Miss New Buda(pest)

whirlwind(ˈwəːlwɪnd/)noun: this past weekend in Budapest, in which I enjoyed great friends, lots of sights, and a medically worrisome volume of cheese. 

Here at Oxford, we're somewhat constrained in our travels, even given the greater flexibility of the British university schedule. That's not to say that we don't travel at all; just that we have to be careful in selecting places we can go, see, and conquer in only 3 day chunks of time over a weekend (with the exception of the long spring break, which will be addressed later on). 

As such, different groups of people occasionally gel around a common city and date and try to pack as much as possible into only a few days, and this past weekend was one such occurrence. 

 

Joe and I left later than the two other small groups with whom we'd rented an apartment, because I had a class I couldn't skip on Friday morning. The only flight late enough was out of the dreaded London Stansted airport, which requires a 4 hour marathon bus ride on top of any flight time and then transport from the arrival airport to destination accommodations, so to make a very long travel story short, I will only say that our 1:30 pm departure time from Oxford landed us at the doorstep of an historic apartment building in the foggy heart of Pest at about midnight Hungarian time.

As usual, our VRBO apartment didn't disappoint. There were seven of us, so we'd found a three bedroom place with two bathrooms and the option for a cot (which turned out to be a huge pop-up double bed), but were pleasantly surprised when we showed up to find fifteen-foot ceilings and large windows. Tired as we were, we still stayed up for a while to hear how much fun the earlier groups had been having, and what Hungarian cuisine they'd already inhaled, before we quickly sketched out plans for the next morning and flopped into bed. 

In our breakfast wanderings toward the bridge linking Pest to Buda (fun fact: they used to be separate cities, one on each side of the Danube, and the modern name is literally the two old cities' smashed together), we found a place called Cafe Jubilee that turned out to have a strangely British Victorian vibe about it, but also some of the largest and most delicious omelettes I've ever had. We then walked one of the three long bridges across the river, and stopped on the other side to take some pictures with the Parliament, which is the third largest government building in the world, in the background:

We then trekked up the hill to Fisherman's Bastion, a strategic lookout over the entire city with a large cathedral and beautiful views. Strangely, the foggy, grey day made Budapest seem even more beautiful, and more than a bit spooky and Gothic in a strange, central European way that felt perfectly right. 

We tried to tour the cathedral, but were prevented by a Hungarian wedding, so I only got a few photos of the outside of the church before we took a detour to the National Marzipan Museum.

That's right. National Marzipan Museum! For only about a pound, we could see all sorts of things made out of sugar, honey, and egg whites, including (but not limited to): the Hungarian Parliament, a lifesized figure of a former Hungarian queen, scenes from Snow White, Harry Potter, and other movies, an inexplicable cactus landscape, a map of Europe, and even (drum roll please) a wedding cake over 2 meters tall! For scale:

It was one of those weird and bizarre experiences in which I was unsure whether the existence of the museum or our attendance at it was actually more ridiculous, but I had a blast nonetheless...and we all got to use the bathroom for free, which is quite rare in this part of the world.

After our more hokey detour, we headed back onto the beaten tourist path by walking down to the grounds of Buda Castle, which has ruins from older settlements utilizing the strategic setting on the large hill, and further beautiful lookouts and fun statues of historic figures. Probably my favorite picture of the whole group was taken there, with the whole city in the background:

and I also got some great shots of the opposite side of the riverbank, with the creepy/Gothic/vampire feeling further enhanced by a fun setting I found on my camera:

We were then getting tired of walking and the omelettes were wearing off, so we walked down the hill and grabbed a cab back to the area near our apartment, where we'd heard there was a Hungarian food and drink festival going on. And man, was there! We feasted on a lunch of mulled wine, fried potatoes, cheese, and different breads, and the non-pescatarians in my group sampled more types of sausage than they could finish.









Although we were feeling decidedly sluggish after the carb and cheese-heavy lunch, we'd decided earlier to spend the afternoon at the famous baths on the other side of the city. I don't have any pictures, because I was afraid of offending any other bath-goers not keen on the idea of being bathing suit-clad in the background of my pictures, but the baths were lovely, built a vaguely Romanesque style and consisting of a maze-like network of different temperature pools interspersed with saunas, showers, and massage chambers. We spent a full two hours exploring them and dipping in different pools, and I went in the hottest sauna I've ever seen (80 degrees Celsius!!) before we were sufficiently relaxed and prune-y and had to shower off so we could move on to our next event.

