With that introduction, let me tell you about my awesome trip to Budapest.....
Thursday, April 15th
Yay, it is the day that I left for my trip to Budapest. The plan is to take the train to Timisoara and meet Silvia (someone on the Fulbright out there) there. I stay at her house tonight, and then we go together on Friday to Budapest, also on the train - stay there all day Saturday and part of the day Sunday - and then both take the train back to our respective cities in Romania.
So, I skipped knitting this morning because I was too busy doing last minute packing and having a headache (joy of joys). Still, I went to a yarn store in Central, and it does in fact have the best supply of yarn by far in Cluj. Now, if only I liked knitting and was any good at it! So, I got a crochet hook and some thread because I want to learn how to make this traditional Romanian cord. Here is an instructional video, if you are interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunshinescreations/2653581610/ and here is an example of what you can do with it: http://blog.craftzine.com/romanianlacecord.jpg
I went to April's for lunch, and then we looked up the Romanian cord so that she could help me figure it out. However since I have never crocheted before and barely have knitting under control, it definitely was beyond my ability. So, she started me out with a basic chain stitch and sent me away with a book of directions. She even picked me up at home and dropped me off at the ttrain station - awwww!
I made it ono the train just fine and settled in for my 6.5 hour ride. Of course, by hour 2 I already needed to use the bathroom. I think it probably was just because I knew that the bathroom was off limits (for the potential 'ick' factor). Just had to keep those legs crossed because I refuse to see what the bathroom was like. In my compartment (class 2 on accelerat train), I was with 4 other women, and one of them helped me with the crocheting a little bit even with she did make me nervous everytime she looked over my shoulder! She also totally did not understand that being left handed was a little different. Definitely from the era when being left handed was not allowed! After the got off the train in Oradea (by the way, the area between Cluj and Oradea is SUPER pretty!!! - I think in the Apuseni Mountains), I read and worked on my computer a little bit. And, for some reason the heat started blasting like crazy, but only in that one compartment. It was ridiculously hot, and I had to go stand in the aisle with the open window a few times. Anyway, I finally made it to Timisoara and met up with Silvia.
Friday, April 16th
In the morning we had to wake up at 5:45 in order to catch the train an hour later. Way too early! And, it meant that it was dark the whole time I was in Timisoara (where the revolution in 1989 began), so I didn't get to see anything. Even though I didn't really get a feel for it, I am really glad I am in Cluj instead. It was so early that nothing was really open, so I had the 5 hour trip ahead of me with just bagel chips. Despite the food shortage, the train was just fine. We spent most of the time trying to figure out what our plan of action was going to be in Budapest.
Since I couldn't get a one-way ticket in Cluj back from Budapest, I had to get one at the train station. The line was crazy long (probably because of the volcano action and lack of flights), so we decided to try to ticket office in town instead. We tried to go straight to the metro and find the hostel, but couldn't even find the entrance to the metro! So, we headed back inside and went to the tourist office for a map (and directions to the metro). In the metro, we got a 3 day pass, but don't be fooled by the little booth that only takes cash right when you enter. You also can pay with a credit card at a real office if you go down the escalator!
Keleti train station. Where we arrived.
A little produce stand outside the train station. Can you see the strands of dried paprika? That's how you know you are in Hungary!
We finally made it to the hostel - the gallery single hostel (or something like it). It was pretty cute. In a complex with a nice courtyard, but be prepared to haul your bags up 4 flights to stairs. Whew! It looked like an apartment that had been converted to a hostel and just had 4 double rooms, plus 2 full bathrooms, a common kitchen, and a common room with a laptop. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting! After checking in, we went to a little Hungarian cafeteria nearby. It served local food and reminded me of the agape cafeteria here in Cluj - ridiculous amounts of food that was okay quality and pretty inexpensive. I had a cabbage soup, and Silvia had a meat thing with dumplings and the most enormous serving of sour cherry bread pudding that I have ever seen. Check it out for yourself....
Silvia and our ridiculous amount of food. Wow.
The super cute building where our hostel was.
A small opera house right next to our hostel.
From there we tried to find the train ticket office, but apparently my guide book was a few years out of date. The ticket office apparently has since been turned into a shoe store or something like that, so I guess we would have to go back to the train station at some point. From the rumored and non-longer existing ticket office, we went to the House of Parliament to get tickets for a tour, but they were sold out for the day, and we refused to pay $25 (double!!!) to go with a tour company. We decided to come back the next morning and try to get tickets for that day.
Just a neat building in town.
A nice area with huge buildings, including the U.S. Embassy.
The biggest and fanciest building there.
What?! It is MTV?? Nah, this time it stands for Magyar TV (or something like that - basically, it is the national TV station in Hungary).
