Budapest and more

Thursday Sandy and I left for Budapest, Hungary to stay with her couch surfing bud Julie. It was rainy and chilly as we headed to Luton airport, a rather small but friendly airport. We arrived in the early evening to a rather nice airport. The trip from the airport to Julie’s place was beautiful as we crossed the Danube from Pest into Buda. Buda is the hillier, richer part of the city while Pest is more flat and has working class. The city was once separated into two parts but the joined the two together to better defend themselves from invaders. Julie’s place was cute and quaint with lots of books, old and modern. Some in English while others in Hungarian.

The next morning we got up around 8am to get ready. Our first full day in Budapest was rainy and chilly as we walked around looking at all the beautiful buildings and walked through a market. We saw people getting ready for their National holiday at St. Paul’s Basilica, a huge cathedral with a beautiful outside. We ate at the nicest McDonald’s in Europe, supposedly which was overpriced and ok food. We picked up some Hungarian wine and beer before we left for home. We spent the night watching VH1 that played actual music videos the entire time!

Our first day was fun exploring the Danube and around Parliament. Our second day was even better though because the weather was beautiful and we got to see the Buda side. We climbed all the windy hills to see the little town up top, climb around the palace area that reminded me of a fairy tale. So beautiful as we looked at the wonderful views from up top…we eventually walked around to their museum that looked like a Palace with beautiful statues and architecture. Walking through the museum area, we came along a long walkway with lots of turns and stairs. There was a stations of the cross going on as we walked the path that seemed fitting for the area we walked through! Eventually we got back down to terra firma and got some Irish coffee for St. Patty’s Day. Then watched the crowds walk over the bridge from Pest into Buda from atop the stairs before we ascended all the way to the very top. We climbed to the top of Buda eventually to watch the sunset over the city which was really beautiful. After freezing up top, we went down to get some dinner in Pest. Too tired to go out, we ate our Hungarian meal (mmm, goulash!) and went back home. Julie laughed at our pictures and told us some stories about some of the sites.

Sunday was our more relaxing day as we made our way to the baths and the park. We took the bus to the Rudas bath in Buda which is one of the oldest renovated Turkish thermal baths heated from the earth. Very cool, felt like we were in a different time with how medieval the stone walls and iron rungs looked. There was a beautiful ceiling with stain glass on it that allowed light to shine into the center room temperature bath. Thankfully everyone wore bathing suits! Lots of older people were there as the baths are said to sometimes have healing powers with the minerals in them. We took a quick rest in the side room to dry off since we forgot to bring towels and none were provided..oops!

Once we dried off, we took the subway back to the end of Pest and caught the bus home. Tired again, we got up early the next day to do the Gellert baths and see the rock church before we had to leave. The Gellert was nice but not my favorite. Beautiful baths though and got to see the world famous swimming pool! The rock church was right next door so we peeked in to look at the church literally built out of rock. Beautiful and still in use for services we were able to look inside but not take many pictures in respect to its patrons. Budapest is a very romantic city with a lot of history that still reflects itself today. The detailed buildings and statues portray what once was along with some of the buildings that have not been completely fixed since the war. Its people are still looking for something to change in the government and are very active in pursuing it. We were told to stay in Buda for the greater part of the day on Saturday because of possible protests getting out of hand.

On Monday, we returned to London in a great mood and ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s day (again). Leceister Square was our destination for pubs so we got decked out in proper attire. The work week was pretty stable with our regular meetings and me working on the Save the Children analysis. I got more work to do with the Annual Report that I’m still working on although summarizing the important events and earnings of the year is rather tedious after awhile. Easter was this weekend so I got Monday off too as well as Friday. Dave and I tried to go to Kew Gardens on Friday but it was too expensive to go in and it was almost closed. The town area was cute but luckily we left right before the hail storm! It was nasty and cold once we got off the tube and got some food from the Turkish store. Saturday the weather was crazy again with random hail storms and sunshine which left us cold and damp after a few hours in Portobella market in Notting Hill. The market was nice though but the weather was just gross and we were chilled to the bone! We went out later that night though to go dancing and got up Sunday for Easter mass. The priest was funny and the service good. Cold and dreary, we stayed in except to go see “Juno” at the theatres which was very funny. I talked to my mother on the phone and Erin on the internet. It was nice to hear from family! Monday was a slow day as well with our first snow of the year. However it went away later so we headed out to Holland Park to see Dave and play on the playground, which was fantastic. They had a little bit of rock climbing and slides, so we just took advantage of the nice day and went on anything that looked like it could support us..haha. That was how we spent our bank holiday in London.

-Lauren