Palacsintas in Budapest

Today has been a great day of exploring without being travel-weary and jet-lagged (for me). Currently, we are sitting in a man's apartment drinking wine with him and a Polish man and a girl who just came over. Luckily we (and aforementioned Polish man) are the only ones staying in his hostel tonight so it feels more like a bunch of friends. We stopped at an ABC store which sells groceries on the way home from dinner and taking pictures and stocked up on sour-gummy worms, water, beer, wine, and snickers all for $6. My favorite part of today was the Grand Central Market, just off the Danube River, where about 300 merchants set up shop and sell everything from weird meats to nut rolls (like Dad makes) and lots of cool Hungarian stuff. I stocked up on presents and realized how easy it is to spend lots of Forint (Hungarian money). It was great fun to talk to the local vendors, although one lady accused me of breaking a box because I didn't use the little key hidden inside of the bottom of the box - needless to say, I did not do business there. Then, we rode the metro for the 12th time in 2 days and finally got busted by an officer of the subway for a ticket violation ("Zere ees a broblem vit yur ticket.") We got a huge fine of 5000 forint, which is about 30 dollars, but it was payable immediately, and included a receipt in case we wanted to write it off as a business expense - the officer seemed pleased with his work! Sometimes, after talking to locals, I turn to Aaron and talk to him slowly as if I want him to understand the English language. Good times! We are thinking of acting out our subway incident by way of photos so you may see that later (missing tooth and all). I swear I saw all my long-lost relatives today - I am so Hungarian! I could definitely live here for a while. And now, Aaron for some actual details ... but first, I gotta give a shout-out to my sister - what's up lil' sis'!
-Annie

Budapest is actually the union of two old Hungarian towns across the Danube from each other: Buda on the west bank and Pest on the east. The Danube is a wide river by Colorado standards. Five bridges join the twenty-something districts of Pest and Buda.

Yesterday Annie and I arrived in Budapest at eight o'clock in the morning after a nine hour ride on the oldest train still in service. The toilets were reminiscent of my experiences in India. The paragraph informing passengers not to use the lavatory while the train was in a station (for the consideration of those on the platforms) was written in Czech, Russian, Italian, and Spanish but not English. The passenger compartments were designed to hold eight people, but luckily were only booked for four. Another four companions in our compartment would have been intimate.

After fending off several touts, we headed downtown in search of pleasant-sounding accommodations Annie found on the internet. A two-mile walk later, we had still not found the place and decided to try accommodations on one of the fliers that had been pressed into our hands at the train station: Helena's House in eastern Pest. As I pause to search for a suitable description of Helena's House Annie and I look at each other and laugh. It was substandard. Eight mattresses sat on the floor in a small family apartment--two in one room and six in the other. During our short tour around eleven o'clock in the morning, six men still slept soundly in the room with six beds. The "room" that held the remaining beds was more of a hallway. After a very short conference ("It makes me feel like crying.") on the landing outside we were quickly back in the street searching again. (A few tears at this point)

We did eventually find a nice hotel not too far away with a quiet, private, pricey double room. As Annie and I were both hungry and exhausted, we stepped out to the corner market, bought fixin's for lunch, and after a great meal got the most from our beautiful accommodations by sleeping for four hours in the middle of the afternoon.

Refreshed, we set out for our first look at the Danube, for although our misadventures earlier in the day had taken us within a few blocks of the river, we had yet to actually see it. We took the Metro to Parliament, walked along the cobbled riverfront, and crossed to Buda on the Chain Bridge at dusk. Castle Hill in Buda is a long ridge rising steeply above the river, covered with old, beautiful buildings interspersed with large swathes of trees. There were also a lot of large swarms of bugs, like, maybe the largest swarm I've ever seen.

From the foot of Castle Hill we walked north and found a nice patio on which to eat dinner. Annie had traditional Hungarian stuffed peppers which her parents make at home. After dinner we continued north and found a local creperie that Annie recognized because of it's Hungarian name Palacsintas, another homemade favorite at the Rigo residence. We stopped to share a couple palacsintas, filled with nutella and banana.

This morning after supplementing our nap with an actual eight hours of sleep, we breakfasted at our hotel and then checked out in search of more "authentic" quarters. It was again a non-trivial search, but it turned out well (see Annie's portion of the entry).

In the afternoon, we bought our train tickets headed east to the shore of Lake Balaton for tomorrow and then stopped by the National Museum to see the exhibit on the history of Hungary. It was pretty amazing. I would have liked a more comprehensive overview of who the Magyars were before Saint Stephen I, and perhaps a few more dots connected during the subsequent centuries, but on the whole it was impressive. Annie felt very Hungarian again. I found the struggle between the Hungarians and the Ottomans fascinating having just recently seen the seat of Ottoman power in Istanbul. Several of the period costumes were fantastic--we found some amazing dresses and I might be an Ottoman Turk for Halloween next year.

We've got a few more short hours in Budapest before our train tomorrow. We're both looking forward to a slower life in the countryside (the lake, thermal baths, bikes, and wineries).
-Aaron