the distance from Buda to Pest . After walking on the bridge and discovering that Hungarians have not quite mastered the art of the rest of Europe of buying a bell for their bikes and ringing it when they're coming up beside you and therefore almost being hit and thrown off the side of the quite large bridge many many times, we made it to the other side. We all played tourist and took about five thousand pictures [I have a little over 200 from the weekend...Libor has close to 400]. We then started the hike up to the castle, and rather than take the traditional paved routes, we chose to all race up the sides of the nearly vertical mountain. It was rough, but it was fun. The castle was HUGE, and it was so cool. From there, we could see over the entire city, which was really really nice. Well, Pest at least. It was really scenic with the Danube and the bridges leading into the city, with Parlament, St. Stephen's Basilica, and various other landmarks of the city rising above everything. That's another thing, Budapest was TALL. Vienna feels like a tall city for Europe, but in Budapest, it was unbelievable how much taller the buildings felt.

After taking another gazillion pictures of Pest, we turned our eyes for the first time on Buda...and then looked back at Pest. Buda is...not exactly the most attractive place in the world. It's downright scary. Throughout all of Budapest, you can see a lot of signs of the fact that the country still has not quite bounced back from communism and all the wars and whatnot, but in Buda, it's very clear. Everything is very run-down, things aren't taken care of, it's pretty much nowhere you'd want to be. We kept walking, and came upon the little village of the castle and the cathedral it had, which was really nice. Everything was cobblestone, and there were some look-out points over Pest. We got hit on by some Russian teenagers--Libor could understand them sort of, since Czech and Russian are sisters, and they kept looking at us and saying, "Those guys there, they're nice." We got a kick out of that. After that, we just headed back down the side of the mountain, crossed back into Pest, and headed back to the hostel. It was almost 9 o'clock at night, and we still had yet to eat dinner. We found a little kebob place, which are EVERYWHERE in Austria, and I got just a "salad," which was tomatos and cucumbers and cheese. Yum. Instead, I really just ate french fries. The man was pretty nasty 'cause I had some trouble counting out the bills , but he was pretty typical of Hungarians. Not the nicest people you'll come across. After that, Austin, Matt, Lens, and Borja went to a bar/club thing, and Libor, Thomas, and I set out to see the city at night. We pretty much retraced our steps from the afternoon, along the river, over the Chains Bridge, by the castle, down the other side of the river, and then crossed back on another bridge. As we got closer to Parlament, we had some real nasty looks thrown our way by the guards. A few of them gathered together and started talking really fast, and I politely grabbed Libor and Thomas and dragged them in the opposite direction. One European experience I don't particularly care to have is being an American in an Eastern European jail. Besides, though, what does the Hungarian Parlament REALLY have to do?!?! That's what I want to know. We eventually found our way back to the hostel, though, and it was almost 1 in the morning. Overall, it wasn't a bad start to the Hungarian adventure.

Saturday morning, Libor, Thomas, and I woke up and were gone by about 9 o'clock. The others had some trouble waking up from their escapes of the night before, so we left them behind. We set out in the opposite direction from the day before, as we wanted to see more "real Budapest," outside the touristy things. Bad idea. We were still in a fairly touristy area , but it was a very, very different city. There were piles of garbage EVERYWHERE, just out in the streets. We couldn't walk on the sidewalks it was so disgusting. Libor quickly assurred us that that was not how it is in the Czech Republic at all, and that sure, the CR borders with Eastern Europe, but is still Central Europe and would never have anything like that. We made it out of the garbage district, though, and found a little bakery. I decided to try what I think was called a faka, or in German, a Krapfen. Even in Hungary, I still found my favorite Austrian food! We then continued just walking around, but eventually had to turn to go back to the hostel to meet the other guys. When we got there, they'd already left for the citadel, so we went there to meet them. The hike up to the citadel put the hike up to the castle to shame. It was nearly straight it was so difficult to walk up. Of course, there was an old lady just powering right along about 20 feet in front of us like it was nothing. Meanwhile, we were grabbing into trees and jumping from rock to rock trying to climb up. Of course, we'd chosen the harder side to go up by accident, not realizing that there were more defined paths and not just hiking trails on the other side. As we got higher and higher, though, the view got more and more spectacular. We stumbled upon the Cave Church, which was exactly what it's called, so that was kind of cool. We finally reached the summit, though, and the views from it were stunning. You're going to get used to see a lot of Parlament, 'cause it's the coolest building in Budapest, and I have about a million pictures of it. We were also higher up than the castle, which was really cool. I don't have much to say about it, though, it was just a really cool experience and something amazing to see.

