Without a delayed flight this time, we were in Budapest early enough on Saturday to enjoy the day (and enjoy spending the rest of our money). So, once safely on terra firma, we wasted no time in getting down to business.
Our number 1 plan was to spend, spend, spend. Kate’s vote was for shopping and museums. My vote was for food. Thankfully, we compromised and ate a newly purchased pair of paprika-sprinkled socks.
Actually, as I’d mentioned before, Hungarians do like paprika. But their culinary art goes deeper than any one spice. With placement between the Slavs, Turks, Italians, and Austrians, Hungary has been a mixing bowl of cuisines for hundreds of years. And I was excited to splurge.
Without delay, we heeded the call of our stomachs and went to a popular Turkish restaurant on the Pest side of the river very close to our hostel. There we had some excellent stuffed grape leaves, chick pea goulash, and honey-flavored dessert.
We then walked off the calories near the parliament building, where we found this neat bridge-shaped memorial with some old Hungarian man standing on it.
We continued our walk by cruising on by the Blue Danube. Here Kate shows what taking Viagra can do to hair follicles.
We then walked south along the river toward the southern end of Pest, where we happened upon the most expensive patisserie in Hungary (so said our guidebooks) – the Gerbeaud. Excited, we sat down outside and ordered a poppyseed croissant and a couple warm drinks. Almost immediately we were disappointed, as my croissant was crispy and our outdoor views were marred by a homeless person eating fallen berries and begging for money. So, afterward, we hung out at this fountain with a kid who was insistent on making that lion growl “barf.”
Then, disappointed with the whole bad croissant thing, I was done with spending money on food for a while…so we headed toward the Buda side of the river, where it got a little more hilly.
On the other side of the river on top of a rocky mount called Gellért Hill is what’s called the Citadel, a Habsburg fortress built to ensure the manic Magyars were kept under control. This is where we were heading.
So we crossed the river and on our way to the citadel came upon the Rock Church, which in Hungarian is called the Sziklatemplom, which is much more fun to say if you ask me. Kate called it the Church of Rock! (cue Van Halen riff).
It’s basically a teeny church built into the mountain. If that’s not cool enough, it also is connected to about six miles of underground caves built by the Turks.
Following the upward climb, we made our way to a couple vantage points that offered great nightfall blicks (to use a German word) of the Pest side of the river.
Ultimately it led to the Fisherman’s Bastion, the most photographed sight in the city. It’s up here on this towery neo-Gothic stronghold that Kate and I enjoyed (perhaps a little too much) a very beautiful sunset.
The next day brought new opportunities to spend money. And spend we did. We started by celebrating Father’s Day in an oddly appropriate way for Kate – we saw the traveling Inca exhibit.
We followed that up with the intention of going to one of the famous Budapest bath houses, but as we couldn’t figure out which ones had only hot water and which ones were open on Sunday, we opted instead for lounging in the park.
We then walked, walked, walked around the Pest side of the river and took numerous dumb photographs of me “wearing” streetlamps as hats.
We walked so much, in fact, that Kate lost a leg in the process…oddly enough in front of a picture of a legless girl.
As walking had made the time go by quickly, and there was really not much of substance we did during this day (other than eat at a fantabulo all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink restaurant that served traditional Hungarian food), I’m going to list famous Americans who have Hungarian heritage
· Drew Barrymore
· Adrien Brody
· Jamie Lee Curtis (and Tony Curtis)
· Eva Gabor (and Zsa Zsa)
· Bela Lugosi
· Paul Newman
· Steven Spielberg
· Joe Namath
· Monica Seles
· Joe Theismann - former football player turned broadcaster
· Elie Wiesel
· Joseph Pulitzer
· Tommy Ramone - member of the Ramones
· Paul Simon
· Gene Simmons (KISS)
· George Pataki
· Harry Houdini
· Calvin Klein
· George Soros
Whew. So then it was nighttime and there was this churchything we liked but we couldn’t (or wouldn’t) find in the guidebooks….so we had to have our picture in front of it.
The next morning we headed to the big market hall to finish spending the rest of our money. There, we purchased some goodies for an early-afternoon picnic.
On what I like to think was a dare to myself, we bought the least-spicyest-looking raw pepper (along with cherries, cheese, sausage, and some other goodies).
My lips went numb. My eyes watered. My nose watered. But I kept on eating. I then started biting into seeds, which were even stronger, so I decided I had to clean the pepper out with my finger. Then, determined, I kept eating, eventually wiping my running nose with my now-spicy finger, which is just about the time my nose went numb. All in all, not a good idea. But, all in all, a very good trip.
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