My Adventure in Budapest So Far

So, my avid readers (Mom and Martie for sure - Mrs. Jantsch gets credit too for comments) might be thinking "where is an update on Hungary," so here it finally is!

I got into Hungary around 8pm on Monday. I walked off the plane expecting to see my good friend Matt Shaw, who was picking me up and so no one. I thought to my self "oh crap, Matt forgot....he completely forgot...I am now in a foreign city, with no cell phone, no internet, at night, no knowledge of the city, no phone number for my friends or address where they live....crap." Matt is a great guy, but this is just one of those things I could see him sitting at home and going "hum...its Monday night....Monday night.....OH CRAP." Luckily for me I was wrong, Matt just had his own adventure getting to the airport (apparently they built a mall on top of the last bus station leaving him confused on how to get to the airport).

Matt and I ride the bus and then metro back to his fiances (Edit - pronounced ee-dit)place where I will be crashing (he is living in their living room until his apartment is ready). I get there, expecting a couch to sleep on and instead Edit's brother (a roommate) has gone to stay with his other brother and given me his room. This is way to generous, but they refused to let me decline for the couch. I have planning to do on how to repay them. I also get to meet one of Edit's close friends and other roommate, Rozi. She speaks English very well, but is kind of a slacker because she is only fluent in 5 languages (English, Hungarian, French, Italian and Spanish). I mean, anyone can do that right?

We chat, have dinner and call it an early night. Matt and Edit had work the next day. Edit's brother is a history student as a University in Budapest and will be giving me the tour of the city the next day.

I wake up around 10am and meet Edit's brother, Bobbi, only to realize we met in Kansas when he visited Edit there. We both had completely forgotten until we met again. This made the intro much easier as him and I had talked a lot about our passion for military history (his study) when we first met.

We start by taking the metro into the central station and just decided to walk around the city and get a feel for it. Budapest is an interesting city. The building designs are very, very similar to Paris. Additionally, battle after battle have been fought in the city (Turkish Invasion, Revolt against the Habsburgs, WW2, revolt against Russia, etc), leaving a random mix at times of architectural styles showing the era that building was rebuilt in. Additionally, you can still see the damage done to plenty of buildings by gun fire, artillery or tanks rolling through the streets over the past 100 years. You may see a 300 year old building and attached to it is a 60 year old one, because the previous building was bombed and destroyed in WW2.

While wondering, we stumble across and incredible cathedral, St. Steven's Church. St. Steven was the founder of Hungary and father to the first king. This place is just gorgeous, even though I have seen about a dozen churches in the last week. You can even see St. Steven's right hand, persevered in a box inside. They have a strict no high-fiving policy as I found out with a few awkward stares...okay not really, but I thought about it.

We moved on from the church to walk down the Danube river which divides the city. There used to be two cities Buda and Pest, now one Budapest. Buda is traditionally the more wealthy part, home to the old palace (from days of kings). It is also on a hill, making it safer than the Danube floods every so often. Pest is completely flat, letting it get fully flooded more than a few times in the last few hundred years. Bobbi is a great tour guide, as he speaks English very well and knows so much about the history of the city and country. He is explaining the history from start to present, while also talking about the culture. And I am loving it. One of my favorite quotes is "In American you mark your turning points by great victories, but in Hungary we mark them by great disasters." Hungary has not been so lucky...in about any war.

After our stroll we meet up with Matt getting off work and decide to go eat at a local favorite, MARIKA NÉNI (pretty much means Aunt Marika's). I will have an entirely separate post on this. I loved the place. One of the craziest, best places I have ever eaten. Edit joins us there and we decide to cross the Danube post work and go to the Palace for an amazing view of the city at night. Budapest is so crazy because half of it is so high up on a hill and the other completely flat, but it was amazing. I had to go back the next day to take daytime photos.

We finally roll home and I somehow convince everyone we should watch one of my all time favorite movies, Sphere. I don't know how it came up or why we started watching it but we did. After a quick torrent (no repercussions for downloading copyrighted material in Hungary) we enjoyed a great film. I will explain the copyright policy in another post.

Finally, worn out, we decide to hit the hay and call it a night. Tomorrow I see more sights!