Budapest (Day 2)

I must be almost caught up because I'm actually writing about things that went on today. Yay. Exciting.

Anyway, I love Budapest. It's definitely one of my favorite cities, definitely of Europe and possibly in general. I thought returning would be disappointing, but the city is just as cool the second time around and I still have yet to try out one of the famous thermal baths.

Because of our late night last night, we got up relatively late. Rather, James, Mia and I got up late. Halmony always gets up early and Umma had to get up early to give the hotel people our laundry (so glad to have clean clothes again). We didn't leave the hotel until around 11, and then we were hungry. We discovered that there was McDonalds relatively nearby and decided to lunch there.

Now, I will defend overseas McDonalds trips for many reasons. First, the restaurants (for the most part) tend to be significantly nicer than they are in the States. This one had free WiFi. Depending on where you are, you also tend to be eating with more of the locals. You won't get this feeling at the McDonalds near the Spanish Steps, for instance, but when you're in not-so-touristy areas of a city like we were today, you end up hearing more of the local language. Also, McDonalds tends to change its menu when you're abroad. For instance, today I got a Greek sandwich that actually had a bit of that kebob-y taste to it. Anyway, that was kind of a random side tangent, but I always think it's kind of fun to go to McDonalds abroad even though I very rarely eat it at home.

Once we were done with lunch, it was finally time for some sight seeing. Our first stop of the day was the Great Market Hall. This involved some winding around streets as well as dragging Umma away from touristy shops lining the touristy pedestrian street, Vaci Utca. Once we finally got to the market, I think Umma and Halmony were in their happy place. The Great Market Hall is an enormous marketplace in Budapest. It was apparently one of the four built in Budapest in 1896 (which was a big year for the city as it was their millenial year). This one remains as an incredibly large market that caters to both locals and tourists. We circled around the bottom floor for a while, which was more or less a farmers market. We passed a ton of fruit stalls and some meat stands. We even bought some nectarines to eat later.

We then explored the upper level, which really only has an insane amount of tourist stalls and some food stands. I finally got to try langos, which I've heard Rick Steves rave about in his podcasts and in his Eastern Europe guidebook. They kind of tasted like funnel cakes, but the concepts very similar to crepes, where you can order them with both sweet and savory toppings. We got a simple sugar one and were quite happy with it.

I'm pretty sure that we could have stayed around the Grand Market for much longer. We still hadn't even explored the basement floor, where there is even more food. However, we still had much to see, so we went outside and ate nectarines and got our bearings for a while before heading out. We took the tram over to the Chain Bridge and crossed the bridge by foot. If you're unfamiliar with the layout of Budapest, the city once consisted of two separated cities, Buda and Pest.  The Chain Bridge is this massive bridge that crosses the Danube and connects the Buda portion of the city with the Pest side (we'd so far been on the Pest side). It's pretty fun to walk across if you're able to dodge all of the bikes that pass you.

Once we made it across, we took the funicular up the hill to get to the Buda Castle. Apparently, they're doing some major folk art festival up there, so we couldn't actually get into the surrounding palace area without buying a ticket to go to the festival. It's a pity too. You can get some great views of the city from the Buda Castle. We explored the Castle Hill area a little more, visiting St. Matthias Church and some other spots before deciding to head back down.

From there, I had planned to take a tram from the chain bridge to the Metro line that would take us under the Danube and back to the Pest side. Turns out that tram that I wanted to take was out of service until September so we had to walk. It actually went by faster than I thought it would. In any case, we took the Metro to our last sight seeing stop of the day, Heroes Square. I said before that 1896 was a big year of the city and Heroes Square is further evidence of that. It was built as part of the major celebration to commemorate the 1000 years since the Magyars first arrived in Hungary. In that square is the Hungarian War Memorial as well as statues memorializing many of the most famous Hungarian leaders. It's a pretty epic square. We sat around there for a little while, until a cricket bit Umma and we got chased away by a bee. We may or may not have embarassed ourselves in front of many locals and fellow tourists.

By this time, it was running close to dinner time and our big task of the day was to surprise Halmony for her birthday with a Korean dinner. We had used the McDonalds WiFi earlier in the day to locate what Lonely Planet named the best Korean restaurant in Budapest. Unfortunately, it took us on this tour of what Mia said was the Inglewood of Budapest before we could actually find the restaurant. On the upside, we all got a glimpse of what I believe was the soccer stadium of Budapest. That was cool at least.

The Korean restaurant was interesting. The main people serving us there were these two big burly Hungarian men who did not look Korean or speak Korean and looked like they could have belonged to the Hungarian mafia. They were nice, but kind of intimidating. The food was pretty good. A lot more authentic than the place that we had gone to in Prague. It was, however, incredibly spicy. Moreso than normal Korean food. Even the kimchi was painfully but deliciously spicy. We all left utterly defeated by the spiciness of Hungarian Korean food and had to console ourselves with ice cream. At least the walk back wasn't as bad as the walk there.

After our trip to eat Korean food, we made our way back to the hotel and have been getting ready for our next day of travels. Umma, James, and Halmony are flying to Milan tomorrow. Mia and I take and overnight to Belgrade. I'm going to have to get rid of my beloved Rick Steves book because he doesn't cover any of the other stops we'll be going to. It'll be sad not carrying that around in my bag anymore, but at least my bag will be a little lighter. Before everyone leaves, we plan to try to go to Memento Park and eat some goulash. Mia and I will also try to find that Hungarian Mexican restaurant again for dinner.