Budapest, Hungary

Friday, October 12 - Saturday, October 13, 2012


On Thursday evening, October 11,  my traveling group and I embarked on a sixteen hour train journey from Capolago to Budapest. After a memorable trip on a night train, preceded by an hour we spent by the water in Zurich, we arrived in Budapest around 11:00 Friday morning.

Maverick Youth Hostel

Budapest is a city divided by the Danube River, with Buda falling on the West bank and Pest on the East side. With the exception of our walking tour, we spent our time in Pest; however, my liking of Buda far exceeded my liking of Pest. After departing the train, we headed for the ATM. Budapest currency yielded the most astounding of currency exchange rates at 1 US Dollar matching 222 Hungarian Florints. We used the currency to pay for the best hostel we have stayed at to date: the Maverick Youth Hostel.

The view of Buda from Pest

Found my favorite part about fall in Pest!

Once we settled in to our tree house style rooms, we headed in the direction of the river. Our first glimpse of Buda, bridges, and the surrounding old architecture was well worth the long wait of a sixteen hour train ride. Standing near the Chain Bridge, we noted a nearby building which though we didn't know what it was, prompted us to start snapping our cameras. Then off to our stop, we realized that our intended destination, the Great Hall Market, was what we had been taking pictures of in minutes prior. Standing since 1896, Budapest's largest market offered fish to fashion. The market was the first that we have visited with two floors and consequently the market where we spent the most time to date. I was quickly able to note things indigenous to Budapest such as paprika and hidden key boxes. I also spotted my favorite symbol of Autumn: pumpkins. However, every pumpkin price listed was listed not as the sale price of a pumpkin, but instead was called Halloween.

The Great Hall Market

The largest market yet!

By the time Friday night rolled around, I was more than thrilled to be able to meet up with other Tech friends from another study abroad program based in Italy. Michael Donovan and Matt Thomas introduced us to members of their program, swapped stories with us, and joined us on a pub crawl. Each of the four bars we went to were known as "ruin bars" meaning that they were previously old buildings now converted into bars. The artistic funk and uniqueness of each bar proved this true as I noted different architectural aspects. At the fourth bar, the best surprise of all was waiting for me... Lizzie! Though I knew she was coming to Budapest, I didn't think I would see her until the following day. After a great but brief reunion, I headed back to the hostel with Dave and Ali. Our method of transportation back to the hostel demonstrated just how touristy we were as Ali, Dave, and I were easily duped into taking a taxi which ripped us off.


We decided to try out our first free tour on Saturday morning. Our tour guide, Andrew, was energetic and full of trivia. Did you know that Hollywood producers tend to choose Hungarian as the language of aliens in movies? In fact, the way Yoda speaks is modeled off the Hungarian language. "Backwards talk," like Yoda, and sentence structure such as English speakers are used to are considered equivalent in the Hungarian language; for example, saying, "Sausage I eat," or "I eat sausage," is the same. Hungarian is an agglutinative language: small meanings form large words. The language has 44 letters in it. This could help to contribute to the reason why the language has a word which would be equivalent to a full sentence in English that took Andrew approximately five seconds to say. The word, "megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért," means something like "for your continued behavior as if you could not be desecrated.” If this seems complicated to you, you're not alone. The Hungarian language is ranked in the top five hardest languages to learn. However, the two most important words to know on our trip, "hello" was coincidently translated to what sounds like "see ya" and "goodbye" to "alo." He joked that when we walk into shops, uninterested shopkeepers may great us with "alo," in hopes of us leaving.

Matthias Church

As we stood listening to Andrew by the river running through Hungary's coastal, he noted a statue that is known as Szabadsag Szobor or Statue of Liberty. The statue was built after World War II, in 1947, to memorialize Hungarian freedom. However, Hungary is only a more recent post-Communist country. Moreover, the older generation struggles with more modern thought like ours and Andrew's generation. Following our observing of the Danube and its surrounding landscape, we walked across the Chain Bridge, up a lot of steps, and arrived in the Buda Castle District. The views from this point were beautiful. In our time in the castle district, we saw Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church and the Royal Palace and Buda Castle, both UNESCO World Heritage sites. Unfortunately, we were unable to go into any of these sites. Matthias Church's exterior was so pretty and colorful. Though known as the name of a Hungarian king, the church is officially titled The Church of Our Lady.

The Chain Bridge

Budapest was equally as beautiful in the daytime as it was at night. Determined to burn the candle at both ends before boarding our sixteen hour train at 6:00 Sunday morning, Lizzie met up with us at our hostel and we headed out to what was voted the number one bar in the world by Lonely Planet
The bar, was an old Ukrainian ship docked on the Buda side of the river. We enjoyed different bar locations throughout the ship where we were able to socialize and for a second night in a row, try a different fruit flavor of the traditional Hungarian alcohol, Pálinka. A very strong liquor, it dates back 500 years to when it was used more as a digestive medicine. As the club started to fill up, DJ A.Skillz took the stage near the large dance floor and we began imitating some of the many European style dance moves. The environment was so much fun that we lost track of time until we decided it was time to leave at 3:00. And then came the best trip to Doner Kebab of the trip... I didn't know it was possible. Kacey, Ali, and I thought it would be easier to just keep staying awake since we had to leave for the train station at 5:00 so in turn we were rewarded for our stamina by our discovery of arguable the best hummus EVER! However my favorable opinion of this particular dip most likely had something to do with the fact that I've been deprived of my favorite snack since August. We then made it back to the hostel and attempted to stay awake. The plan worked well until I heard everyone else's alarms going off and then I promptly fell asleep for half an hour until someone woke me up and told me we were leaving... so much for avoiding the brutal wakeup call.

Budapest!