Sick and Tired in Hungary

Not to be confused with sick and tired OF Hungary. My trip to Hungary by far exceeded my expectations! Unfortunately, I came down with a cold the night before I left Denmark, and it is remarkably hard to kick a cold while you are travelling around Europe. Hence, the title. Anyways, it's about 8:15 local time here as I write this, and I am already tucked into bed (couch), with my computer on my lap, typing away (Mom, if you read this, bring some advil cold and sinus or dayquil when you come please!).

So, I landed in Budapest with Julia (Cohan) on Friday afternoon after a very brief flight from Copenhagen on an aged, run-down Norwegian Airlines 737. Fortunately, I had an entire exit row to myself, which I highly doubt will be the case on my EasyJet flight to London-Gatwick tomorrow afternoon... Anyways, Steve (Rubin) met us at the airport and helped us to navigate our way to his apartment on Hungary's soviet era public transportation network. I kid you not, when we got on the metro, I looked over at Julia and remarked, "well at least when it's not in service, it can be used as a torture chamber!" The Budapest airport is not in the nicest section of the city (I've never really understood why cities do that...), so that, coupled with the transportation system, left me with a bit of a sour first impression of the country. I would soon realize my mistake however, as Budapest quickly wowed me with how spectacular of a city it truly is!

We got to Steve's apartment in the city at around 2 o'clock and got settled in. We then ventured out into the city to explore. We walked down the touristy street towards one of the bridges over the mighty Danube River. On the other side (the Buda side) we climbed up the hill to the castle overlooking the river (and all of Pest). Buda and Pest are the two parts of Budapest and they are separated by the Danube River. It's kind of interesting, because Buda is very hilly and Pest is entirely flat. I'm not sure what happened geologically, but it's pretty cool.

From the castle on top of the hill in Buda, the views of Pest were breathtaking! The first picture is of me and Steve with the Danube in the background. The second picture is of the Hungarian Parliament (Steve was right, it is in fact cooler than Denmarks...), and the third is of me with the Pest skyline in the background. After walking around the castle grounds for a little while and exploring a few other old buildings, we went to a cafe to have coffee and cake, a very European afternoon event.

After getting our energy back from the afternoon snack, we hopped on another soviet-era bus to head down the hill to Margetsziget, an island on the Danube that serves as a park for the residents of Budapest. It has a track that circumnavigates the island (6 km) and a bunch of facilities on the island to help people enjoy the outdoors without having to leave the city. After our walk in the park, we went to one of the best Tex-Mex joints I've ever been to! Steve and Julia said it was the spitting image of the American chain "Chipotle," but I can neither confirm nor deny, having never been to said chain. We gorged ourselves on burritos, and spent a little time walking around the city. We then went to a Budapest original "Szimpla." Szimpla is a ruin-bar. The bar is built on two stories of an old, abandoned, dilapidated apartment building. The bar essentially reclaimed the ruins and put them to good use.

The second day, we went out to see Hero Park. This is a large, open park with statues of Hungarian National Heroes. It also serves as a gathering/hang-out place for locals and tourists alike. It is situated right next to the Fine Arts Museum, which was naturally our next stop. There was a Boticelli exhibition that Julia was very excited to see. I'm not into art that much, but even I was blown away by it. There were works on display by Boticelli (surprising, I know...), Raphael, Da Vinci, Titian, and more! It held my interest for a solid 90 minutes, which, as anybody who has ever been to an art museum with me before can attest to, is borderline miraculous. Dinner was at M, a really nice restaurant in Pest. We ordered a bottle of wine, ate good food, and felt way more adult than we had any right to. Coming from Copenhagen, the food prices in Budapest were very reasonable. They were, in fact, significantly lower than the U.S. norm. At M, we had a very high quality meal and a bottle of wine for about 15 dollars a piece. My Danish (or American displaced in Denmark) readers can attest to how miraculous this sounds.

On Sunday we were up early to go hiking in the Hungarian hillside. I have some pictures that will end up on facebook at some point in the upcoming week or so, but it was relatively cloudy, and non of the photos could really capture how beautiful the hike really was. We traveled about 35 kilometers north of the city to one of the oldest cities in Hungary (celebrating its 1000 year anniversary this year in fact). We climbed up the hill to the town's castle, which was the seat of the Hungarian government intermittently in the 15th and 16th centuries. On a sidenote, town castles may be one of the coolest aspects of being in Europe. Monarchies are neat! After exploring the castle, we walked through the woods for the rest of the day. It was essentially like walking through Massachusetts on a clear, crisp autumn day, except for the part where every once in a while you could see Austria. We finally got back to the city at about 6, and headed back to Steve's to defrost and change into some warm clothes. After everybody could feel their fingers again, we went back into the city to get some dinner. We ate at the classiest Pizza Hut I have ever seen and then headed to a sports bar to catch the first round of the days NFL games (watching the Giants lose is just as awesome in Hungary as it is in the states, by the way) before heading back to Steve's and turning in for the night.

Today was a low key day where I focused mostly on trying to get better. I slept in and Steve went to class, and then when he got back, he wasn't feeling very well, so we decided to lay low and go see a movie. We saw "Gamer," which Rotten Tomatoes gave a whopping 29% fresh rating to, and I have not been less impressed with a movie in recent memory. It was seriously bad. It was a nice way to spend a lazy, sick Monday afternoon though. After that we grabbed dinner, got some groceries, and went back to the apartment for some needed sleep. I made a few phone calls and wrote this blog entry, and now I'm off to bed.

I head to Oxford tomorrow to visit Diego and see a bunch of WEPO people. Saturday, I meet up with the parents in Greece! Gonna be a fun couple of weeks! I hope all of my readers are having a terrific November so far!