Blazing Budapest

So in the middle of the night our other two roommates arrived. They were quite noisy so I woke up but it is what it is. So after finishing my blog I set off at around 8:30 am. My first stop was the Buda castle hill on the other side of the river but before I made it there I stop by a couple of churches. I didn’t make it too far in either of them though because it was 9 am on a Sunday morning. So, I continued on my way across the bridge which gave me a very beautiful view of the city. Then down the park on the other side and it took me a while to where I could get up onto the castle hill because many of the old entrances were blocked. Finally, I made it and found my way up the hill. The view was spectacular and I wandered around the grounds for a bit. It seemed that there was a big event the night before and the crews were in the process of tear down. So I continue along the hill toward the Cathedral, stopping occasional to look in shops and what not. When I got to the cathedral I saw that it was closed until 1 pm to tourists. I should have known. Luckily, the fisherman’s bastion was right there as well. It is similar to a fortress wall but had elegant and lavish stairs down the opposite side into the city and a top part which you could walk across and view the city. I did that and then head back down the bank to another bridge and the other side of the city. (By the way Budapest is actually separated into a Buda side on one bank of the river and the Pest side on the other.) This time I was going to St. Stephen’s Basilica. Here church was also going on but tourists were allowed to enter the back roped off section of the church. It was very beautiful and then I climbed the tower to the dome. This was fantastic. So gorgeous and I had some American boy from Boston to take a picture of me. My next stop was the Parliament building which is this huge sprawling building sitting on the Pest bank of the river. So I walked down some side streets and cut through a beautiful square/park (with a ton of dogs ? ).   When I reached the building it took me a few minutes to figure out that there were no more tickets for today which was sad but I was so hungry so I went back to this small restaurant I saw on the way. There I had a cup of goulash (it was better the night before) and Hungarian  ratieulle with sausage. This was pretty good and I got to rest after so much walking. Then I was off to the great synagogue which I found out from the tours that it is the largest in Europe but the second largest in the world only compared to one in New York City. Physically it is small but logistically it can hold more people though. It was absolutely breath taking inside and out. An interesting sight is the organ behind the arch which apparently caused quite a scandal in the Jewish community at the time. The reason this was included and why the outside also somewhat resembles a church is because the designers were Christians. We had a small tour of the facility and then the guide lead the group to a little market that the Jewish community as well as many others put on ever Sunday. The market takes place in adjacent courtyards that span at least 5 to 10 buildings. So I walked through and they had some pretty interesting things: lots of jewelry, books homemade goods, and even tasty treats. After wandering around here and back through the Jewish sector, I sat inside the synagogue for while just admiring the architecture and decoration. Fascinated that it was one of the only building not bombed during WWII. Apparently, since the Hungarians were in alliance with the Germans the deportation of the Hungarian Jewish did not begin until 1944. At this time the Gestapo set up a headquarters in the synagogue and so neither side would bomb it; one side because it housed Jews and the other because it housed the Gestapo. Purely amazing. After this I wandered around town a bit more and headed back to the hostel figuring I would shower and just relax. When I got back I had some time to myself and I ate a bag of popcorn and started organizing for my departure to Krakow. Then I got some new roommates! A girl and a guy from Romania who were in town training to become bar tenders on large cruise ships. They were in and out for a while and then our fourth roommate showed up, a guy, Sebastian, from Germany who had bicycled all the way to Budapest. This is when the fun really started. Sebastian, Nina, and myself had a fabulous conversation for hours. I don’t know how it started but we talked about nature vs. nuture and the power of the mind. Sebastian is an occupational therapist and so he was telling how when people have brain damage he works with them to learn to use other parts of their brains to do the same things as before. We talked about a ton of things and eventually got on the topic of Buddhism and ideas of meditation/mantras and the effects they have on people. I don’t know how long we talked but it was getting pretty late (around 9 pm) and so Sebastian went out to eat, Nina napped for she had been invited out for tea, and I finally took my shower. I wrote and decided to go to bed a bit early because I had to be at the train station at 7 am to leave for Krakow. Before I had fallen asleep Sebastian returned bringing all of us a traditional Hungarian treat! (I ate it the next day and it was quite good… chocolate with some kind of cream in the middle.) How nice of him.

P.S. There are a lot of places selling gyros in Budapest.
P.S.S. There are tons and I mean tons of statues in Budapest… more than anywhere else I have been (mostly of heroes such as men on horseback and what not).