Weekend in Budapest!

Another great weekend in foreign lands!! Friday morning Allie, Hillary, Paola, Liz, Kristin, Robin, Nick, Demarcus, Patrick and I woke up super early (5am) to catch a 6:30 bus to Budapest. The bus ride was 7 hours long so we got to sleep a lot. We arrived in Hungary around 3:30 and found our hostel in no time. It was a little ways from the bus stop but we were able to find our way easily. The hostel was owned by a guy a little older than us and it was a small flat which was very nice. The beds were not super comfortable but thats what you get when you pay $9 a night for a room. The picture of the room is the room all the girls stayed in both nights. But the first night there were only 5 beds avaliable for 7 of us. Robin and I ended up staying in the same type of room in a different hostel with the guys from Union who also came to Budapest with us. On Friday night we walked around the city a bit and found an outdoor bar to eat at. Since the metros closed at 11pm the girls went back to their hostel and Robin, the guys and I walked around a bit more and saw a few sites at night. The picture here is the Buda Palace. We then went back to the hostel to find a cool bar or club to go to. We ended up meeting the other kids staying in the hostel who were from Austria and Wisconsin. All of us went to this old truck station that had been turned into a bar/club and it was really fun! They had Foosball and pool tables, a bar area, dance floor and places to sit and hang out. It was a really cool atmosphere but VERY smoky, my hair still smells... It was a very late night but Robin and I got up early and showered and snuck out to get back to the girls hostel. All the girls met up at the market were we look around a bunch. There were many souvenir type things to buy along with meat, produce, and linens. This market is very famous in Budapest becasue of the cheap prices. My lunch that I got there (pork, onions and potato mix thing) looked delicious in the pot but was not very good at all and it was served kind of cold. It was not a satisfying meal. I tried to make up for it by getting the apple and cinnamon strudel that is also something to try at the market but that again was not the greatest. It was not the worst I have had but I still think Mom's apple pie is the best!! The picture to the left is of Robin and Kristin in the market. It was three floors and the building took up about two blocks. The shopping here was great prices but the food was not that good. Guess I know I don't like Hungarian food. After the market we headed to the Szechenyi Gyogyfurdo which is one of the most popular swimming and bathing areas in the city. The water for these baths and pools comes from about a kilometer underground from a spring. There were outdoor and indoor bath and we went in both. The indoor baths were more hot tub temperatures 38 degrees Celsius and the outdoor ones were about 32 degrees. One of the outdoor pools had a whirlpool which was really fun. There was so much to do here that we were not able to do or see. There are tanning areas on the roof of the complex, bars, a lap pool, saunas, mens and womens thermal tubs, massages, all different facial treatments. Basically you could spend all day here getting treatments and swimming. It was a very different experience and if your even in Budapest you should definitely find one. They are all over the city and are open year round. After the baths we walked around the area and the city more. We found Heroes Square where the Millennium Memorial is. This is a site with statues of the leaders of the seven tribes that founded Hungary in the 9th century and other outstanding figures of Hungarian history. The construction of the memorial was started when the one thousandth anniversary was celebrated (in 1896), but it was finished until 1929. After Heroes Square we saw the Vajdahunyad Castle then went back to the main part of the city and found the Budapest Great Synagogue (Dohany utcai Zsinagoga). We were not able to go in becasue of it being Saturday, the Sabbath. Unfortunately we were not able to see the tree of life which is a memorial of the 600.000 martyrs who were victims of the holocaust. It is a sliver willow tree where every leaf has the name of a victim. After the synagogue we went back to our hostel to change and get dinner and make plans with the guys for the night. We found this great restaurant on our street where sadly we didn't get any traditional food but it was still good. On our way to get to the guys hostel it started to pour and we were all without rain coats and umbrellas, oops. Also on the way we found The Museum of Applied Arts which was very pretty at night. The green roof was really different but beautiful. We ended up finding the bar that was suggested to us by a friend of Patrick's from Budapest but it turned out to be a very upscale place with locals all older than us and very dressed up. Jeans and a nice shirt was way too under dressed so we all left becasue it was not our thing and ended up back at the same club we went to the night before. It was another fun night in the city. The next morning we packed our stuff and decided to site see more in the rain. We walked to the sites and were able to see Parliament (1st picture), Buda Palace(2nd picture), Matthias Church (3rd pic but only of the back of the church, they were doing construction on the front), and the Szechenyi Chain Bridge(in background with me).

After the site seeing the sun finally came out and it turned into a nice day. We headed back to the bus station and caught our 4:15 bus. I slept the whole way back to catch up on some much needed sleep. We got home at 11:45 and just in time to catch the last metro back to the dorm. Another great weekend!!!