kathryn|kurioso

Time has really flown by since our Budapest and Vienna trip this past spring. Looking back at our photos, we were wearing winter clothes. I remember putting them away and celebrating summer. Now I am wearing my winter clothes, thinking about what we will be doing this Christmas.

Kevin posted the pictures for the trip some time ago, despite the lack of an accompanying article. I am very guilty of structured procrastination that I learnt from him.

I really enjoyed the time we spent in Budapest. Jay was an excellent host despite his busy schedule, and generouly provided us with a place to stay and the ever important wireless internet access. We felt that we were right at home.

The first two days has been posted for some time and might be worth reviewing. To carry forward … after we visited the Pest side, we spent a day seeing the Buda side. In the Buda side, it has more historical with the castle and fort. Geographically, Buda is hillier than Pest, which explains why the castle and fort were built on this part of land. We spent quite some time climbing stairs or walking up steep hills, but the scenery were well worth it. In the castle, we admired their beautiful architecture, and learnt the Hungarian history in their museum. After the castle, we walked down the hill and climbed up the Gellert Hill to see the Gellert Statue and the artificial waterfall at the bottom of the hill which marked the country’s first Christian martyr. We climbed to the very top and walked to the Citadella fort. The Liberty Statue, built to mark liberation from Fascist rule by Soviet soldiers, stands here along with a great view overseeing the city. We stayed around and had dinner to wait for the night cityscape.

The 4th day was a beautiful sunny day out. Kevin and I took a 2 hour train out to Eger, a small wine town. The train was old and filled with cigarette smell. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much research done on the town and of course, didn’t speak any Hungarian. We were so spoiled by the big cities we’ve visited, where many people spoke at least some English. The train station we arrived at had no information centre. Instead, a map on an office indicated the tourist center was quite far from where we were, probably a half hour or more walking distance.

The problem was that we didn’t have a map to reliably get us there and back. We tried to buy a map from the nearby gas station. After a bit of struggle using hand gestures and pointing at a Hungarian-English dictionary that Jay lent us, the staff understood we wanted a map, but were sold out of Eger maps! We wander around and tried to explore the city on our own but were also worried that we may get lost and not find our way back to the station.

It was a very quiet town. We seldom saw people walking by. We tried to ask some of the younger people in hopes that they may speak some English but they seemed very shy … and somehow they gave me the feeling that we scared them.

Returning to the train station, we took a train to the next stop in hopes it would bring us closer to the tourist and city centre. Unfortunately, the train station was even smaller than the one before. So we ended up sitting around, enjoying the sun and waited for our return train back to the Budapest.

The day was salvaged when we accompanied Jay and his friends to a Hungarian buffet restaurant called Trofel. All the food there were delicious, especially the grilled food. After all the food, Jay introduced us the popular Hungarian liquor, Unicum, to help ease our overstuffed tummies.

After such an eventful day, the best way to follow up was to spend a sunny day at the famous Hungarian Baths but not before I found an excuse to make Kevin go shopping with me by forgetting to bring half of my bathing suit! I tried to be fast, but it still took half the day to get the job done.

On our way to the Szechenyi Baths in the city park, we walked by Hero Square just as a heavy rain storm was passing by. We could almost feel the lighting just above our heads. Thunder and lighting were simultaneous. Obviously, we didn’t end up staying long to admire the hero statues. As we hurried under one small umbrella to the baths, we wondered if we’d be able to try the outdoor thermal baths. As luck would have it, the storm subsided just as we arrived at our destination. A 10 minute rain storm, just for us.

Szechenyi is truly one of Europe’s largest health spa. There were over 40 thermal baths and few sauna rooms. Each bath had its chemical composition and temperature listed. In the sauna rooms, we could smell the herbs Outside several saunas, an ice machine churned ice to bring into the saunas. It was very refreshing to steamed ourselves up in the sauna and then take a quick dip in a cooler pool. One of the baths was a big whirlpool. I never swam so fast in my life before, and at the same time, I felt like we were in a big washer.

Our last day in Budapest was relaxing. Gabi cooked us a big lunch. After lunch, Jay took us to Tesco to buy some local wines (very cheap and very good), Unicum, Milka chocolate and regular still water, which is not popular in Eastern Europe (they seem to prefer sparkling water or water that tastes like sparkling water gone flat). We got Gabi some flowers to thank her for her incredible hospitality. She later drove us to a bus stop for our next stop: Vienna.

Before we got to our train to Vienna, we stopped by the hostel to pick up Kevin’s pen for his Tablet PC, which he dropped the night before. Kevin was happy that he got his pen back. Later on the train to Vienna, we found evidence that two dogs at the hostel were the ones that found his pen as they left souvenir chew marks along the grip.

Halo Budapest! Gruss Gott Wien!!
(Good-bye Budapest! Greeting to God Vienna!!)