We then began the hike down, and this time we took the more traditional paths, sort of. From the paths, we found out little hiking trails, and took turns all racing each other down. Needless to say, there was more than once where someone almost went over one of the guard railings and whatnot. We made it in one piece down, though, and walked back across one of the bridges of Budapest, nearly getting killed by the ridiculous drivers and bikeriders. We headed to grab some lunch, and we split up again. Austin, Borja, Matt, and Lens went to this really modern, chic, over-priced place, and Libor, Thomas, and I chose the cheap pizza place around the corner. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the best pizza I've ever had. We devoured it quickly and looked at each other, wondering if it would be inappropriate to get another . I took a picture of the sign inside the restaurant of an award it got last year on the "3th of March." I don't even know how you'd pronounce 3th. After that, we decided to go the the thermal baths, which Budapest is famous for. I had to buy a 5000HUF bathing suit , and then we were off. It was Saturday afternoon/evening. Oh, right, apparently it's common knowledge that that's Gay Day at the baths. Sweet. The seven of us walking in together, and the only thing I can compare it to is like something on the Discovery Channel, on the Serengeti, a pride of lions looking at the hopeless gazelles. Take a guess which one we were. Though Thomas, who is at the mental capacity of a 5-year-old , he had no problem with wandering around on his own. The other six of us, though, quickly established a buddy system. We were never alone. I'm sure you're thinking, "Why didn't they just leave?" Well, it didn't work that way. We had payed for 2 hours , and you couldn't leave until around the 2 hour mark. There was one major pool and then a lot of smaller pools around it. We basically kept bouncing between the small pools, claiming one each time for our group. Whenever somebody else would come and get in with us, we promptly left for an empty pool. Temperature didn't matter. Some were over 100 degrees, others were 40 degrees. This was survival. We all got hit on, Libor and Lens were the most popular. Austin, Matt, and I were hiding in a pool together and a big, fat guy came over and started talking to us in broken English, and started singing "No Woman, No Cry." FINALLY, after staring at the clock for an hour and 35 minutes, we fled. Thomas wanted to stay, and we had no arguments. The six of us took off quickly, and now it's sort of a joke between us, but oh man. Lesson of the Day: Always read deep in depth about the tourist destinations you choose to visit. We each took about a 12 hour shower afterwards.

After that, we went back to the hostel, and hung out for a little. We were supposed to meet up with the two girls from Graz we'd met the day before, so we were waiting to hear from them. Libor, Thomas , and I went out and got some dinner, the other guys just went to the grocery store. Sampled some more of the local food by having spaghetti and french fries. We had asked for some Hungarian foods, but the waitor said that the kitchen had already stopped making them for the night. Huh?? After that, we met up with everybody else and went to a little pub-type place and hung out there for a little, then just wandered back to the hostel and went to bed, preparing for our last day in the deep East.

Sunday morning we woke up and checked out of the hostel. We stopped at a grocery store, and I got some kind of Hungarian bakery thing for breakfast, but it was pretty awful. We were assaulted by a beggar--they are EVERYWHERE in Budapest, I've never seen so many, and they are AGGRESSIVE. Austin tried to give the lady a roll to get her to go away, but instead she kept yelling at us in Hungarian, presumably for money. We finally said, "WE DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU!" and walked away. She didn't follow. We then kept walking and ended up back at the Basilica. It's in honor of St. Stephen, and they actually have his hand there as their relic. Luckily we didn't see it. It was really nice inside, though, really big and really open. We also went up to the top. We got to take an elevator about halfway there, and then had 137 spiral stairs to go up. We all got just a little bit dizzy, but it was cool seeing the inside architecture of the church and the dome. It was very impressive from the top of it, and it was cool to see the city from inside the city, as opposed to from at a distance, like on the castle or the citadel. We stayed up there for a little, and then moseyed back down. After stopping at the Western Train Station of the city, where we grabbed a quick lunch of more traditional Hungarian food, McDonald's. From there, we continued to City Park, to see the second castle of the city. We hung out in the park for a while, just relaxing and killing time. Then, we went to see the castle. Though it looks really old and really cool, it was only built in the early 1900s. Such a let down. It's now a museum, though, I believe the Hungarian National History Museum, or something of the sort. We hung out on a monument to a famous Hungarian, though none of us had ever heard of him, and then started the mosey towards the train station. We were pretty close, and we had an hour to kill , so we didn't rush. We stopped in Millenium Square, which was really cool. We'd all been wondering the entire weekend where the main square of the city was, and we'd finally found it. After watching some Hungarian teenagers try to be skateboarders and fail miserably, we continued on our way. We got to the train station and had some time to spare and Forint to get rid of, so we all stocked up on food for the ride home. I still had some extra, so I bought myself a copy of The Pillars of the Earth in Hungarian since it was pretty cheap. After that, we just hopped on the train and settled in for our 6 hour journey back.

