At 3:30pm on Thursday, I hopped a train along with Maude, Melinda, and Saadia for the 7 hour train ride to Budapest. The train ride was long but fine and we arrived to our hostel about 11pm. By the time we got in and went out to look for food pretty much everything was closed with the exception of some 24hour fast food places and some gyro places along the main street near us. So we went out wandering around a bit and found something to eat. Then we just took it easy, went back to the hostel and hung out for awhile so that we could wake up the next day at a decent hour to see the city.
We ended up getting up around 10am and slowly got on the move. We were right in the center of our things because I picked a hostel with a great location so fortunately we were able to walk pretty much everywhere. First, upon the recommendation of a friend, we went to this little place not too far from the hostel for brunch. It wasn't an american restaurant but it had pancakes and bagels and I had a tasty bagel sandwich of some sort. After that we set out to see the sites of Budapest. The four of us walked along, discovering a few things that were very cool along the way by accident (to see some of these check out my pictures on picasa http://picasaweb.google.com/nmiller214, they will be on there pretty soon). The first major highlight of our walk though was the Parliament building. The Parliament is an enormous neo-gothic building that holds Hungary's political body.
After checking Parliament and all of the monuments and statues surrounding it we walked toward the Danube River and followed the river up to the chain bridge. The chain bridge is a huge bridge that crosses from the Pest side of the city over the the Buda side.
As you can see, there are chain like supports that hold the bridge up and give it its name. Once you cross into Buda, the first thing you see is the Royal Palace. This building is much less impressive than Parliament, but its certainly worth going up to because it sits high above the city and offers a great view. It was pretty far up and we had already walked a lot so we hopped on the funicular and rode up to the top. From here you had a great view of the river and the Pest side of the city from above.
After checking out the views and the palace we walked around the Buda side of Budapest for a bit longer, saw a few other cool sites, churches, etc. and had a good late lunch. Finally we walked back down the big hill and decided to catch the metro back toward our hostel. We made it back at the perfect time to get a nap before heading out for dinner.
Once we all woke up, we got dressed and went to this place we had seen earlier, and heard was very "trendy" called Donatella's for dinner. Initially, we thought we were not going to be able to get a table because we had no reservation. Luckily it turned out that there was one large table (it could fit 8) that was available and that the 4 of us were able to sit at. This dinner was great and had amazing italian food, me might as well have been in Italy. I don't remember the pizza in Italy being any better than this when I was there. After Donatella's we took a friends recommendation and found this bar called Szimpla Kert. It was one of the coolest bars I have been to and it was huge. There were 5 bars inside and lots of different rooms to sit in, though we were lucky to find a table for all of us in an upstair room right after we got there. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera and the place is hard to describe, but it is definitely a place worth visiting when in Budapest. Upon leaving the bar, our night was over and we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep so we could check out a few more things on Saturday.
Saturday morning we all woke up feeling good and were ready to get out and see the other main sites Budapest had to offer. We were walking to the Terror Museum, a museum about nazi and communist occupation in Hungary, which we heard was very interesting and well done when we decided to stop for food. By the time we got close there wasn't much around except there was a TGI Friday's nearby. We had already planned a nice and authentic Hungarian dinner and after being in Central/Eastern Europe for 2 months its nice to have something that reminds you of home once in awhile. Or so we thought. Turns out that would be an awful decision. Only a little while later when we were in the Terror museum, food poisoning claimed its first victim. Melinda got sick while we were at the museum so we left and went back to the hostel because she was feeling awful. At this point we thought it was only her and that the rest of us would be fine. Saadia didn't feel like going out anymore at this point but Maude and I didn't want to waste the day so we continued to through Budapest to Heroes's Square, the Baths (giant hot spring bath houses) and the Castle.
The first picture above is one of the castle from afar. Unlike Prague Castle, this is exactly what you would imagine a castle to be. It was small but it has a large gate with a bridge leading up to it that crossed over what was left a moat. This was the first time I had ever seen an actualy moat. The second picture is the bath house, inside is a variet of hot spring baths of differeing temperatures. In this particular bath house, the pools are coed so bathing suits are required, but there is an extensive set of pools. After we walked around a bit more, we thought we should head back to the hostel before we got dinner. At this point, both Maude and Saadia began feeling sick, though I was still feeling alright. Since everyone was feeling badly, we didn't end up going out anywhere though I did hang out at the hostel with a British guy and an Australian girl who were travelling around as well. Later on that night, both Maude and Saadia ended up getting sick and Saadia was so dehyrated that she ended up fainting. At this point we tried to call an ambulance but to put it briefly that was a fail. Instead I called Worldwide SOS and found a good hospital then we got in a cab and were on our way. While there I only got a shot to help keep my stomach settled and Melinda was much better by this point, but both Saadia and Maude were sick and had low blood pressure so they were given ivs to help get them hydrated again. At this point everyone was a little soured on Budapest and our train back to Prague was in only 2 hours. Though I will say Budapest is a very cool city and is more metropolitan than Prague, somewhere I would certainly visit again. Just on this trip we were ready to get back and rest so we managed to make our 9am train after departing the hospital at 7am and we got back to Prague safe and sound. Another small sidenote is that I am pretty certain it was related but I actually did not get sick until Tuesday, not sure exactly what happened but I woke up early Tuesday morning feeling awful. However, everyone is feeling much better now and I enjoyed all of Budapest when we weren't sick so don't let this stop you from going.
I'm writing this post on Budapest now but I actually just got back from Vienna with Maude, her roommate Jena and Melinda. Vienna is my favorite city that I have seen so far, it was simply awesome so my next post will be on that...and hopefully soon because I already have the pictures up and ready to go on my computer!
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