The main opera house, on Andrassy Street (or utca in hungarian).
Since our plans so far that day had fallen through, we went to St. Stephen's Basilica, which was nearby. But, just as our luck was going, it was closed for a funeral! We went to get a coffee and to a nearby shop (where I got some fun stuff like two wooden, painted eggs and thought about getting a doll in traditional clothes but I guess I don't really need one from Hungary - they were super cute though), and afterwards it was open. It was pretty neat inside, but the section with Saint Stephen's mummified hand (creepy! but the holiest object in Hungry, so says my guidebook) was closed, so we missed that.
St. Stephen's Basilica.
View from the top of the church.
Because no trip is complete without the awesome self portrait!
View of the street.
Inside the church.
This church took many years to make, and you can tell from the interior that it definitely was finished in the early 1900s.
From there, we went to eh ethnographic museum but only made it to the section on traditional Hungarian life and the museum shop before everything closed. It looks like we just missed the exhibit on "what do we think about the finns" which I think I am okay missing. Better to learn about Hungarians not Finnish people when in Hungary. At the museum store I bought a few painted eggs and a neat necklace (I am such a sucker for them). I love museum gift stores!!
In front of the mannequin wearing traditional Romanian clothes.
Sample interior of a traditional home, probably 100 years ago.
Examples of all different kinds of traiditonal needlework. I love it!
What a great example of how they designed their exhibits without hurting (or even touching) the original and very old building. It looks obvious and ugly in this picture, but you don't even notice the fake walls when you are actually in the exhibit itself.
By then it was around 6pm, and we went back to the hostel and got ready to go to the Szechenyi Baths. It was soooo awesome! I am so glad that I was there with Silvia because I doubt that I would have done that on my own. Anyway, we brought our bathing suits and miniature towels from the hostel and then rented a cabin to change in. We were able to leave our stuff in the cabin, and we could even rent big towels downstairs (despite what people said online - they definitely were wrong!). There were two outdoor pools, one warmer than the other, and then some thermal pools, hot tubs, and saunas inside. We only had about 1 and a half hours there, so we kind of hopped around to try out everything. Even went in a sauna that was 80 to 100 degrees celsius. You got ice before you went in to rub on yourself while you were inside. We lasted about 2 minutes, and we were totally burning!
I am sorry these are so tiny. No clue what is going on....
Not that you can see me, but I am there.
We didn't leave the baths until after 10pm at night and found this aweseom Turkish cafeteria near our hostel. It was awesome (other than the lemonade which was really gross and fake). They even had the pides (Turkish pizzas) that Anna and I had in Istanbul. I had a spinach pide-type thing, something with tomatoes and eggplant, and the sour cherry soup, which is a traditional Hungarian dessert. It was delicious! The place was pretty interesting because it was about 11pm when we got there, and the place was packed. It was kind of neat because it wasn't full of drunk people trying to sober up or getting ready to go out. Everyone was just out eating and hanging out. I sooo want to open a delicious Turkish-Hungarian cafeteria in the U.S.!!! Wow, did we do a lot in one day considering we didn't get into town until 11:30 in the morning!
Just a nice picture, across from the opera house on Andrassy St.
Saturday, April 17th
This morning we got up early to go to Parliament and get tickets for a tour, but we were foiled yet again. The office was closed because they were having a memorial service for the Polish president. We decided to come back later in the day in hopes of a ticket.
The ceremony at the House of Parliament.
Memorial site for the Polish president and others who died in the plane crash.
So, we grabbed some pastries for breakfast and headed back to the train station for my ticket. I had a delicious one with chocolate and marzipan! Dang, these European pastries will be the end of me. No wonder I gained weight here surrounded by them and not in Cambodia when I subsisted on a diet of rice and veggies (and I soooo do not like the desserts there nearly as much). We made it to the train station, and the line was not all that bad considering the volcano was still keeping flights on the ground. The guy behind us in line had moved from Hungary to Canada in the 50s (after the failed revolution) and was trying to get a train to Scotland - I can't imagine who long that would be! Anyway, we got my ticket without a problem and were on our way. I was able to get a train that left not too long before Silvia's, so we would be able to go to the station together on Sunday.
From there we went to the Terror House Museum. It was a good museum that had long English translations available in each room. I still am a little confused about everything that happened in Hungary during the two world wars and then with communism. Basically, it sounded like a horrible time. I am curious about how the Hungarian experience compared to the Romanian experience.
The great (and controversial) exterior of the building. It is the former headquarters of the secret police.
A photo of one of the exhibits, mere moments before I was caught with my camera. It is a miracle the guard isn't actual in this picture!
This was quite interesting and effective. They had enclosed this courtyard, put a tank in the middle, and covered the walls from top to bottom with photos of all the people killed by the secret police.
