Becks visits Budapest

Monday, Me: "have any plans for next weekend?"
Ruth: "no, why" "'cause i was thinking about going to Budapest."
As we were falling asleep Wednesday, Ruth asked "is there anything that would keep you from going this weekend?"
"No, but my KWB project is due Friday. But if we can finish it tomorrow and go Friday/Saturday..."
   Thursday evening I left the Zeichensaal at 9.30 with the KWB project finished.
Ruth: "I'm not going to lecture tomorrow. Budapest?"
And so began the adventure...
   By now the train system is routine for me. Get up at 6.00, leave for the station by 7.00, train leaves at 7.25. Arrive in Vienna at 10.00. I was a little slow pulling things together and we were both running on around 6 hours of sleep, but we parked our bikes and bought our tickets with plenty of time to spare. Four hours later the landscape flattened out and the announcements started coming in Magyar, Deutsch, and English- our first minutes in Hungary! We snagged a visitor's guide (German, they were out of English) from the info booth at the main train station and stepped out into the bustling streets of Pest. (Click read more)

   We had a rough idea of where to go and pointed ourselves towards Andrássy Út, one of the main boulevards. Even along the tree-shaded sidewalks it was rather toasty (80°) and after pulling 10,000 Hungarian Forints out of an ATM we were pretty set on finding lunch. BarLadino was just the ticket- Great food (I enjoyed my salad and bacon-johgurt sauced Hungarian Spätzle almost as much as Ruth did her Chickenburger) at a great price, €15 for both of us. We were really liking Budapest!

The rest of Day 1 involved a lot of walking: to the Basillica, over the Danube, up to the statue of St. Gellért, along the bottom of the Castle district to the mall, through the mall, and towards our hostel... at least, we thought we were going to our hostel. Ruth booked Grand Hostel Budapest and I had found its location on google maps before we left. But after 30 minutes of walking we were jumping at every yellow building near the road. The folks that we asked in the park and at the tram stop directed us towards Grand Hotel Budapest 500 m down the road... a km or so later we followed a sign to a pension, where the kind fellow at the desk directed us back to the main road we had been following. After 2 hours of  wandering we were finally there- a free welcome drink (mojito) never tasted so good! Despite loud neighbors and nearby trams, Ruth and I both agreed that we slept better that night than any other first night in a hostel.
   I jumped on the free WiFi before bed to check e-mail and Dad was on Gmail chat. I think I suprised him when my message popped up on his screen, "hello from Budapest," because his response was "Budapest?" "I thought Mom would tell you..."

   We went to bed so early last night that when day 2 started at 7.30 both Ruth and I felt completely refreshed. We rode the tram 5-10 minutes back to town and had fruit and local pastry in the park where we had asked for directions the evening before. Then we walked up the hill to the Castle district. Mathias Church and the Fisherman's Bastion are stunning! Neo-gothic stone work accented with a colourfully tiled roof for the first and rounded, organic towers and walks for the second. The view over Pest and the Danube aren't bad, either!

    There must have been some sort of even going on today, because first we saw a small cavalry unit dressed for show, then a military unit, then a brass band as we walked along the hill crest towards the "castle." The actual castle is only ruins, but the palace had a festival market outside selling hand crafts and food (read: more Hungarian pastries).
   Ruth and I had some successful shopping (besides pastries) and then stumbled into an archery field in the castle ruins. My first reaction when I saw the setup was "Hey Ruth- Butts!" which i realized a split second later was not the thing to say to someone who was not a student of medieval history. I couldn't resist giving it a try, though- what fun!
   We climbed down the hill, crossed the Danube on the Chain Bridge, and after a long walk finally made it to our next destination: the Grand Market. This buidling and market make Granville and Pike's Place look second-rate. Beautiful iron work and lines of stalls selling fresh fruits and veggies, sausages, pork knuckles and heads, and paprika (peppers) however you'd like. Dried and braided, sweet, spicy, ground, sauce... Paprika is a major ingredient in Hungarian cooking, as we discovered at lunch. Amazingly good! The upstairs was mostly a tourist market, but nevertheless fun to walk through. Hand-stitched table cloths and runners, leather and wood work, painted wooden dolls and eggs. So many bold colours and geometric designs.
   From the Grand Market it was just a few blocks to the national museum. Again, we found a festival market set up on the grounds all around the museum. There were hands-on historical and cultural activities for kids, food, artisans, traditional costume, and music. As a bonus, the museum was free that day! It was great to take off our backpacks and steep ourselves in over 1000 years of Hungarian history. I saw everything stirrups from aroudn 1000 AD (Hungarians were some of the first Europeans to use stirrups) to an ear and hand from a massive Stalin statue which had been blown up in a revolt after he died. It was especially interesting to see the Hungarian point of view concerning the Austrian empire, having already visited Vienna and hearing the Imperial stories.

We finally walked from the museum back to the train station caught the 17.10 RailJet back to Vienna. Unfortunately we were slow across Hungary and we had to wait for a later train from Vienna, which puts me at where I am now: sitting on the familiar train to Graz, just now approaching Bruck on der Mur. In an hour I will be back home, post this, and crash. Tomorrow I am making (American) pancakes for a bunch of people, studying, and re-couping before I take off for the water engineering department's 2-day road trip through Slovenia.
Hope all is well, leave me a comment!