Budapest-ilicious-ness

I'm baaaaaack. Once again, I apologize for the long hiatus. I wish I had a legitimate excuse, but the only one I have is that the extreme heat has caused equally extreme laziness. I'll get into that later.

This post is going to focus on the amazingness that is Budapest, Hungary. I had the pleasure of going last weekend. Honestly, if you would have asked me a year or so ago where Hungary was on a map, or what its capital was, I probably would have said "who cares". What I'm realizing now is that eastern Europe (non-EU countries) are totally getting the shaft. If you don't know Budapest, you should. It's worth knowing.

We left on a Saturday morning at 7 am. It was a girls trip. A Canadian, a Brit, and some Americans. It was my first time on a inter-country train. Motion censored glass doors...how fancy! Here's a pic...everyone was sleepy:)


The country side of Austria and Hungary was rolling hills...similar to what you would see in Wisconsin i think. Yet the little towns we passed on the way were what really struck me. It was one of those "where the F in the world am I?" moments.

When we got to the train station, I was in dire need of water. I walked over to the snack stand, and pointed to the water. The lady with heinous blue eyeliner handed me the water and said "300". Confusion, attempted sign language, and frustration led to a pissed off Hungarian worker and one frightened American. Finally I just gave her 2 euro and left the scene before she killed me...the exchange just needed to end. At this point I was thinking that Hungarian people are scary and have little tolerance for English-speaking tourists (luckily, I am proven wrong). We didn't realize that Hungary wasn't in the EU and actually had their own currency. Luckily, there was a currency exchange in the station. What does 30 euro get you? I think about 6500 forint. I had a 5000 bill. I know its only like 20 bucks but it felt...ballin'!

This is Morgen and Linda with their 10,000 bills.

Budapest was beautiful. I'm not going to list a bunch of adjectives because that's dumb. The weather was hot and sunny, making the city look its best. Enjoy my pictures on Picasa:

Budapest

If you haven't noticed, I like lists. So I am going to list some things that I did/noticed/saw/etc in Budapest:

-I tried my very first Shandy, aka Gosser Zitron, at an outdoor cafe in Budapest. It's beer and lemonade mixed together essentially. It was good, but would have been better cold. But that's just Europe for you.


-We saw a lot of monks. Using cell phones.

-FUN FACT: Budapest is split in two. One side of the river is Buda and the other side is Pest. COOOOOOL!!

-Fashion street is fashionable, thank god. If you're gonna call a street 'fashion street' you have to live up to those expectations.

-They like lions and burger king. yeah.

-At the risk of sounding like a 5 year old, I kind of re-awakened the childhood dream of getting married in a castle when I saw THIS-->


-We opted out of taking a tram up the hill. We decided to hike. It was worth it.

-Gelato is so good. But I already knew this. What isn't good is dealing with their currency. It's hard to think of small purchases in terms of "thousands". Stress was caused over paying/splitting bills.

-Morgen likes big hats.

-There was a gay pride parade. Budapest ain't no San Francisco. The riot police were out in large numbers and streets were shut down.

-We visited the famous Hungarian baths. Budapest is built over natural springs, so it has these pools with natural water that is holistic. Hungarian men show off their 'bodies' in speedos, though I would have rather not seen some of what I saw.


So I am too lazy to write all the details about everything...hence this list is ending. Budapest is great and I would suggest seeing it for yourself if you ever get the opportunity. The girls who I went there with were great, and it definitely brought us closer together. Twas a success if I ever knew one!

T