Hungary

A series of events made this our worst travel experience yet. First of all, there was confusion over when we were supposed to leave to catch our plane and Daisy and I were out doing errands, expecting to return home before leaving. So Chris ended up meeting Daisy and me downtown, where Daisy had just a sweater on with no undershirt (insistent 18 month old behavior!) and I had on...let's just call them "not-good-walking-shoes." We changed planes in Vienna and experienced the biggest free-fall drop of our lives in that second plane as we were going through some weather. It was terrifying. We were thankful to land but irritated that our checked luggage was left behind in Vienna. Even though we knew better, we did not travel with our contact lens equipment in our carry-ons and so spent the night wearing our contacts. However, one of my eyes aggressively blinked out one of my contacts as I was sleeping and I woke up to a dried up contact lying next to me. Which led to a full day of sightseeing in Budapest with one eye with vision, one without.

Photo documenting the arrival of our luggage...and eyeglasses!


So with that introduction - here are some of the good parts of our trip to Hungary! We spent one full day in Budapest and saw all the sights. When Hungary was at its peak and part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1896), it celebrated its 1,000th year. In preparation for the festivities, Budapest launched new building projects, partially modeled after the city of London(for example, there is a Parliament building on the banks of the Danube.) I was surprised to learn that Budapest built the first underground public transit on the continent, and that the trains were horse-drawn! The tunnels are still used today and are very shallow, just a few steps below street-level. Currency was fun: 10 Euros equal about 2,700 Hungarian Forints.

St. Stephen's Basilica - it reminded us of Madison's capitol building! Stephen was crowned king in 1000 AD by the western, Roman church, deciding its future orientation in the world. He also brought Christianity to the pagan Magyar people he ruled.


This cool double cross is everywhere in the city!


Gerbeaud Cafe - sumptuous cakes and coffee


The biggest synagogue in Europe. In the 1800's, a quarter of the city was Jewish. It was startling to see something that looked like a church but was decorated with innumerable Stars of David.


Heroes Square, with statues of notable Hungarians. Museums, parks, traditional mineral baths, and a replica of a Transylvanian castle are nearby. (Transylvania now belongs to Romania.)


Chain Bridge and Castle Hill - our camera didn't save our pictures from the daytime! It was beautiful at night.

A couple other details about our day: Hungarian Goulasch Soup is so good. (Or maybe it was because I was so hungary haha. That joke never got old!)The Swedish soccer fans took over the city in their yellow jerseys (there was a game that night). There was a Gay Rights demonstration that brought out tons of police in riot gear and closed down the main street (which separated us from our hotel for hours).

The next day, we took a train to the western edge of the country and met our friends from Madison: Tamas, April, and baby Sebestyen. Tamas grew up in Gyor, and now they were on vacation, visiting his family. It was refreshing to reconnect with friends, learn more about their lives, and have the opportunity to see Hungary like a local. Tamas' mom cooked tons of traditional Hungarian food for us, such as dumpling soup and a sort of fried potato cake served with garlic, sour cream, and cheese. She had a huge garden in the back of her house with a very fruitful pear tree. We sampled some of her bottled juices and Palinka, and I personally consumed 4 whole pears.

Meeting us at the train station


Daisy and Sebestyen. Daisy is wearing her new, traditional Hungarian blouse!



Our plane had another layover in Vienna, and this time we had over 4 hours. We took a convenient train to the city center and had time for the cafe experience and revisiting our favorite landmarks from our previous wintertime visit.