Budapest: Day 4

Day 4 - Finally some real sightseeing

For better or worse, the last day of our conference was canceled, so that meant we got to get out a little sooner and see some sights. First off was a trip up the Andrassy to Heroes' Square.
Here's the obligatory travel snapshot of the place.
And that's the Archangel Gabriel up there saying hello to all the Hungarians as they walk by. Personally, I was a big fan of the statues in the semicircular colonnades. Each one represents an important figure in Hungarian history. This one is of the Burger King, who first declared that Hungarians could "have it their way" in 1342.
Behind the square is the entrance to City Park. Our first stop was the completely unpronounceable Vajdahunyad Castle. I guess this thing was originally built out of cardboard for some sort of exhibition and then rebuilt in stone. There's always time to do things twice, but never time to do it right the first time is what my Dad would say. Well, he doesn't speak Hungarian so it doesn't matter.
Alpna snapped these next two of the church at the castle. As I got closer to the door, I began to hear some singing. An angel perhaps? No, probably just an opera mad Hungarian practicing. Apparently Hungarians are big fans of the opera, but more on that later.

The park was really beautiful, and I particularly liked this little bridge across the central pond.
Here's the entrance to the Szechenyi baths.
Budapestians (?) are nuts about bathing with each other. The plan was to do as the Romans (literally, since they were among the first to build baths here) and spend a day hanging in the baths. Turns out we're both too self-concious to hang out with geriatric Hungarians in Speedos. In retrospect, I should have done it.
On our way out, we passed this pond, which was steaming. Turns out there's all kinds of thermal springs all over the city, which is why there's all the bath houses. The water was really warm, which I bet these ducks love.
That night I kept vetoing every restaurant we passed, which didn't make Alpna very happy (in her defense, she wasn't really mad either). The biggest reason I kept giving her was that they were empty. Seemed pretty petty in the moment, I'll admit. Finally we (I) settled on a place called Cafe Vian, which was packed full of all kinds of people, mainly Hungarians. Turns out my pickiness paid off since both of us agree that this was the best food we had all trip. Alpna is a vegetarian (much, much more about that during the Africa trip), so she had some fruit soup, but I had something much meatier - steak topped with grilled goose liver served with a paprika stew and these perfectly fried potato wedges. Probably shortened my lifespan a few days, but highly worth it. Things started getting really good on day 5, so stay tuned.

Budapest - The first 3 days

Ladies and gents, if you ever get the opportunity to go to Budapest, take it. Up until a few months ago, I hadn't given much thought to the place. When I was given the opportunity to go, I simply thought, "This is my chance to go to Europe, even if it is just Hungary." Turns out, that thought was way off base, since Budapest was an amazingly beautiful place.
And so begins the story of all my travels. For those of you who don't know (and I doubt there's anyone reading this blog who hasn't heard me ramble on and on about it), this trip to Hungary was only the first of 3 trips that I had the opportunity to take this Fall. So, for the next few days, I'm going to do my best to share with you a very small percentage of the 1,000+ photos I took and somehow keep it interesting. So, wish me good luck and some for you too, because this might take a while.

Day 1 - JFK to Ferihegy
I love planes. I grew up in Seattle and it seemed that everyone knew someone who worked at Boeing. Take me for example. Several of my friend's parents worked there, my Dad's employer is heavily dependent on them and I grew up going to their museum. Part of me gets really excited when I go to the airport because I get to see things like this:
Our ride to Budapest. Malev is the national airline of Hungary, and before you get any ideas about a national airline of a formerly communist country with only 1 of their 27 planes servicing the US, let me just say that the service was excellent. Economy was comfortable, the food was good and the service was very professional. Makes me wonder why we can't do that in the US. Oh, and one of the flight attendants looked like Pete from The Muppets Take Manhattan.
I should take a moment here to restate that the service was excellent, and in no way were there any rats on the plane, especially not backtalking muppet rats. Once we got there and settled in, we decided to go for a stroll around and get our bearings. Turns out it was much colder than I had thought (you'll see gray skies in most of the photos from this trip, sadly), and I had forgotten my coat. Oh, and it was raining, so I needed an umbrella. Fortunately we were staying near one of the malls of Budapest, and after a few hours of bumbling around, jet lagged and completely baffled by the Hungarian tongue, I managed to find both a jacket and an umbrella. I also learned that the mall is the place to go if you're looking for some nookie. Every seat was filled with hormonal twenty-somethings and several times I had to dodge a couple as they decided that right there in the aisle was the best place for a make out session. Ugh.

Days 2 &3 - The Conference
The next few days were mostly filled with the conference that was the reason I was there, but we did manage to get out a bit after the meetings and see a few things, including the Hungarian Parliment.
Don't worry, there'll be more about that later. Here I am, in my new jacket, looking like a total goof as my travel buddy Alpna takes my photo.
Speaking of my travel companion, she was fantastic. As I will be mentioning her a lot in the next few posts (she was there for all of my trips), I thought I'd put a face with the name.
Just so that you know, this isn't Budapest, it's Cape Town (Hooray for foreshadowing!). And if you're reading this Alpna, don't get mad. You look fine. OK... where did I leave off? Oh yes, Budapest. Here I am at the famous Lanchid bridge.
The reason it's so famous is because it happens to be the first of many bridges to cross the Danube and connect Buda to Pest. Plus, it's a pretty bridge, which adds to the famousness. More pics to follow.
One of several interesting signs that we saw during our stay in Budapest. What's interesting about it is that we found it right by the Lanchid bridge, right in the middle of Budapest. Odd. And speaking of street signs...
... I really liked this stop sign. Don't know why. This is on Andrassy Blvd., right near our first dinner destination, a place called Callas - named after the famous soprano and located next door to the opera house. I decided to try some real Hungarian Goulash, a decision that was met with a little bit of confusion from my waitress. "It's soup. You want soup?" she says. Yes I did. In case you're wondering, goulash is pretty much like your Mom's beef stew recipe, if your Mom's beef stew recipe calls for a lot of paprika. So, not bad, but not fantastic. What was fantastic was the dessert. Pictured below is the only photo of food you'll see during my travels, Alpna's Sacher cake.
What I really should have taken a picture of was my Esterhazy cake which was worth the plane ticket over there. Imagine thin layers of cake with equally thin layers of cream - probably about 7 of each. On top is a layer of fondant icing, flavored with walnuts and a hint of maple. Really, really tasty.
On our way home, I stopped to take a photo of this 24 hour pharmacy. Not much to say, but I liked the way it came out, so I'm sharing.
So, that's the first 3 days of the trip. Really, it's not much more than a teaser for things to come, so don't worry. The real sightseeing starts on day 4, which I'll get to tomorrow.

Preface

So, I've been promising travel photos for some time now. My apologies for not having done it sooner. My hard drive is small and my pictures are plentiful so I've been busy shuffling megabytes around, selecting the good ones and applying my very basic photoshop skills to make up for my inexperience as a photographer... but I've got the first bunch ready to go, so from here on out, I'm all in. I'm looking forward to sharing some great trips and finally getting all this out of the way so that I can actually start blogging about all the random crap this blog is known for.

Remember kids, go out and vote!

And now for a horribly outdated clip...

Gotcha!

I bet all our weekends were better than this guy's.