Eastern European Adventures: Part 1 - Budapest

The last of my “European Adventures” was a fast-paced journey through some of Eastern Europe’s capitals. The first stop was Budapest (Buda and Pest). After cleaning my BSN room all day, packing, and studying for my last final, I checked out of my dorm, walked to BI, took my International Firm final (which fortunately for me, was pretty easy), then I was off! My final ended at 18:00 and our Eskspressbus left Oslo S at 18:40 – plenty of time! When we arrived at Torp, I had made the world’s largest blonde mess-up…I had booked our tickets for the 12th, not the 11th. BIG OOPS! Oh well, after some negotiating and credit card usage, we were back on track. We got to Frankfurt just fine, suffered through our 5-hour overnight lay-over (along with SEVERAL other passengers!) and checked into our flight for Balaton (PLUS I got yet another passport stamp!). Since it was now 6:00 and I hadn’t slept for almost a day, I was out the moment I sat down on the plane. Unfortunately, I slept right though the thick fog and the announcements saying that Balaton was fogged out and we were being diverted to Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. Wasn’t on my list of capitals, but hey- I got a stamp from Slovakia, and technically (only *technically*), I made it to yet another country! We landed 30 minutes late (and a whole other country and currency away) and waited around for about an hour for a bus to come pick everyone up and drive us to Balaton. If we had been thinking, we should have just figured out how to get to Budapest from here, but being tired and SO VERY disorientated, we just followed the masses and boarded the bus to Balaon. Seriously, 4.5 HOURS later, we FINALLY got to Balaton! And talk about your Eastern European cities! The airport? I swear to God was an old bomb shelter or army barracks- it was seriously like we’d gone back in time to WWII. Once we got there, we ran into the airport, hit the cash machine for some HUF, and bought tickets on the first bus headed to Budapest (leaving in 5 minutes) – another 2 hour bus ride later- we FINALLY got to Budapest! So really, I saw a lot of Hungary- more than I thought I would!

Once in Budapest, we found out hotel- which was VERY cool- we had a balcony/terrace with an amazing view of the Buda Castle and the Pest embankment (including the Chain Bridge). We had a wonderful dinner- delicious and the cheapest I’ve had in over 6 months! It was great!

Wednesday morning, we got up bright and early and hit the streets! We went on an inadvertent tour of Budapest’s train stations. We needed to get our tickets for a night train to Praha (for that night) but every train station we went to, we were told to go to another one. Finally, we got to Keleti (West) train station – and after standing in line (and the window shutting in our faces) we FINALLY got out tickets and then we had a little over 7 hours to explore the city. We started with the Parliament building- which was an impressive sight. Then we wandered around, took pictures and accidentally found Vörösmarty tér (and Europe’s Largest Christmas Market???). We drank some Gluhewein, did some craft shopping, and even ate a “Hungarian specialty” – or tried to, it was NOT good, which I thought some kind of corn meal substance, sour cream, and something THEY called bacon (but I would not), kinda heated? Had a couple bites and that was it for me! We then headed across the Chain Bridge (one of the outstanding landmarks of Budapest, the first permanent bridge across the Danube, originally built in 1849. Sadly, that first bridge was destroyed by Nazi dynamite during WWII. The 1949 opening ceremony for the reconstructed bridge was held 100 years to the day after its original inauguration.) from the Pest side to the Buda side, in order to see the Buda Castle, which is on top of Castle Hill. Since neither of us felt much for climbing 100+ steep steps, we opted for the Funicular (sikló) ( the funicular is the easiest way to get to the Royal Palace, taking just a minute or two. Originally built in 1870, it too was destroyed in World War II and was not rebuilt until 1986.). Once at the top, we pretty much had Castle Hill to ourselves (being December and it was literally freezing, technically, below freezing with a temp of -2¬ºC, then with the wind? SO COLD!) Unfortunately, it was foggy and you really couldn’t see too far (at this point we just chalked Hungary up to being foggy in general!). But it was nice, and we saw the Castle and Matthias Church (Mátyás templom) (Officially called the Church of Our Lady, this symbol of the Castle District is universally known as Matthias Church because the Renaissance monarch, Matthias Corvinus, one of Hungary's most revered kings, was the major donor of the church and was married twice inside it.). After wandering around trying to take pictures of the impressive – but foggy view- we headed back down the funicular, and then jumped on the first bus we saw. We then jumped from tram-to-tram, and bus-to-bus and jumped off where we liked and just saw a lot of the city by riding around. Then it was back to the Christmas Market to get rid of our remaining HUF before heading back to the train station and Prague.

Speaking of which though- we’re headed from one Eastern European capital to another, through yet another Eastern European country- we were on a slightly less than luxurious train…flat out a very old, very sketchy, very dirty, very…Eastern European train…Remember that Russian train from Finland? We weren’t too far off here. But we had a very nice train car man to show us where to go – and warned us about all the passport checks at border crossings - last one of the three was at 1:00 am). Luckily we also had the room to ourselves, and the train guy warned us to lock the door to keep out pick-pockets, and I swear to God, I heard that door knob turn more than once in the middle of the night! By the time we got to Prague, I had 2 new passport stamps and a new appreciation for Norwegian night trains. Our first passport check, from Hungary to Slovakia, the official just looked at my passport cover- didn’t even open it! Guess having a US passport means something? I just couldn’t believe the guy didn’t even open it!

Final thoughts on Hungary? Aside from the fog, and the entire day bus rides, it was a lot of fun. Everything was pretty cheap- which was an welcomed change from expensive Oslo, but on the other hand, the country was very old and dirty- exactly what you would expect an Eastern European country to be... even though an EU member, they still have a lot of modernizing to do, but in the meantime, it was great place – would enjoy another visit, as long as it was NOT in the winter!