Vienna Waits For You!: Hungary in Budapest

Last week, I had the opportunity to go to Budapest, Hungary. It is a beautiful city divided by the Danube River into two parts: Buda-the hill side with the castle and old city and Pest-the flat side. It was a great experience especially compared to last time. Last time it was freezing, so cold I wanted to just stay in the Hotel! But last week the weather was beautiful. We took about a 3 hour bus ride from Vienna and arrived in Budapest in the afternoon. We got a very American hotel which was nice and then we had a tour of the city. The first night, I enjoyed a traditional Hungarian dish....goulash! It was good and warm with lots of spices! Then enjoyed a walk on the Buda side because our hotel was on the Buda side.

Thursday we had another tour and this included the Jewish part of Pest. We went and saw the largest Synagogue in Europe and it is so beautiful. The architect was actually a Catholic and so it had a few things that weren't traditional but it was so amazing. After the synagogue, we went to a jewish museum and saw many Jewish artifacts. It was a very neat experience. After our tour, we were taken back to the Hotel and there we regrouped. We made a list of everything we wanted to see and then mapped it out.

We walked around all of Budapest seeing Heros' Square, Opera House and The House of Terror. The House of Terror was a museum dedicated to telling the story of Budapest days during Communism. It was a scary place because it was the headquarters used by the Communist party to hold prisoners and torture people. We were able to go into the actually cells and rooms that the prisoners stayed in. And all over Budapest there are reminders of Communism. Buildings still have damage from bullets and bombings. It amazes me to think that Communism was still affecting the Hungarian people when I was born! But being in Budapest, it was great to see how they kept their culture alive during those terrible days.

Another highlight was seeing the Parliament building. It was not easy to get in because they only sell so many tickets. We had to arrive at 8:00am to get tickets but the first day we did it they didn't have any more tickets but our second time around we did get tickets. The building is built in the neo-Gothic style and unlike any other building I have seen.

I also had amazing food in Budapest. One restaurant we happened upon while walking around the Buda side was so amazing. It was very traditional and I enjoyed turkey stuffed with cheese and nutmeg with mashed potatoes....very good! There were seven of us in our little group and it was so fun because our bill totaled 16000 Forints. It was so funny because it took us like ten minutes to just get the right amount and the waiter came like three times and we would have to tell him we weren't ready yet. He laughed!