The following day I had to get up to catch the 5:30am train to Budapest where I was meeting my Peace Corps friends Whitney and Meaghan as well as Susie – my Hungarian friend you may recall from when I visited 2.5 years ago while I was living in Spain! The train passed through the beautiful countryside of both the Czech Republic, Slovakia and then the north of Hungary. I was able to only catch a glimpse of Bratislava and I wished I had taken an extra day to visit that city as well. Susie greeted me at the train station – she is still studying Architecture in Budapest and has another year to go. She looks just the same and was such a wonderful hostess once again! The major difference of this trip from the last was the clothing! In January 2008 I was freezing! 4 pairs of socks plus wool-lined boots did not even begin to cover the cold – this time around, it was about battling the heat! Next time I go to Budapest it will definitely be in the fall!
Meaghan and Whitney arrived shortly after on their train from Ukraine. From travel exhaustion we did not do any touring the first day but topped the evening off with a trip to the cinema. In Ukraine, films are only in Ukrainian and are never in their original language. Both Whitney and myself have learned Russian, making this a pretty unenjoyable form of entertainment. So, when we found that many cinemas in Budapest play movies in English – we jumped on the chance to get our fix of American culture through the horribly teen angst film, Twilight. The movie ticket cost a whopping $4.50 – I think I might move here!
Our first full day was spent enjoying the sites of Pest. We began with St. Stephen’s Basilica – the church in which rests the mummified hand of St. Stephen, one of the apostles. We had to pay 200 forint ($0.85) to light up the box to see the hand! Our tour continued to Hero’s Square where statues to commemorate the Magyars who founded Hungary stand. We also stopped at the National Opera House as well as the Great Synagogue, the largest synagogue in all of Europe and the second largest in the world. The best part of the day for me; however, was the tour of the Parliament. Stefan and I had made it our goal to get into the Parliament for a tour 2.5 years ago and dramatically failed every attempt we made, thus making it my #1 goal for this trip to see the inside. Luckily, we succeeded! As Hungary used to be a bicameral government, the Parliament was built with two identical wings. Today, Hungary’s government is unicameral thus leaving one wing open and available for tours. Our tour included the large entrance hallway complete with very precious red granite stone columns followed by a view of the St. Stephen’s crown, the official crown of the ruling government of Hungary, and lastly, entrance into the auditorium, which used to hold the House of Lords. The Parliament when it was completed, consumed more energy in a single day than the entire city of Budapest. Today it is more energy efficient (and half the building isn’t used continuously) so this is no longer the case. The building was quite stunning inside – below are pictures.
Our second day was used to explore Buda, primarily the castle district of Budapest. Castle Hill holds many interesting buildings including Matthias Church (which was no longer under scaffolding!), the Fisherman’s Bastion from which you can see the best views of Budapest, and lastly the Royal Palace. Meaghan and Whitney had a wonderful time snapping pictures around the district – as we had done a little slide show of my trip to Hungary 2.5 years ago the night before, I remembered how many of these places I have already photographed and thus held off a bit this time! Susie gave us a tour of her university, which brought Meaghan and I to break out in “Go U Northwestern” to Whitney’s disgust – haha. We ended the night with another trip to the cinema – it was just so good the first time around! This time we saw “Robin Hood” – the pre-story to Robin Hood’s legendary life acted out by Russell Crowe and Kate Blanchett – it was ok, but once again all in English and only $4.50! Love it! We drove up to the Citadel where Susie had taken me before for the amazing night view of Budapest. It was breathtaking!
The next few days of our time in Hungary were spent lakeside. If you look at a map of Hungary – one thing that sticks out is this long skinny lake called Lake Balaton, which takes up a major portion of the western side of the country. Susie’s family owns a traditional Hungary summerhouse in the town of Balatonfured near the lake and we were treated to 4th of July weekend there! Lake Balaton is actually quite shallow and most accesses to the lake are wading depth for many many feet out. Also, the lake is not a beachy one and most access points have nicely mowed lawns on which you sunbathe before hopping in the water. We brought out books and Ipods and laid out by the water for some very needed rest and relaxation time only interrupted for ice cream breaks – of which there was one each day. In the evening we went into the town and walked along the boardwalk lined with souvenir shops, restaurants and bars and covered in Hungarians on vacation – it felt very spring break like with the outdoor bars and ice cream parlors.
On the 4th of July, Meaghan, Whitney and I treated Susie, her mom Marina and her twin sister Dory to a traditional American Independence Day meal – hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and then Marina threw in a Greek Salad (which I liked best!) I made the burgers – dad are you proud!?, Whitney took over the potato salad and Meaghan set the table. We had a wonderful feast and were so thankful for our luck to be there at a lake home enjoying the company together for our holiday weekend!
We drove back to Budapest on the 6th to do some laundry, spend our last few forint on brownie mix which we made that night to watch the Uruguay vs. Germany World Cup game, and to pack up. Sadly – on the 7th we had to head back into Ukraine. I was very sad to see my traveling adventures come to a close. Whitney and I headed to the Chernigiv Oblast north of Kiev for a Russian Language Refresher Camp where I have been this last week and Meaghan is now prepping for another camp she will be working this coming week.
I am so thankful for the amazing experiences I have had these last few weeks. Following this month of travel, I have now been to 25 countries in the world – a fact that makes me realize just how fortunate I have been. For now, I am remaining in country looking forward to my two upcoming Summer Camps – ABCamp and Mascot and I look forward to telling you about those towards the end of August.
Once again I hope that you are all having a wonderful July and I would like to wish you an excellent rest of your summer!
Best, Megan
If you want to compare pictures from Winter ’08 in Budapest – please feel free to check out the blog post on:
http://meganinspain0708.blogspot.com/2008/01/italy-austria-and-hungary.html
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