Budapest Day 1

I arrived in Budapest after an excruciatingly long day of travel (see previous post) and limited sleep, but I was excited to do a bit of exploring before heading in for an extended slumber. My driver into the city was an exceedingly nice Hungarian with very little English abilities, however, either by his own preference or a misguided, but appreciated, attempt to make me feel comfortable was tuned into a radio station that I can only describe as “Eclectic American”. On the 30ish minute drive from the airport to the city center where my Bed & Breakfast is we jammed out to some Beach Boys, Motley Crue, Destiny’s Child, Journey and ABBA.

My Bed & Breakfast is in an incredible location, I am literally right next door to the Hungarian Parliament and its breathtaking views - and a stones throw away from the Danube, the river that separates Buda and Pest.

Although exhausted, I wanted to make sure I took in a few of the sights and got myself some food before I called it an early evening. The Hungarian Parliament building is breathtaking, and contains a number of monuments to the Hungarian independence from Austria. The building has 691 rooms and 27 individual spires, which is crazy to think about. The square in which the parliament building sits is named the Kossuth Square, named after Lajos Kossuth, a major figure in the struggle for independence. The square features a massive flag pole that is constantly guarded by two armed Hungarian soldiers. While I was there they were slowly pacing around the pole in a circle in unison, which was intriguing to watch.

On a more somber note, just down the street from the Parliament building - on the bank of the Danube is a touching memorial. As seen in my picture below, there is a portion of the bank of the Danube that has bronze shoes lined up along the bank. This is to memorialize the thousands of Jews that were executed in Budapest in WWII - they were told to take off their shoes and were shot on the bank of the river so that the river would carry their bodies away. This was by far the most crowded portion of my brief tour, and as you can see, many people had left candles, flowers and other touching tributes there.

One last anecdote for the day - my biggest challenge so far here has been eating. Hungarian is unlike any of the languages that I’m vaguely familiar with and looking at a menu that doesn’t have English on it is incredibly intimidating. I was finally able to get some food by finding a place that had a few pictures and pointing at what I wanted to the non-english speaking person behind the counter, and it was really good - I just have no idea what I ate! I’m sure this will get easier as a venture further into the city, but had a good laugh about that yesterday.