Budapest/Vienna 22-23 March 2008
My experience in Budapest was somewhat different than my experiences in the other cities I visited. Mostly, I have my brother’s friend from school and his father to thank for that. We got to be picked up at the train station, stay in a real house, with real beds—and rooms to ourselves! Budapest was also rainy so I saw many things from the inside of the car. Actually, to be frank, my brother and his friend were more into hanging out than sight-seeing, so I just sort of went along for the ride.
We did go to see the House of Terror, which is a museum about the pro-Nazi regime in Hungary and the time under the Soviets. It was a really interesting museum, but far too little of it was in English for me to really get a good understanding of it. We also went inside Saint Stephen’s Basilica, and we saw Heroes’ Square and Parliament. We explored the Castle Hill some (not nearly as much as I would have liked). Castle Hill has a lot of wonderful medieval remnants and a beautiful view of the city. Last, but not least, I saw fast driving through Budapest’s narrow streets and no less than three shopping malls. Ah, Europe at it’s best.
From what I understand, Hungary as an Eastern European nation is somewhat unique because it is not Slavic. It’s surrounded by Slavic cultures, but the language is actually closer to Finnish than any other European language. And, strangely enough, it sounds a bit like Japanese.
Being in Hungary for less than 36 hours didn’t give me a great chance to explore Budapest, but I think I saw enough to get me back there someday. Moreover, it gave me a much needed rest after all of the non-stop traveling I had been doing. And, I got to play with dogs. So it was all fine with me.
On Easter Sunday my brother’s friend and his father drove us back to Vienna. We got here late, and decided to eat dinner around my dorm rather than going into the city center. We went into this little Italian place right down the street from me which had really great gnocchi and someone playing the piano. That was nice. I also liked getting to shower in my shower, and sleep in my bed. In the middle of the night I put my brother into a taxi to the airport, and a couple of hours later I was there myself, on the way to Athens.
