Budapest

The capital city of Hungary is made up of Buda (on the West) and Pest (on the East), which became a single city through unification in 1873. The six or so bridges that cross the Danube make the two sides of the city easily connected. Buda is hilly and Pest is flat…

Budapest actually reminded in some ways of St. Petersburg, Russia in terms of the city vibe and the way it functions especially the metro with the super long and fast escalators. You see a lot of older people here too.

People were quite friendly – everytime we took out a map, someone or the other would stop to see if we needed any help. A lot of people speak English. I was not able to make sense of much Hungarian. A funny thing was that saying hello sounds something like saying SEE YA!

We ate some good food here in neat restaurants on side streets. Chicken paprika, Hungarian dumplings, beef stew, and lots of cool cucumber salads… There is a lot of International cuisine available too. We had a delicious Middle Eastern meal one night. One of the main streets called Andrassy is modeled after the Champs Elysees in Paris and has a lot of the high-end designer shops. Walking all the way down this street takes you to the Heroes Square and the City Park.

We spent the day on Saturday at the Szechenyi thermal baths. What a great experience! The baths are located in the middle of the City Park and are said to be one of the largest in Europe. The underground thermal springs serve over a dozen pools, some outdoors and some indoors. The water is thought to be medicinal as it contains calcium, magnesium, sodium sulphate, and fluoride. It has a slight sulphuric smell too. It was a rainy and windy day here in Budapest, so sitting outdoors in 38 degree water felt amazing. They had lots of saunas and steam baths as well.

Khang left today back to Vancouver, and now I have 16 days ahead of me before I too return home. I was hoping to go to Krakow, Poland, but after waiting in line for over an hour at the train station this morning, they said the train is fully booked. So I am heading back to Vienna as my next scheduled stop is Cesky Krumlov in Czech Republic. I have three nights to figure out where to go and what to do….!

LINK TO SOME PHOTOS:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141355&l=1f38e&id=748975520