Wonderful, Beautiful Budapest

I am in love with this city. I had heard it was beautiful and charming from about 10 people before I headed here and they were right!

We got in on Saturday morning to our very chilled out, amazing hostel. The atmosphere here is amazing. Totally relaxed, friendly people and it was basically like a small cottage to sleep in! The girl that works here, Jess, is Australian and very helpful and showed us all the sights to see on a map. The first day we did Buda (Budapest is separated to a Buda side to the left of the Danube and Pest on the right). Things we did:

- went to a market and had some paprika potatoes (they are all about the paprika here, I LOVE IT) and bought a little souvienier secret box.
- saw one of the oldest churches in Budapest, it was built into a giant cave!
- walked up a giant hill to the citadel to see a great view of the city
- crossed the green bridge and elizabeth (white) bridges
- went on some cool slides in a little parkette on the side of the hill near the citadel (I love foreign playgrounds)
- walked to the castle, wandered around a bit, then came back to the hostel for a nap
- had dinner (chicken stuffed with apples and cheese for me, fried cheese for Lisa... there are not many veggie options here)
- relaxed at the hostel in the evening and watched Tropic Thunder
- No rain!!

Day 2 (Sunday)
We finally were able to sleep in a little bit so we slept til about 10 am (hahah if you knew me, youd be like 10 am is SLEEPIN IN?? Oh how things have changed). Woke up and did the PEST side. We started the daz off bz going to the large synagogue and walked through the memorial garden. In that garden, over 2000 Jews who died during the holocaust / ghettos are buried in 12 mass graves. It was a very simple, nice memorial.Next was St. Peters Basicilica. Immense and very beautiful. Walked in during Sunday Mass. Stood around for a bit before deciding that a). we are not Christian so its no big deal and b). Cant understand hungarian. We also saw the Opera and went in the lobby (Very pretty).

Then we went to the "House of Terror" museum which was located at 6ö Andressy. This building housed both the Nazi Party headquarters in WWII and the Hungarian equivalent of the KGB in the subsequent years. Hungary went through two totalitarian regiemes and this museum was more of a memorial (than an artifacts) museum. It was pretty heavy stuff and I really did not know anything about that part of Hungarian history so I was very interested. They had recreated prision cells in the basement and it was very sobering to see those.

The afternoon we spent at the Thermal baths. IT WAS GLORIOUS. After having to walk all those steps in Amalfi and up the giant hill to see the Citadel the previous day, our bodies NEEDED that relaxation. You buy a little electronic watch/bracelet to open lockers and gain entrance to the baths. There were three main outdoor baths. One that was similar to the hot pool at VV (tempreature wise) with a little whirlpool you could swim around in. We started off there. Then there is a middle pool where you can swim laps in (we didnt go in there). Finally there is a giant hot tub where we spent most of our time. :) You were only supposed to be there for 2ö minutes... we were there about two hours. We ran into two swiss boys from our hostel so we hung out with them in the baths for alittle while before heading back to the hostel. Watched Clerks with our hostelmates before heading out to dinner with the Swiss boys.

We ate dinner on Raday Street with the two Swiss boys and I finally tried Goulash soup! It was very tasty. I also had chicken paprikash with noodles and a shot of Palinka, plum flavoured (very strong liqour that Kayt told me I HAD TO TRY). After dinner we wandered around the city to go to the main bridge with the lions (cant remember the name) and grabbed some milkshakes from McDonalds (the only way the boys would walk with us was with a milkshake they said). We wandered through a big crowd that was celebrating the Hungarian elections. When we were there, the orange was in the lead.... democrats?

Came back to the hostel and everyone was awake. Had a few drinks and talked to the rest of the people in the hostel before reitring to bed at 2 am. Overall, I LOVE this city and LOVE this hostel (I think its my favourite) and will try to come back. Its so cheap here! Today we are heading to Vienna in the afternoon.