We woke up really early to get to the train station for our adventure to Budapest. There were 12 of us from the group going. I was so excited to leave there, especially since my friend Trevor Bouck is serving his mission there. I felt like a backpacker with my backpack and it was so great. The train ride was about 3 hours. We tried to sleep but it didn’t work. The seats were too uncomfortable, so I just watched out the window at all the different sites. I really love Europe.
Around 10:30 am we finally arrived in Budapest. Culture Shock definitely set in. The train station was in a really ghetto part of town. It was really Dodgey. No one spoke English, the buildings were so run down, and they didn’t even use Euros. We began to freak out. We headed over to the closest bank, exchanged our money for Forint’s and tried to figured out how to get to the center of the city. We all began to wonder why we came to Hungary. It seemed old and ghetto and scary. We got on their underground transit system, (straight out of communist times) and headed that way. Their transportation was so old. I loved it. The train cars were like an aqua color, and shaped really round/squares just like out of the olden days. I really felt like I was in a different country. It was the weirdest feeling. I definitely did not feel that way when I arrived in Vienna. I was seriously hit with culture shock.
We got out of the train station and were shocked to see one of the most beautiful buildings in front of us. It was the parliament building. We all then realized to not judge a book by its cover. We walked around a little more by the Danube river and was able to overlook the whole side of Buda. It was so beautiful. I was seriously in awe. The city of Budapest was probably the most beautiful city I had ever seen in my life. I was so excited to explore the city the next 2 days.
After lunch we got on our way to explore. Our first stop: Hiking Gellert Hill to see the Liberty Statue. The statue was built in remembrance of the Soviet liberation of Hungary fromNazi forces during WW11. We walked up a hill/mtn. It was like hiking Kennesaw Mountain. The view of the city from the hike was beautiful!! At the top of the hill were a ton of little booths with Hungarian Souvenirs and goodies. We looked through them and I bought a beautiful scarf. I love it. We tried to take short cuts down the hill, but we failed miserably. I ended up sliding down the hill and getting covered in dirt. It was hilarious. We were all laughing so hard as we almost rolled down this steep hill.
We then walked the streets of Budapest and ended up at the Budapest Castle. It was this huge palace. We rode the funicular up to the castle. It was fun, and at the top of the hill was a beautiful of the Pest side of Budapest. We walked around the cobblestone streets, went through some markets, and enjoyed our time. After walking, we ended up at Fisherman’s Bastion. I loved this so much!! It reminded me of a castle from a Disney movie or Rapunzel. We stayed there for a while just taking pictures and looking around. It was surreal. I felt like I was back in medieval times.
We started heading to the Hostel to check in, and we ended up at a beautiful church. I wish I knew what is what the name was. We walked in and the walls were high and blue. There were sculptures of cherubs and gold outlining. We sat in there for probably 45 minutes to rest our feet and just listened to the organ concert going on. I just sat their feeling so humble and grateful to be here in Europe.
Here is where our walking adventure began. It was close to the end of the day and our feet were KILLING. We were on the lookout for Home to Home Hostel where we were staying that night. We walked everywhere!! We were so tired, and we all had to pee, but we were lost. We couldn’t stop laughing at how tired we were. We started to get loopy. Finally after an hour of searching we found it. I was excited for my first Hostel experience. The Hostel was very homey and the owner’s name was Jeno. He was very friendly and made us feel at home. We all rested a bit then got ready to head out to dinner when all the sudden we had a huge conversation with Jeno about the church. We talked to him for 2 hours and it was amazing. I really felt like he was going to be baptized! There were times in the conversation where I felt the spirit so strong. It was an amazing bonding experience for us.
We headed out Va’roshaz Street. It was this huge street with lots of shops and restaurants. It was definitely a hopping place. We were all so hyper and happy after our conversation with Jeno, so we were going crazy. We ran into someone playing the saxophone and we all thought of the “Sexy Sax Man” youtube video. He ended his song and played some Michael Jackson for us, and then the fun began. We all started dancing to him playing “Billie Jean.” To all dance in unison, we did the EFY PB&J dance. It was hilarious. We had so many people stopping and filming us and taking pictures. After it ended everyone applauded us. We got a kick out of it. We got dinner at this café in the middle of the square and just laughed at the day we had. Afterwards we headed to the bridge to see the Buda Castle lit up. Right by it was this fountain where there were many people doing some kind of waltz. It was beautiful. We all just sat around the area and watched couples dance this seductive waltz. As we were watching these Polish boys came up to us and started taking pictures of us. When they snapped a photo they said “CHINESE.” (Since Chinese people always take pictures of white people haha) It was hilarious. They were rather drunk and didn’t speak English so we kept laughing at how dumb they were. We got a picture with them and decided to head in for the night. Overall this day was a HUGE success. My feet had blisters on the bottom of them, my legs were sore, I knew I had accomplished a lot that day.
9/18/2011
We woke up around 9:30, said our goodbyes to Jeno, and then started our new day in Budapest. We went to the Japanese shop right next to our hostel which sold clothes for really cheap. We all had the goal in mind to get some parachute pants. This is the huge style out here in Europe. Everyone wears parachute pants. At first I thought they were hideous, but now I love them. I bought a floral pair of them at the Japanese store and decided to wear them for the rest of the day. After shopping, Naomi, Lyndsi, Ali, Ashley, and I headed to the baths. These are supposedly a really popular place to go to when you are in Budapest. They are these baths where the water comes from underground springs. We rented swim suits and put them on and couldn’t stop laughing. We had these old one pieces that barely covered our body because they were too small. We realized that this trip was going to make us really comfortable with each other. The baths ended up being just like a places with lots of swimming pools. It was nice to relax in the sun and play in the baths. One of the baths had waves and we had a blast body surfing in them. We were there most the day then headed to the huge market. The market had most the same things at every booth, but it was fun looking around.
After browsing the market, we went to St. Stephens Bascilica. All I can say is that, that is the most beautiful church I have ever been into in my life. There was gold trim everyone and the most beautiful designs. Words cannot even describe it. All I know is that everyone has to visit that church if they have the opportunity. It was cool because when we went inside a wedding was going on. That is what made the church even more special.
We had a few hours left in the city so we decided just to take it slow and walk around. We found many different monuments and took lots of fun random pictures in the street. Our favorite sight we found was a statue of Ronald Reagan. We had fun taking pictures with him. We went and saw the Jewish monument of the shoes representing WW2 times with the Jewish had to take off their shoes and jump into the Danube or get shot. It was sad.
It was time to leave and we all headed to the train station to make our train. Sadly, lots of us didn’t validate our ticket, so we ran into a problem. As we got off the underground train to get to our train station, this mean Hungarian stopped us and was mad. We had done something terrible in his eyes since we didn’t get our ticket validated. It was a mess. He ended up fining us 25 Euros. We were all so angry, but I couldn’t help but laugh. I thought it was hilarious how the whole thing happened. Luckily it wasn’t something worse and thankfully we all got on our train back to Vienna.
BUDAPEST WAS A BLAST, BUT I AM GLAD TO BE BACK IN VIENNA
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