300 to 1

Foreword: 

In preparing for this blog I had made many notes about jokes I could make about being hungry in Hungary. You see, for some reason, my metabolism kicked into really high gear right around the time I visited the city of Budapest. I found it inconvenient because it could potentially cost large sums of money, that is, until I found a grocery store and realized their groceries are actually really cheap. Still, I always found myself searching for sustenance and as much as the setup for the play on words is there, I must refrain. But please know that it is with great restraint that this blog stays pun free. Other blogs haven't been so lucky,

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We left Romania like we entered it. Cold and rainy. All other days in between were perfect weather so it didn't matter that entry and exit days were of poor weather. We traipsed from the city center to the train station and caught our sleeper train to Budapest.

I don't remember sleeping well. The bed was too short like most beds, but for some reason I was exceptionally squished on it. By morning I felt as though I was 15 cm shorter. I my head would later find this to be false. Finding out that the Hungarian currency is about 300 Forints to 1 Euro I saw my first bill with a ten thousand on it. In a bit of a miscommunication we had neglected to book a hostel. So we found the nearest McDonalds (free wifi) and ordered something to eat. I ordered a yummy pastry for an equivalent of about 1,50 Euro. We booked our hostel then walked across town to it. 

It wasn't until later that I realized I had made a tragic mistake. I had left my charger in the hostel in Romania. (See The Charger Interlude) Now I had to walk around all of Budapest for two days without a cell phone. Determined to not let this ruin my stay in the city I headed out with all my camera gear into the vast unknown. We found a palace on a hill and explored it. Due to lack of sleep the night before I wasn't feeling the excitement that I normally do when first arriving at a city, especially one so awesome as Budapest. There at the palace, which was now a museum, I learned that Budapest used to be two cities named Buda and Pest. It wasn't until later that they became the one city.

Earlier in the day I had thought I shrank by about six inches because of my sleep on the train. But this was later confirmed to be false when I hit my head entering and exiting an old World War 2 bunker museum.  This museum showed the struggles of Budapest in the second world war. It was truly sobering to see the suffering that this city went through. 

After realizing that we hadn't eaten something of real sustenance in almost 24 hours (a small 1,50 Euro sweet roll doesn't count) we were starving. We found a most excellent place to eat. No longer starving, I was now reenergized and ready to explore the city again. We walked all over, took metros  and trams, and made it through most of the really cool parts of the city. They have a most amazing Parliament building. 

Two days flew buy one of them had rain and cloudy weather. That one storm seemed to follow us everywhere. It didn't matter, there were plenty of things to see that were right by metro or tram stops that we could get there in relative dryness. This city made a very good case to have me return to it some day. I am convinced that I want to really badly. 

On our last night, the rainy night, we walked through so I could get some night shots of the city. There was a region that I thought looked straight out of Minas Tirith and Cair Paravel and I had to photograph it at night. While Michael avoided the rain by sipping on some coffee in a diner just inside the Cair Paravel building I sat outside incredibly happy to be in such a cool city even in the rain. 

Our journey to Zagreb, Croatia was about to begin. To find out about that city read my Zagreb blog.

Part of the region that I thought looked like Minas Tirith

An area in the section that I thought looked like Cair Paravel.
 The Minas Tirith looking church stands across the square from here.
I was standing in between the two when this was shot

The exceptionally beautiful Hungarian Parliament building