Monday, December 14, 2009

Budapest

Before going into detail, let me tell you that I LOVE BUDAPEST.  I think I say this after every city I visit, but this is my favorite city.  Ok, now that I've proclaimed my love, I'll tell you about my trip.

Who: Me, Ali, Alisha, Mariana, and Molly (all au pairs)

There we are (Mariana, Molly, Me, Ali, Alisha)


Food:  There were two things that were exceptional...no three.  Paprika, cakes, and the prices.  The goulash was phenomenal (made with paprika...their paprika is REALLY sweet).  The cakes were numerous, and best of all, mostly chocolate.  And the prices were out of this world.  Especially considering I live near Geneva.  We ate at a very nice restaurant, getting wine and dessert and big dishes for about 20 euros.  And this was in a touristy area.  But more on prices later...


How about now?
Prices:  We saw AMAZING ballet in the Hungarian State Opera House (STUNNING) for about 4 euros.  I saw crappy ballet in a crap auditorium in Switzerland for about 22 euros.  I got a massage for 12 euros, hostel for 7 euros a night, fast food for under 4 euros, taxi ride to airport for 4 euros, and Wild Boar Stew (goulash...to the left) for 10 euros at a nice restaurant.






Money:  It took forever to get used to the prices.  Basically, 1 euro=280 HUF.  And even though I knew this, I nearly peed my pants when they told me it was going to cost 5,000 florins for a Taxi.

50 euros=13,400 HUF
History lesson: Budapest is two cities.  Buda and Pest.  They are separated by the Danube River.  Buda is a little older and more historic.  Pest has more things to do.  I think I like Buda a little bit more than Pest...but not much.

Buda is closest, Pest is on the other side of the river.  Tall building on left in Pest is the Parliament Building, tall building in right-center is St. Stephan's Basilica (our hostel was next door), and bridge on right is Chain Bridge

Thermal Baths: This is my best story of the weekend.  I could make this an entire new blog, but I'm not going to.  I've known that Budapest is somewhat famous for its Thermal Baths.  So this was high on our list of things to do.  With several to choose from, we settled on Gillert thanks to the recommendation of a couple of American tourists.
The baths were set in a gorgeous old building (to the left).  And this is were the confusion starts.  It took a little bit of time to find the entrance.  Then we were bombarded with signs in Hungarian and English with different services and where to go, but nothing telling us the basic info.  We just got in line and paid what we were supposed to.  We walked into the lobby area, and had no idea where to go.  Knowing that I wouldn't be changing with the girls, I headed off in my own direction trying to find out what to do.  I found an Irishman who was equally confused.  We finally made it to the locker room.  Then after some more wondering...this time, half-naked, we found the coed swimming pool.  That's what you see in my picture below.  On the other side of the pool, there was a coed hot tub as well.
Then on each side of the pool, there were single-sex areas.  Walking into that was like walking into a Hugh Hefner dream...if he dreamt about old fat naked Hungarians.  So now I had the option of sitting in the saunas and hot tubs with these men or sitting in the coed section with a chance of seeing a good looking girl amongst the crowd.

This wasn't over, however.  I've heard about the massages at these places.  And for some reason, a massage by a 300-lbs Hungarian sounded interesting to me.  So I got my 3,000 HUF and paid the only guy who spoke English (yes, 300 lbs.).  He took me into a cramped side room and tells me to get naked.  No problem.  I laid on the bed expecting him to come in and close the door.  Like most professors, I guess he prefers an open-door policy.  No big deal.  So now this huge guy is going to town on me.  It takes about 20 minutes before he uses any kind of oil.  Weird.  And he basically does the same motion for the entire 30 minutes.  Weird.  And the whole time he is yelling at what I assume is a co-worker (yelling because of distance).  Weird.  Then this man (who sounded like a Hungarian version of Barry White) comes into the room and sticks a foil wrapper in the face of my masseuse.  He smells it and places it on his "work bench."  What was in this wrapper?  I have no idea.  All I know is that the room started to smell like hot cabbage.  I'm guessing it was a sandwich of some sort.  Weird.  Finally it was over.  Did it feel good?  Sure.  Not great, but good.


House of Terror:  Awesome museum.  Its basically about the Nazi and Communist occupation of Budapest since WWII and how oppressive it was to the people.  The coolest part was how the museum was set up.  It was the former headquarters of both parties and many rooms were made to look exactly how they were.  Even the basement which held political prisoners was intact.  Seeing rooms smaller than the size of coffins and gallows in dark, damp cornered rooms was silencing.  Its hard to describe this museum because I couldn't take pictures.  I'm telling you, if you go to Budapest, go to this museum.

Weather:  We never saw the sun.  Rain on the first day and beautiful snow on the last.  Cold and dreary the rest of the time.  Not really that cold.

American Embassy:  Roaming the streets one night, we came up to a group of policemen standing behind barricades.  On one barricade was a sign of a camera with a line through it.  We looked around wondering what it was talking about but couldn't figure it out.  Then we saw an American Flag on a building and forgot about the sign.  In our excitement in seeing the good ol' USA, I grabbed my camera.  The policemen quickly stopped me.  "No pictures."
"Of what?  I'm just taking a picture of that flag."
"That's the American Embassy and due to terrorist threats, you can't take a picture of the building."
They were nice about it.  I told them that I was an American.  I asked if I could take a picture on the building with my passport in it.
"No."

Language:  Most people spoke English pretty well.  And if they didn't, they knew someone else working who did.

 We became 3rd graders...relying only on pictures

People:  Very nice people in Budapest.  It seemed like they were genuinely interested to talk to us Americans.  And they were happy to help us.  We couldn't figure out how to use a pay-phone.  So I flagged this random guy down and he called the place for us with his own phone.  Super nice and down-to-earth people.




1 comment:

  1. YES! I am so looking forward to the rest of the travel posts! THe picture of the pool and opera house are gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete