So little time, so much to see (Saturday in Budapest)

Saturday morning we woke up and mapped out all we wanted to see that day (or at least I did, the others in my group didn’t really have anything in mind expect for going one of the thermal baths that Budapest is famous for). After looking at public transportation, we decided it would just be better to buy a ticket for a hop-on hop-off bus that hits all the major sites. As we were heading to where we thought the bus was to pick us up, we were approached by a salesman from a competing company who wanted to sell us his tour company. The price of his tour was about $5 more than the one we were going to do, but I convinced him to give us a little money off the price of the tour and to walk us to where his tour busses were picking up. Along the way I learned that he was 19, held the job to pay for school, and lives with his sister. We saw most of the major sites on the Buda side (the city is divided by the Danube into the Buda and the Pest sides) including the Hungarian Royal Palace, the Fisherman’s Bastion and St. Mathias Church. The architecture in Budapest is really a mix of east and west—very cool. Our next goal was to try to go to one of the thermal baths, but as we were heading that way on the bus, it just pulled over and stopped and everyone was instructed to get off. Turns out that end of town we were headed for was closed off due to the Gay Pride Festival, so no more transportation for us. It was already about 4:30 by this time, so we walked down the main pedestrian street on the Pest side, had some happy hour cocktails and headed home to shower before dinner.

That night we ate at a little restaurant by our apartment house then went to a club to get a taste of Hungarian nightlife. Hungary seems to be perpetually stuck the 90s—the club played both Hungarian music (well I think it was Hungarian, it wasn’t in a language I understood) as well as American music that I would have enjoyed at Word of Life Mixers in 1998. Lots of Jock Jams-esque tunes, of course Michael Jackson, and I think they even threw the electric slide in there. The Hungarians loved it and we did too.

Pictures: View of Budapest and the Danube; Fisherman's Bastion & St. Mathias Church