Hungary - Part 1

Day 161 – June 10

Thursday we set off into the heat to see some of the main sites of Budapest. Already half dead by the time we got off the metro, we still managed to survive to see the Matthew Church, the Fisherman’s Bastion, and the Castle.

























We got some ice cream and hid in the shade of a garden trail below the castle, where we met a lovely Englishman who said “jolly good!” Ah, England, this is why I love you.

We thin hid again in an adorable café Andrea knew of nearby with all types of chairs. There I got a real apple juice – at lunch I had grabbed a bottle with apples on it, but I failed to notice on the other side was a picture of a mint leaf. So it was apple-mint juice that reminded me unpleasantly of the dentist.

Ready to brave the sun again, we crossed the Chain Bridge and saw St. Stephen’s Basilica – gorgeous – where we heard people speaking a Nordic language and debated over which one it was. The last stop was the Parliament building, an absolutely amazing building.



The Elizabeth Bridge!



Flooding of the Danube





The stained glass was amazing.

Definitely a necessary pastime on that day



Going through my photos later, I realize the heat deadened my brain quite a bit. I knew what I was seeing was neat, but not until I cooled down did I look and the photos and think, “Oh wow n- these places are gorgeous!” I’m glad to say that a combination of increased wind, slightly decreased temperature, and a remembrance of my body how to function in godawful temperatures has made successive days of sightseeing much better.

After getting food for the week, I’ve surprisingly discovered that Tesco’s (kind of a British Wal-Mart that has expanded throughout Euroep) yogurt is really, really good – potentially better than Danish yogurt.


Day 162 – June 11

Our destination on Friday was Heroes’ Square. The weather was much nicer – there was a breeze, and it was a little cooler anyway. Nearby was a nice park and a castle, which Andrea’s sister says is a reconstruction of one that is somewhere else in Hungary. Reconstruction or not, it was beautiful – an eclectic mix of architectural styles. At the castle, I also met my new best friend: Anonymous.















On our way back, we walked down what the Budapest tourist website says is the prettiest avenue and got on the old metro line. It was the second metro in Europe, and the stations are still cuter and the cars are smaller.





Andrea had work in the afternoon, so I hung out in her apartment, where her mom has taken it upon herself to be my personal Hungarian teacher. I don’t think I’ll be learning much (good, because all the languages are jumbled up in my head and I can’t even speak proper English), but I can at least introduce myself and understand the alphabet. And can count from 0-6.

Day 163 – June 12

Saturday we took a day trip to Veszprém. From the train, we at one point passed several large patches of lavender which looked like purple fields. Beautiful.

Once again it was very hot – I drank almost my entire 1.5 liter bottle. However, once we got up the hill, there was a lot of wind, which made the temperature quite pleasant. We took a detour getting up the hill – Andrea made a wrong turn, but it just meant we got to wander around the cute streets of the city. We eventually found the steps up to the “castle district”. It’s at the top of a hill, and you could look down below and see a bridge off in the distance.



















In the afternoon, we stopped to have slushies! Summertime heat does have its benefits.

Vienna - Days 158 - 160

Day 158 – June 7

Raining in Copenhagen, sunny in Vienna – that’s what I’m talking about! Dad has a pastor friend in Vienna, who was wonderful enough to allow me to stay with her. She’s a lovely lady with southern hospitality, and I realized just how nice it is to have that home-y feeling when you’re traveling alone.

The day I spent just wandering the streets of Vienna. The city itself makes me feel like I’ve stepped into Amadeus. However, summertime means tourists and so the city is also HIGHLY touristy.

My assessment of Vienna is that it’s nice, and a cultural stop, but not the most impressive or interesting of cities I’ve been to. It's hard to say why, but, there it is. Not all European cities can be equally enticing, otherwise the world would explode, or something like that.

As I was walking, I heard about 1/3 German, 1/3 English, and 1/3 Polish – almost as if I had never left Krakow? Andrzej is right – they are everywhere!

Goethe welcomes visitors to Vienna.

The Opera House - gorgeous building!
















Day 159 – June 8

I decided to walk to the city this morning, a good walk, and so I saw more of the non-touristy areas. Eventually, I came upon Naschmarkt, a permanent market place with lots and lots of food items and a few clothing booths as well, where every seller has something for you to try, and calls out “Lady…lady…lady!” I did buy some cherries, and while it is not cherry season, and most of them are not that great, I still love buying fruit.





Opera again

I met Laura and her other visitor, Noel, and went with them to an English taize service. It was nice to be in a service again, albeit briefly, and afterwards we had lunch with the few other attendees. One of the women’s husband is a Viking scholar, how exciting!

Church in the "black box" as Noel described it.

We walked over the Danube, and after a while I realized it was probably necessary to buy some sunscreen, asap. I did find a place, and hurriedly applied that hateful cream…I was having flashbacks to life in Phoenix, because even though the heat was in the 80s, it felt an awful lot like the 100s of Phoenix. So, clearly, the southern states are not for me.

It was a decent walk back into the city from the church, and at the end of it, having finished my water bottle early on, I was never so glad to see a McDonald’s where I could obtain some form of cheap liquid. I quenched my thirst under the shadow of the Rathaus, the gorgeous city hall, then wandered through the Hapsburgs rose garden.





Rathaus












Day 160 – June 9

My phone/alarm died, so I woke up later than planned, but as Laura said, “You’re on vacation!”

I spent the morning at the Hoffburg palace, one of the residences of the Hapsburg emperors. The palace is huge – it took me forever just to find the entrance to the museum. When I did find it, I was bombarded by their “silver” collection, which is more like their china collection. They had so, so, so much china.









Apparently only two people in the world know the secret art of folding napkins like this.





The most interesting part for me was a mini-museum dedicated to the Empress Elisabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Josef (the second-to-last Austrian emperor). As most of you well know, I have an extreme interest in all things monarchical, but I’d never really studied or learned about monarchies nearer to the present time…but the mini biography we were given of Elisabeth was fascinating. Yet another interesting historical persona who shares my name!

In the afternoon, I took a tour of the opera house. I was disappointed to learn that most of it had burnt down, so it was not, in fact, the original stage where Mozart’s operas were performed, but it was still a really impressive opera!













And then I was off on my train to Budapest. I sat basically right in the middle of a group of French teenagers – there were some sitting in the seats in front of me, some in the seats behind me, and some in the seats on the other side of me…so, apparently, the Austrian conductor assumed I was one of them and he had already checked my train ticket. I didn’t think anything of it, until we got to the Hungary side, and the Hungarian conductor came by. My ticket was printed from the internet, and the Hungarian barely spoke English, so what I could get out of it was that he didn’t have a tool to scan the barcode on my ticket – only the Austrian conductors had that. And the Austrian had to scan the ticket and then stamp it as valid…and since he hadn’t, my ticket wasn’t valid. So I had to buy another ticket for the length of the journey from the Hungarian border to Budapest, which cost more than my total ticket from Vienna to Budapest. And Thank God I still had 20 Euros on me, because who knows what would have happened otherwise. I’m still not completely sure what happened, but I didn’t want to be dropped off in who-knows-where Hungary, so I forlornly handed over my precious Euros that I had taken out at a rate of 1.1…I was saving those Euros :( After, the journey proceeded with no more hitches, and I am safely arrived at Andrea’s apartment in Budapest.

Where it’s deathly hot. Everyone keeps saying I was once an Arizona girl, but I think that’s a bit of a misnomer. Instead, I like to think that I once lived in Arizona, but I thought I had escaped that life (i.e. that heat) for good…now I’m having to reach back down into the depths of memory and recall how to deal with heat in a non-air-conditioned situation.