We went back to the house of parliament for tickets, but they were already out. I wonder if we are just not meant to see the place? By then it was 1pm, and we were starving, but there was nowhere to eat! We decided to go over to the Castle District on the Buda side of Budapest and hoped for some food there. We walked over the famous Chain Bridge, the first bridge to connect to the two sides of the city (Buda and Pest - now known as Budapest). The Castle District is on a hill on the Buda side and has the royal palace and houses the art museum and I think the history museum. We FINALLY found a place to eat - thank goodness!
Going across the bridge.
There is the Buda side; that is the Royal Palace.
View back to the Pest side. That is the House of Parliament on the left.
After lunch, we went to the National Gallery, and it was huge! The art was only okay, but I think it is because after a while that all art museums start to look the same. The building was strange because it is old and beautiful on the outside, but really ugly and smelled like old cigarette smoke inside. Apparently it was bombed during WWII (I think....) and was rebuilt in the 1950s or 60s. What a period of bad style.
The Royal Palace from the other side.
We skipped the history museum because we were just too tired and wanted to see St. Matthew's Church before it closed. The church was not all that my guidebook cracked it up to be, and I am not sure it was worth the entry price.
The church fromn the outside. Unfortunately, it was under reonvation when we visited.
The altar. It was pretty interesting.
Part of the ceiling. Quite a difference from St. Stephen's Basilica.
We drug ourselves back to the hostel to take a nap before we made our evening plans. We were thinking about going to a traditional Hungarian dance show, which would have been neat, but rested a little more instead. We just went to dinner and found this awesome Hungarian-French restaurant called the Borsso Bistro. It was nice a really cute neighborhood, and the restaurant was really cute - with way friendly waiters than anywhere I have been in Romania! We both ordered wine and chared a cream of carrot soup with five spices and parsley foam. The waitress accidentally brought us the special cream of asparagus soup with grilled salman (apparently the words for carrot and asparagus are very similar in Hungaian), so we got to eat it for free, too. It was delicious! Then, Silvia got fettucine with shrimp, and I got the special with grilled salmon and kaffir lime risotto with mushrooms. I loved it! I totally am going to have to make it when I get home - anything with citrus is good in my book. Now, guess how much that meal was? We paid a little less than $20 each for all of that. Sounds like a good deal to me!
From there, we went back to the hostel and collapsed into the bed. What an exhausting day!
Sunday, April 18th
On Sunday, we got up early agian and went to Parliament for tickets. And, we finally got some if you can believe it. We went to a nearby cafe for a sandwich and coffee while we waited for the 10am tour slot. The tour was nice but it seemed a little pricey for what it was. Also, it was strange because the guide wasn't really all that accurate. She said that it was the 3rd largest parliament building in the world, only after London and Buenos Aires, but the parliament building in Bucharest is the 2nd largest building in the world (only after the Pentagon), which definitely would make it the largest parliament building. Hmmmmm. Little did she know that her tour was filled with Romanians and historians :)
After that, we had just enough time to make a quick visit to the Jewish Quarter and to the big synagogue and museum there. The museum mostly included Jewish temple and prayer objects but also had a nice section on WWII and the treatment of Hungarian Jews. Not much of that section was in English, but it was interesting.
The synagogue.
Interior of the synagogue, looking towards the altar area (I am sure that is not the right word).
Looking back into the church, at the pews.
The weeping willow memorial behind the synagogue, to those who were killed during WWII.
Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to walk around the Jewish Quarter and Ghetto itself because we had to get ready to leave. In fact, we had just enough time to get back to the hostel, finish packing, leave the keys, and get to the train station. I looked around, mostly without success, for some food for the train - definitely no veggie sandwiches available in that train station. And, I got on the train with 10 minutes to spare. Perfect timing! And, I had the whole cabin to myself for most of the trip, so I was able to stretch out and read. What a great trip!!!
Not a great picture of either of us, but the only other one I have of us both. So long from Budapest!
An important note: My guidebook said that most of the museums were free, and that was SO not true. Everything cost money, and most were not exactly cheap. Just good to know, especially if you are travelling with someone from the European Union, because they get really cheap tickets or go free. Kind of frustrating if you are cheap like me or start to get grumpy after all the walking (admittedly, this also was me...sigh). But, Budapest was still awesome and worth it! Just try to take some breaks to relax if you have more time. We were only there for less then 48 hours total and had to pack a lot into that short amount of time.
It was also an interesting trip because Budapest just felt different in some unexplicable way from Romania. It was kind of cleaner and brighter and people somehow seemed freer than Romania. Just a hard feeling to explain. It was nice to come back to Cluj, but I can tell you right now that it would be really easy to stay in Budapest for a year!
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