When we made it back to Graz, it was such a relief to be able to understand everything instantly in German, to be able to talk to people, to know our way. It's funny, 'cause we were all talking about how foreign Graz was to us when we first arrived, and now it's what we know like the back of our hands. The elections were also yesterday, so we were wondering who won--luckily not the ridiculous guy whose slogan was, "Oesterreich den Oesterreichern!" Austria for the Austrians! He hated foreigners, and wanted to get them all out of the country, even though it's the 2nd most diverse country in the world. Thankfully, the Austrians were smarter. I got back to my place, where I was harrassed by my Bosnian apartment-mates. We finally had a conversation, and first I was condescendingly asked if I understood German. Then, they told me that my roommate and I were slobs and made a mess of everything, and the last few days we'd been leaving our garbage everywhere. I politely said that I had just returned from Hungary , and that my roommate was actually in Germany, therefore, it was not our mess. They said we also weren't doing our part to clean anything, and when I pointed out that he and I don't use anything, that we have all our own things, they also didn't know what to say. Needless to say, it really got me mad that they were accusing us of doing this and that and we hadn't even been here! I went into the kitchen after that and it was disgusting, it was covered with their garbage and dirty plates from their dinner that they'd never bothered to clean up! I couldn't believe it, and almost knocked on their door to say something to them, but decided it was best just to ignore it and my roommate and I will just keep doing our own thing. When he got back a little later, I told him and he had some strong words, but we agreed just to ignore it. No reason to give them ammunition against us. They can go back to Bosnia and risk getting shot. It's a common theme with the international kids here, everyone has horrible roommates . All the regular students here are not nice to anyone on exchange, and it's really disheartening. Oh well, I suppose.

That's about it, though. Hungary was a lot of fun, and definitely an experience, both good and bad. It was really cool to see somewhere I probably would not have particularly planned a full trip to, though there were a lot of tourists. On Sunday, Matt asked me if it was Asian Tourist Day in Budapest or something, since they were everywhere, and I just looked at him and said, "My friend, everyday is Asian Tourist Day." It was definitely somewhere new, though. It was very apparent it still had not quite bounced back from the days of communism, but that it was trying. Though the people weren't exactly friendly, you could tell they were trying to become a more open society, and prepare itself for full initiation into the EU . Anywho, enjoy my pictures!

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Photos

Train Station
The run-down train station of budapest

Train Station
It did have charm.

Bling Bling
28000HUF

Train Station
Fairly Run-Down

Train Station
The front of the train station

Budapest
Not too promising a view at first.

Train Station
It was a nice building.

Communism
Traces of Communism.

Hostel
Our four beds. On top was Thomas on the left and Libor on the right, and on the bottom was Borja on the left [on his bed here] and me on the right.

Libor
He's a ridiculously good photographer, and I got a shot in action.

Our View
Looking Down onto Vaci Utca

Our Street
Our little side street off of Vaci Utca

Vaci Utca
Main Shopping Street of Budapest, which we lived on

Vaci Utca
In the other direction

Market
Inside this building was a massive market

Wait, What?
What are you guys doing here?!?!

Construction
They basically tearing the entire city up, everywhere you went was construction

Market
Inside the Market

Fruit
All fresh foods.

Peppers
For some reason, a lot of the stands had peppers strung up above them, even if they weren't food stands.

Mmm
Traditional Hungarian Cuisine

Comments

[regina]

McDonalds...Burger King...what's next, Taco Bell? You couldn't find some traditional Hungarian goulash? Pictures were fabulous!

[Mom]

No pictures of the thermal baths? Verbotten?

[MooseIsLoose]

Budapes[h]t
No no no, NO pictures of the thermal baths. None. Ja, VERBOTEN. SEHR SEHR VERBOTEN.

[nanbo]

Awesome
I am convinced you should apply for a job with the "Lonely Planet" Travel Guide!!!!!!!!!! You make me really laugh. Wow, the Danube is awesome as are all the pics. Cool Castle and Parlament . Pest looked like a great city. Now Matthew we must do something about your eating. The kabobs you would most likely like...grilled meat so you can't go wrong....... but BK and McD. Ouch!!!!!!! Guess I really enjoy this because traveling is truly all about new adventures. Love ya, Nanny

[kristy]

Hey~ Chase and I have been up for a LONG time so we just looked at ALL of your pictures and I think you'd better start to eat as much as you can because with all the walking (and photograhing) you are going to waste away to nothing! Great pictures though! Try to get some more people shots - friends and random foreigners. A castle is a castle right? :) Kidding! xok