We start off visiting Heroes Square. This is a square decided to the heroes of Hungarian history. The place is pretty awesome. Very beautiful and hearing the history behind each statue makes it 10x better. I am very lucky to have a personal tour guide who just happens to be working on his masters in history. One interesting fact, the square was built during a time while the Hasburgs still ruled, so the statues on the far right were of the king and queen 
during that time. After their fall, they were torn down and replaced with two statues of famous rebel leaders who fought against the Hasburgs.After this we took the metro downtown. Now the metro we took was a little different. It was the first one ever built in Europe; making it the oldest metro in Europe. The funny story behind it is that when they built it, they weren't thinking this whole metro thing would be big. It was just an experiment. So the built it right at the end of Heroes Square and then under one of the most trafficked roads in Budapest, now known as Embassy Row, since most foreign Embassy's are on this street. They tore up the road, built the tunnel and then just built the road right back over it. Part of the lack of planning was, how do you ever get the train out if you need to repair or replace it? Well, that eventually happened. They couldn't exactly tear up this now historic street, so they had to do it the hard way. The dissembled the entire train piece by piece and carried it out by hand. Then they rebuilt a new one back below.
After getting to the city square we visit Bobbi's University. It is a very beautiful part of the city. It is in one of the older, more historical areas. Its great to see old homes/villas just converted into useful buildings, like schools. The courtyard for his school was given a glass ceiling and turned into a library and let me say, I wish it was my library in college. We also grab lunch at the University (tasty and cheap!).We leave his school and wander around eventually finding our way
across the city back to the Palace. I wanted to get some great pictures of the city during the day. It is such an incredible view. I honestly think it is the best part of the city. We wander over to St. Mathews Cathedral next. This place is just amazing. On the hillside above the river and city, it seems closer to a fairy 
tale castle than a church. I swear they got the idea for Hogwarts from some of the structures around this castle.After getting my fill of photos, we decide to pack it in, both tired from 4 or 5 hours of walking around a good sized, but beautiful city. The rest of the night is fairly calm. Home cooked meal and I get a chance to get to know Rozi, the other roommate more.
Now Rozi is from Debrecen,
the second largest city in Hungary with a population of 200,000. (Budapest has 2 million and Hungary only has 10 million total).Now Rozi is a fascinating person. In my last post I mention she is fluent in 5 languages, Hungarian, English, Spanish, French and Italian. Oh, and she is learning German. I struggle with English alone.... I ask how she keeps up with it and she explains
that she speaks any when she can, reads books in the different languages, reads foreign newspapers and for her work she provides IT customer support in Italian and French (I think those are the two..I mean she speaks 5, don't hold it against me if I am wrong on which two). She also comes from a family of 12 (2 parents, 10 kids). 5 sons and 5 daughters. Already Rozi has made most of my life accomplishments look like the drawings a 5-year-old demands to be put on the fridge. Top it all off, her brothers are big gamers (video gamers for the fans out there). So not only did she know the incredibly nerdy games I referenced that my brothers and I spent arguably too much time playing, she admitted to playing them her self with her brothers. This pretty much solidified that Rozi is my new Hungarian BFF.Now the next few days are a little calmer, but that is another post.
Köszönöm! :)
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