My other friend Rachel had been looking up various venues for wine-tasting, and stumbled upon one that received the most positive reviews by far of any wine tasting in the city. It was located down in the catacombs under the Budapest Hilton, a setting dating back to the days when it was a monastery, and we quickly realized why it was so highly rated. Not only was it cozy, intimate, and very cheap, but our host was amazing, and the selection of wines was unique, completely Hungarian, and delicious! After the walking, baths, and wine, we were all completely relaxed, and spent over two hours talking and tasting and laughing. At the end, our host even let us sample some Hungarian palinka, which is a schnapps-like fruit liquor served in these interesting glasses:

When we finally mustered up the energy to leave, we cabbed to one of the many kebab stands and feasted on schwarma (and falafel, in my case) for a good and cheap dinner. We spent a few hours at a "ruin pub", a Hungarian phenomenon in which an old building is barely restored and then filled with thousands of random objects, making for a fun experience both in exploring and talking with friends. When our eyelids started to really droop, we made the short walk home and then a pact to sleep in the next morning before venturing back out.






Three of our friends had to leave the next day, so only Joe, Miles, Rachel, and I were left to explore. Our "lie-in", as the Brits would say, went a bit overboard, and we didn't end up leaving the apartment until after 11. We first struck out looking for brunch, and ended up at a bakery where I ate a cinnamon roll that was literally the largest I'd ever seen. We then walked over to the Parliament, intending to take a tour, and realized we'd have to follow along with a French one, or wait an hour for the English iteration. Given my high school experience and Miles's time in France (and most importantly, our impatience), we decided to go for it, and I was so glad that we did. Not only is the Parliament large and intricate on the outside; the entire interior is gilded and worked and decorated and painted in every possible nook and cranny. To give you an idea, here's the grand entrance staircase:

Surprisingly, we were able to understand most of the hour-long tour (or at least, I think we did), and enjoyed even the unintelligible parts....gorgeous architecture is fairly universal!



We all wanted to work out and then have a bit of a siesta, so we headed back to the apartment and did some yoga before changing back into our warm clothes and venturing out to walk around a bit before dinner. We'd noticed the night before that Budapest was lovely in the dark, with all of its bridges and beautiful buildings lit up and visible from the river. We explored Margaret's Island, a large one in the middle of the Danube that gave us lovely views of both sides, and then walked back to take more pictures on the other side of the main bridge. There were many, but these are undoubtedly my favorites:

We ate dinner at a small cafe I'd found online and picked on somewhat of a limb, but it turned out to be absolutely delicious. I had a combination of goat cheese and zucchini made into almost a latke that's apparently very traditional Hungarian, and most of the others went for goulash and other hearty meat dishes.




Rachel, who's normally very good with finding activities (and previously had been more than vindicated with the wine tasting find), had booked us to do a puzzle house, which I was initially very confused/hesitant about, but willing to try. These puzzle houses are apparently very popular in Hungary, and range from rooms with puzzles to full-on games that require solving riddles and discovering keys in order to escape from a house. I was initially worried that we'd somehow volunteered ourselves for a "Saw"-like experience, but my fears were completely unfounded. The one we had stumbled upon turned out to be more of the latter type of puzzle house, but it took us a full five minutes of our allotted hour to realize that we were supposed to start the moment we entered. We were all a bit confused at first, but then we ended up getting very into the entire game, searching through rooms for stamps, keys, and clues that let us find more keys to open locks that contained even more keys! I can't even describe the intricate process of moving through the rooms, but by the end of the hour, we were having a blast and actually hugely disappointed when we didn't completely finish in the time given. I can't fully describe it, but suffice it to say that if you ever find yourself in Hungary, you should get a group together and try one out.

We then decided that a lazy night at home was in order to round out our leisurely day, and watched several episodes of the show "Arrested Development" before falling into bed for our last night.

Rachel and Miles left early in the morning, but since Joe and I had a later flight, we decided to go see St. Stephen's Basilica, the one last item remaining on my Hungarian bucket list. It's a beautiful and very opulent church, done in the Orthodox style, with many a dome and mosaic, and a lovely square out in front:

When our necks were sore from craning to look at even more gold and colored tile, we wandered back out into the street and walked up the riverbank toward our apartment, looking for the one very last thing I'd wanted to see. It looks very innocuous, and if you were walking along and unaware of what to look for, you may well miss it completely:

It's called the "Shoes on the Danube Promenade", and is a solemn and beautiful monument to Hungarian Jews killed during WWII. The sixty pairs of iron shoes are meant to commemorate a group of people that were being harbored in the Swiss embassy, until it was stormed by a death squad and they were brought down to the river and shot, their bodies left to float away in the Danube. I'd never heard of the incident before my trip to Hungary and had only stumbled across the description of the monument in some peripheral reading, but going to see it, I was struck by its power. In the middle of a pretty frivolous weekend of eating and sightseeing, it was jarring but probably necessary to be brought back to earth and remember the darker side of Hungarian history. Although it's definitely not a happy addendum, I wanted to add it here so that you could get an idea of the full experience of Budapest, at least as I saw it.

After a heavy ending, we only had time to gather our things and head to the airport, for another travel marathon that put us back in Oxford by midnight once more.

This week is a crazy one, since I'm jetting off again on Friday to head to Malta for another travel weekend. Next week's entry should hopefully include some sun and sand, but I can at the very least promise a break in the Oxford monotony!