" It's so hard to leave- until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world."
-John Green, Paper Town
After 3 days in Vienna we set off for Budapest (pronounced Buda-PeSHt), which is only a 3 hour bus ride from Vienna. We had one stop on the way and there was this truck driver who was also taking a break. He had a stove and a fridge under his truck. It was so cool.
The metro stations in Budapest were beautiful.
I feel really really wealthy when I can carry around money in denominations of a thousand.
We rented an apartment while in Budapest and it was in a really pretty building.
Budapest Opera House
St. Stephen's Basilica, named after King Stephen. King Stephen is thought of as the founder of the kingdom of Hungary and brought Christianity to the country.
This part of the church just really reminded me of the Wisconsin State Capitol.
Hungary was formed by 7 nomadic tribes originally from the Ural Mountains in modern day Russia. This is why Hungarian is not connected to any of the languages of the surrounding countries. However Hungarian shares 11 words with Finnish, but other than that Hungarian is a language on it's own, not belonging to any language group.
Hungary has a crazy history of other people coming into Hungary and liking it so much that they "forget" to leave (the exact words of our tour guide). The one and only battle ever won by the Hungarians was the Siege of Belgrade in 1456 against the Ottomans. During the Siege the pope ordered every church bell to be rung at noon to call believers to pray for the defenders of the city. However in many countries news of the victory arrived before the order did. So to this day Catholic church's ring their bells at noon to celebrate the victory of the Hungarians against the Ottomans.
Apparently this is what Mary and Jesus would look like if they were African.
The first nation to come and forget to leave was the Ottoman's. Then the Hungarians asked the Austrian Empire for help to oust the Ottomans. Then the Austrians "forgot" to leave. Obviously this was not exactly what the Hungarians had in mind so after a couple of revolts the Austrian's made a compromise. In 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Empire was born. Then WWI broke out. Unfortunately the empire fought on the side of Germany and not only lost the war, but Hungary also lost a large percentage of their land. Before the war the empire consisted of parts of present day Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Romania, and Russia.
The Hungarians were extremely angry about losing their land and so when the Nazis came promising to get their land back they readily agreed. But unfortunately Hungary again chose the wrong side and because they sided with the Nazis this gave the Soviet Union room to again over stay their welcome. The last Soviet troops left Hungary in 1990.
A lot of the Pest side of the city is full of beautiful crumbling old buildings.
This was a super creepy second storey apartment that had mannequins hanging out of windows.
First Hungarian meal of chicken Paprikash with dumplings. I finally got to fulfill my lifelong dream of saying I was Hungry in Hungary. Also who knew that Paprika is the national spice and pretty much in every Hungarian dish. Also I may just be really stupid but did you all know that paprika is made out of peppers, and that paprika is pepper in German? Let me just say that I was super surprised to find these things out.
The city is full of cool statues. When the Soviet Union was in charge they filled the city with statues and monuments to the greatness of Communism. So when Hungary was finally free they decided to fill the city with their own statues. This one is a really cute statue of a little princess.
It is apparently good luck to rub her knees.
The Buda side of the city is very hilly and is the wealthy part of the city. On top of the hill is Buda castle. This castle was built as a weekend residence for the Empress Maria Teresa. The whole castle was destroyed in WWII. The outside of the castle was rebuilt but the inside was never rebuilt to it's former glory. Today the palace houses museums.
This is the chain bridge which was the first permanent bridge connecting Buda and Pest.
This is the Hungarian "White House"
And while we were there we got to see the President of Malta (the man in the suit walking down the red carpet) I know you are all jealous. Truth be told he didn't really look like he knew what he was supposed to be doing in this welcome ceremony
And there was this awesome security guard who smiled creepily for Niklas' photo.
The one thing that separates Hungarian churches from any other Catholic Churches, the really pretty tiled roofs.
The first day we were in Budapest it rained and snowed and was really really cold. So that night we decided to go to one of the famous Budapest thermal baths. The place was really cool except that we had no idea what we were supposed to do. There were not any signs in English so we were slightly confused.
There were indoor pools, outdoor pools, steam rooms, saunas, and thermal baths.
We also had these awesome cabin like things to change in.
And then there was SUN!!!!
I don't think there could have been three happier people at this moment.
This is the Hungarian Parliament which is basically an exact copy of the British Parliament with a dome on top.
We also visited the Budapest Synagogue.
According to Jewish tradition cemeteries are not supposed to be near a synagogue because there is supposed to be a separation of the living and dead. But when the Soviets finally came in an liberated the Budapest Ghetto the dead were just piled in the streets. Since fighting was still going on around the ghetto there was no way for the bodies to be buried in the usual cemetery so an exception was made and the garden of the Synagogue was made into a cemetery
There is also a really moving Holocaust Memorial outside of the Synagogue. The Tree of Life Memorial was funded by the American Actor Tony Curtis.
There are 4,000 steel leaves on the tree inscribed with the 600,000 names of the Hungarian Jews who were murdered by the Nazi's.
The trunk also forms an upside down Menorah.
Seeing as how I am not Jewish and so did not really know the purpose of these things. I just thought they were super fancy overhead pointers that elementary school teachers use.
I found this awesome pouch of apple sauce at the grocery store along with a 2 liter bottle of peach iced tea. I think that I belong in a place that values peach iced tea as much as Hungary does.
This is Hero's Square, it has statues of all of the important historical figures from Hungary's past.
Unforunately they have yet to put up a statue of Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik's Cube, yes he is from Budapest. Apparently he still lives in Budapest today.
One of the coolest buildings in Budapest was the Vajdahunyad Castle. The castle was built in 1896 as part of the millennium celebration of 1,000 years since the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. The castle is composed of multiple parts of famous buildings throughout Hungary Especially Hunyad Castle, or Dracula's Castle, in Transylvania.
I think the castle was so cool because it was such a mix of styles.
This really creepy statue is an anonymous notary of a Hungarian King. Not really sure why you would make a statue of an anonymous notary but whatever. There also was apparently a statue of Bela Lugosi, the man who first played Dracula and who happens to be Hungarian, but we missed that one.
And then we went on a night cruise on the Danube. Budapest knows how to light up a city.
The Hungarian Parliament was just stunning at night.
And then we were finally able to tour the Parliament.
The Hungarian Crown Jewels have been through a lot. At one point they were even buried in the woods. From 1945 until 1978 the Hungarian Crown Jewels were held for safe keeping in Fort Knox.
When the Parliament building was built Hungary had a bicameral or legislature with two houses; a House of Lords and a House of Commons. Today there is a unicameral system so tours are allowed in the old House of Lords.
And on our final day we climbed this giant hill.
But in the end the view was totally worth the pain of climbing the billions of steps to get to the top.
And you can't tell but yes this is an American sitting on a Russian gun thing eating an ice cream cone.
And we finally made it! This is the one statue that is left from the Soviets. After the Soviets left they covered this statue with a sheet for a couple of days and then had a new unveiling and renamed the statue the Liberty Statue.
They sold wooden swords and shields on top of the hill and this kid was just too cute.
Budapest was an awesome city. I love the old architecture and the history. Unfortunately I had to leave this warm sunny paradise filled with peach iced tea and return to the cold arctic of Copenhagen. But winter can't last forever. And as I found out this morning while I was skyping with Mahri, I only have 89 days left here in Copenhagen. I am not sure how I feel about that yet. I am excited to go home but at the same time I know I will miss the freedom that I have here.
