Budapest (Day Three)

All right, going to keep this blog somewhat short because my goal is to try to get to sleep somewhere between 10 and 11. Seems like a worthy cause, we even came in early to do this. This also might be contingent on whether or not our clothes are clean.

We had a late start today, but instead of leaving at 12, we left at 11:30. I guess that's an improvement of some sort. We were actually up a lot earlier today, but since we switched to the Africa room, we had to clean up the mess that we made in the India room. That said, the Africa room is really nice. It's very bright, a lot of yellows, and a little more spacious than the other one. Good times.

Also, Happy Birthday Crasher!

We went out and decided that we needed a little more money, so we took some out. ...Pretty straight forward. Then, we jumped on the Metro again and made our way over to Buda. Buda is a lot more hilly than Pest is, so we had quite the sweaty climb. It was also significantly hotter today and we had no rain to cool us down. Andrew was happy (I say that sarcastically) because it reminded him of the time I almost made everyone go on a 10 km hike to see a shamanist temple.

We climbed up the hill and made our way to the Fisherman's Bastion. A lot of things told me that I should see it, but nothing actually ever explained what it was exactly so I would suggest wikipediaing it and learning something new. What we did find was that this place had an amazing view of the Danube and the other half of the city. We decided to stop at the cafe that overlooked this view and grab a couple of sodas to cool off. It was nice. With the exception of this hostel though, the service here in Hungary definitely has not been the best. Service at this hostel here is very, very good though.

We climbed up the hill a little longer and then walked down a large street full of touristy shops on our way to the Buda Castle/Palace. Mia and I ended up getting Hungarian secret boxes that seem like they are going to be very difficult to carry around with us. They are very cool, however. You can wiki that as well if you would like. If that's on wikipedia.

We made our way down to the Buda Castle, but before we went in, Andrew and Gianni decided to have a contest. They had two bronze signs that talked about how this site was a UNESCO World Heritage site (written in English and Hungarian). They were very hot from sitting under the sun. Therefore, Andrew and Gianni decided to see who could keep their hand on it the longest. They both ended the contest at the same time, but were temporarily branded with facts about the Buda Castle.

After that, Mia and I went down to look at the castle while Gianni and Andrew bought ice creams. They have a number of museums inside now, most of which are free, but we decided to just look at the gift shop and sit outside on the steps of the palace next to a group of Korean tourists. We stayed there for a while (Andrew fell asleep on some important-looking statue) and then made our way down.

Once down, we walked across the Chain Bridge and almost got killed by about one thousand bikers. We made our way to a park and hung out there for a while. Andrew bought this silly soccer ball at a store earlier today, so he and Gianni played soccer with it for a while. Meanwhile, I made some futile attempt at trying to find a way to get to Statue Park. It failed, so we decided to go to the Terror Museum instead.

The Terror Museum was very interesting. They talked about the communist and fascist rule over Hungary and what happened there. It was a pretty museum, but instead of writing anything on the wall, they handed us a lot of sheets of paper that eventually amounted to the size of a book. Mia also got into a fight with the people there because we thought they overcharged us. Other than that, it was a very nice museum.

Next stop was food since we hadn't really eaten since our free breakfast. We ate at this place called Menza, so we could sample some Hungarian cuisine. Very good food. Mia and I tried goulash. Now I think Mia is obsessed with it.

Then we took the subway back. We are here now and are going to stress and pack shortly.