Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Budapest: Day 1- The Great Journey

Hi Everyone,

This is my first official post for Budapest! As stated below at 8am in the morning Gatwick Airport Duty Free shops were giving out free alcohol-- such typical England behaviour. The flight was a grand 1 hour and 35 minutes, ironically the same amount of time it takes me to train from Southampton to London.

First thing out of the Airport is to take out some cash and buy a 3 day unlimited travel card. which cost approximately 3,350 HUF (Forints). The Exchange rate is about 200:1 in Dollars and 350:1 in £s. This ended up being a great investment since we used the buses, trams, and metros consistently!! Their public transportation is incredibly efficient-- even if it hasn't been updated since the Soviet Era.

We finally made it to our hotel after getting lost on the tram system a few times. We developed a general plan of getting into the City and just doing-- old school. Meaning we only used paper maps and did not bring the iPad with us. We walked around looking at the cool suspension bridges and the chain bridges. Ate really cheap food for lunch. Walked through a park and found an awesome tree with random Michael Jackson pictures and poetry and letters with candle memorials around it.

We then walked down to the Bridges and the river front and George geeked out at figuring out why it is called the Chain Bridge. Apparently it has something to do with chainlinks on a bike :-D. But the city of Pest and Buda from either side of the river is absolutely gorgeous-- even in cloudy weather!

Then we found this awesome hill called Gellert Hill. Which has something to do with a saint. We had a hard time figuring out what everything was since hungarian is not the easiest language to read or understand. (Though by the end of the trip we definitely picked some up!) Anyway so this hill side had all these stairs going UP. (Well duh) -- but I mean really really up. So of course we had to climb them to get to the cool statue at the top. (And of course I complained about all the stairs! ).

One thing I noticed about Budapest is all the graffiti. I am usually a graffiti pro-ponent, however the fact that people vandalized such beautiful architecture just made me sad. That being said, the city overall felt very safe to me (besides of course pick-pockets that you get in every city). Walking around at night, even in sketchier areas, I did not feel in any danger-- and I noticed that there were lots of young women walking alone at night as well.

Anyway, back to my point. The view point from "the top"-- we were really only half way-- was absolutely spectacular!

So as it was getting late and we were getting hungry it was time to venture out to find some classic hungarian cuisine. Let me just say: We failed. The area we decided to go to was aparently the only place in Hungary that was not lined with restaurants. We ended up sitting in a little cafe, ordered .5L of beer-- Local of course for under a £. And it was very good!!!. We then asked the owner if he would mind if we walked up the street, got a gyro and came back to order more beer. Which we then did. And then we got a slice of what I thought was going to be chocolate cake-- it wasn't. Still have no idea what was in it but it was delicious!