Budapest

Budapest…or BootyFest as James liked to call it. It ended up becoming the group phrase for the weekend…it didn’t help that we saw a lot of inappropriately dressed girls that supported the name.

The week before Lindsey left for New Zealand, we wanted to take a little trip- so we looked up the cheapest flights on RyanAir and Budapest it was! We found a great little apartment in the Castle district…only slightly misleading… so we headed out!

Finding a place to stay can always be a bit of a nightmare…for example, this place looked awesome- it was advertised as an off branch of a hotel, sounds easy and accommodating, right? It was an apartment owned by 2 people. No hair dryer, the hot water lasted for only 1 person, no internet, and the power cut on us- frequently. As the Italian’s say, “Alora (Oh well)!” 

The most important rule we had to follow was to take our shoes off…he even provided slippers for us!

The owners were extremely nice! They gave us a several local places to eat in the surrounding area. The first night, we ate at this semi-hole in the wall, with amazing food. Let’s just say the Hungarians KNOW how to cook. I had this delicious paprika chicken with dumplings. We drank and ate until they basically asked us to leave! Hungarians don’t stay out as late apparently. Then we took a little stroll down by the river. On the opposite side, the parliament building stood- lit up for the world to see!! What a breath taking view!

 (I have way too many pictures of Katie up in my personal space...)

The next day, we walked. A lot.

The best part of the morning was getting on the subway. Katie had a stoller for Carson, and this subway station had NO way to get down except for the escalator. And this escalator was moving FAST. We ultimately caused a scene. The lady that worked there didn’t speak English, not one of us had ever taken a stroller down and escalator, and we were holding up the line. Perfect. It was decided that Katie would carry him down the broken one…just like using stairs right? So Katie starts carrying, and we hop on the ridiculously fast one and realize that this escalator is about a mile long…maybe not a mile- but REALLY long and really steep. I look up and don’t see Katie. Great. So we all get off, and get on the up escalator to meet this:

The Hungarian man from Texas!! Life Saver.

Lindsey took us on a Rick’s Steve’s tour around town. The tour accidentally started with a Starbucks run!

We went to an awesome WWII museum at The House of Terror, which was the Nazi Headquarters in Budapest. The exhibit was so incredible- very artistic and informative. At the beginning of each room, there was an informational pamphlet that explained the history of the room. There were rooms about torture, the prisoners, the lives of prisoners of upper, middle, and lower class, the voting system, the propaganda, and we even got to go down into the torture chambers.

 

Next up- the Turkish Baths. Originally, I thought it was going to be disgusting- lots of people in the same water…public. Sick. There are a lot of natural hot springs underneath the city, so the Turkish baths are still in use today. There are different pools that are different temperatures- there is a proper way to go from pool to pool, but we just hopped right in, threw the baby around a little bit, and worked up a good little appetite. The architecture was beautiful, it was clean, and not too crowded! The only down side was that Kaitlin and I could NOT for the life of us open our changing room door. The lady was not happy because we had to change “suites” aka closets. 

 

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The next day we were able to go the awesome market!! It is HUGE! Tons of meats, paprika, dried fruit, and langos! We searched hi and low for this Hungarian speciality- surprisingly much harder to find than I would have thought! It is a fried bread, with sour cream, and mozzarella cheese on top. Sounds weird. But AH-mazing. 

 Dried strawberries are my new favorite thing!

I loved wandering around looking at all of the little trinkets- I even bought some Hungarian Easter eggs- hand painted. Can't wait to put them out!

We rushed out of the market and raced down to the parliament building to get a tour- it was suppose to be pretty awesome...sadly, their government was in session, so all tours were closed. Lindsey was rather irritated because she had called ahead to ask if it was open, apparently we got bad information. We even tried to go early the next morning before we left...no such luck- the line was SO long!

The evening ended with a walk up to Castle Hill. It was like a quaint little village that overlooked the hustle and bustling city. We got some beautiful pictures!! 

Budapest was a blessing. We were able to get away from the craziness of Vicenza and the Army. We were able to walk around and discover a new place and be reminded of the world outside of the bubble we live in. I am so thankful to have wonderful traveling buddies! I mean, let's be honest- not everyone can travel together, and the fact that I have 3 awesome friends and we can travel together is huge!