You da best, Budapest

This past weekend (March 22-24), I left Czech Republic for the first time since being here!  I traveled to Budapest, Hungary with BIG agency group with 37 fellow exchange students.  We traveled by bus and the trip was around 5 hours I believe.  We drove through Slovakia a little ways and then to Hungary.  We arrived in a sunshiney Budapest!  It was SO nice to soak up some Vitamin D even if it was cold and windy! 

There are 2 parts of the city which are appropriately named, Buda and Pest.  They are separated by the Danube river, which is Europe's 2nd longest river running through 10 countries.  When we arrived, we walked through Buda.  We started our journey on top of 

Gellért Hill, where we could look out and see all of beautiful Budapest!  Gellért Hill is named after the bishop Gellért who came Hungary from Italy to spread Christianity.  Sadly, the bishop encountered resisting pagans who put him in a barrel and rolled him down this very steep hill where he met his death.  Later, he was honored as a martyr and the hill was named after him and a statue of him was built.

Budapest from Gellért Hill

The statue of bishop Gellért 

After this our walk in Buda, we crossed one of the bridges (the Chain bridge, I think) and entered Pest.  We headed toward the Central Market!  The Central Market is a huge indoor market with fresh fruits, vegetables, salamis, and sausages on the first floor.  There was also paprika, which is the famous Hungarian spice, I learned!  They use it in many of their traditional dishes, including their most famous- goulash! On the second floor was where you could enjoy some traditional Hungarian food as well as shop for beautiful gifts and souvenirs.  We headed for the food first and I enjoyed a stuffed cabbage roll with extra cabbage on the side.  It was very tasty!  We ate standing up at a table with people bumping into us every few seconds because it was jam packed.  It was quite the experience! :) 

The Central Market

A quick, crazy meal in Central Market!

The market was really amazing!  We did not have very long there, but I did my best to see it all in a short amount of time.  They also had one of my favorite things: free samples!  I made sure to hit up all of the free sample stands.  I bought some of the famous paprika along with some sort of paprika sauce that I tried!  Another fun thing was trying to get used to the currency they use in Hungary: the Hungarian Forint.  I have gotten very used to Czech Korun and its conversion, so for the weekend I had to learn to use another one!  The HUF has a pretty crazy exchange rate with $1 equaling around 237 HUF.  I felt really rich with having 5,000 and 10,000 bills. ;) 

Paprika!

I am so glad that we came the weekend that we did because we got to be there for opening day of the Easter market!  The Easter market was set up in one of the city squares.  This was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  There were so many amazing and unique handcrafted items as well as lots of delicious food being cooked there.  Hungary, along with much of Central Europe, is famous for the Easter tradition of painted eggs.  There are also many painted egg shaped cookies!  There was one booth that was entirely cookies (plus some candies)!  Many of the cookies were decorated with great detail.  The lady who owned the booth explained to us that the cookies are all natural and their main ingredient is honey which also makes them stay good for quite some time!  I did not have faith in the taste of the cookie though, because they were very lightweight.  I like doughy cookies which are typically heavier.  Thankfully, my sweet friend, Michelle, had more faith in the cookies than I did and let me try one that she bought.  It was amazing!  It was a different texture, but so good.  The lady at the booth (as well as all the Hungarians I met on the trip) was so friendly and helpful.  We talked to her for quite some time and made a new Hungarian friend!  I also lucked out and got several samples at the Easter market.  There was a cheese booth with all kinds of wonderful looking cheeses.  I stood there long enough so the guy eventually let me try a piece.  He then asked where I was from.  When I told him I was from the U.S., he asked if marrying me was a way that he could go live in the United States!  I told him that I guess that was one way ha. 

Michelle and I loved the Easter market so much that we went back the next evening.  We visited our new friend and bought more cookies!  I bought some that are supposed to last until July so that I can take them home for my family.  Here is to hoping I don't eat all of them before then.  I also could not pass up the opportunity to eat dinner here.  There were so many delicious looking and smelling options that I had no idea what to get.  I went to ask the cookie lady what she suggested.  Her suggestion was the rooster testicle soup.  That one scared even this adventurous eater so I went with a pork sausage and grilled VEGETABLES.  Yes, vegetables.  I do not pass up the opportunity to eat vegetables because these opportunities do not come by often here.  It was an amazing dinner even if I had to sit in the freezing cold to eat it.  For dessert, Michelle and I split what is called "trdelník" in Czech.  It is a hollow bread dessert that is typically rolled in cinnamon and sugar.  Not only is the smell divine, but the taste is equally as wonderful.  

We got photo bombed by one of the booth workers! Haha!

Saturday morning, we had the opportunity to tour the Parliament building.  It is the 3rd largest Parliament building in Europe.  It was incredibly beautiful and so awesome to be able to tour such an important building.  

Okay, this was taken on the bus and makes Parliament looks small, but it is actually very big! 

Inside of the Parliament building

The Crown Jewels!  The cross is crooked on top because of it being transferred to different places so many times.  The crooked top is even accurately depicted in the stain glass and paintings of the Crown Jewels!

Next, we headed to the Castle District.  I'm getting really tired and cannot remember specific details, but it was wonderful and here are a few pictures: 

Yes, that's me hanging out of the window.  That's what princesses do, right?

We were freezing by this point, so when it was time for lunch, we headed to the nearest warm place we could find.  I got one of their daily menus which included Hungarian soup, goulash with paprika chicken, and a dessert!  Before our meal, the waiter brought us bread and a red sauce.  It looked like the sauce I had sampled earlier, which was sweet.  Well, this one wasn't sweet.  It was super hot and salty!  It would have had a good flavor, but there was too much salt.   My meal was so delicious once I could start tasting again after the spicy mystery red sauce.

Goulash!

After this, we got to tour St. Stephen's Basilica!  Just like everything else in Budapest, the basilica was incredibly beautiful!  One fun fact about the basilica is that St. Stephen's hand is preserved here in a fancy box.  At the end of the tour we got to climb many spiral stairs to get to the roof and saw some AMAZING views of Budapest as the sun was setting. :) 

St. Stephen's hand inside of a fancy box!

 On Sunday, we headed to the Szěchenyi Thermal Baths for a much needed relaxation and warmth!  The thermal baths are a tradition in Hungary and the Szěchenyi spas are one of the biggest and most famous.  It was a cold walk in a swimsuit from the building to the pools, but it was worth it once we stepped into the steaming hot water!  We were there for 5 hours and did not get bored like I thought we might.  There were different types of pools you could go into plus a sauna which I wasn't a fan of.  It was such a wonderful way to end our time in Budapest!

This pool was called the "Chess Pool", for obvious reasons.  

Our trip was not quite over though, because as we were walking back to the bus we got to witness some cute kids dancing in Heroes' Square! I took a video, but it won't upload here for some reason.  I'll try to upload it to facebook maybe!

I had such a great weekend.  You know a city is awesome, when you can still truly enjoy it while being frozen the whole time! ;)