The first day, we got in around 1 pm and were scooped up by Sandor, the guys that runs our hostel. The pick-up was included in our stay, and we had no problem skipping our normal exercise routine of hiking to our hostel. He brought us on a mini city tour and then showed us our apartment. It was a 2 bedroom with kitchen and bathroom and the other room wasn't rented until the last night so we had an apartment to ourselves. This was much needed since our place I'm Vienna had walls so thin that Marshall (on skype in Florida) could hear Elizabeth talking to her mom (on Skype) in the hallway with our bedroom door shut.
I was pretty exhausted, but Elizabeth (who is now going by Erzebet - the Hungarian version) runs a tight ship and napping wasn't in the schedule. We did a mini walking tour around our neighborhood, the Jewish Quarter, in Pest. We walked through the Great Synagogue, the biggest temple in Europe and 2nd biggest in the world, and saw a beautiful graveyard dedicated to the thousands of Hungarian Jews who perished in the holocaust. In the back of the synagogue, there was the Tree of Life, a willow that makes an upside down menorah and has 4000 leaves etched with the name of a Holocaust victim.
After this, we headed over to the part of Pest on the Danube River, which was our favorite part of Budapest. We walked along the river to the chain bridge, which connects Buda to Pest, and then to the Parliment building. This building is just magnificent. Probably the most beautiful museum I have seen in all of Europe. There is a small memorial to holocaust victims along the river, with brass shoes representing the victims that were told to take off their shoes and then were shot into the Danube at that exact spot. I wished we had gotten the chance to go to the holocaust memorial in Budapest, because the memorials around town where some of the most thoughtful ones I've seen.
We met up with our mom and daughter friends, Mary and Sarah, from Vienna at Rosenstein's, a restaurant my mother had read about in food and wine magazine. We had some bone marrow (a fatty weird textured dish), meat pancakes, and veal. Erzebet is really enjoying her carnivorous side. We spent a good 3 hours at dinner so we were spent by the time we got home!
The next day, we started off the day at The New York Cafe, a fancy schmancy cafe at a fancy schmancy hotel. We then went to the House of Terror, a museum about the communist rule in Hungary. I had to convince Erzebet that we should go, she was turned off by the name, which even I was skeptical about. But we loved it!! It had information overload on the nazis and then the soviets invasions, but we learned a lot and it was a very interesting museum. Each room had a 1-2 page word document waiting for us to read. I might have fallen asleep once or twice when it was Erzebet's time to read, but like I said, Erzebet runs a tight ship. She has to wake me up each morning at least 3 times before I'm up.
After the museum, we headed down Andrassy Road to the the Szechenyi baths. We weren't entirely sure what to expect, but we were game. We entered the baths and bought our tickets. We got one with a cabin and one with a locker (like Rick Steve's said) and then walked into the changing areas. I had bought a cheap bathing suit outside the baths, because it was 3000 forints ($15) and my only other option was renting a bathing suit for 1000 forints ($5.) you couldn't pay me $10 to where a bathing suit someone else has already worn, so that was $15 well spent. (I should have brought a bathing suit with me, but I was silly and didn't.)
Erzebet and I found our way to our cabin, more like a closet, and then headed out to the outdoor pool section (in bikinis with just a hand towel to keep us covered... It was cold.) we headed to the opposite building where the thermal baths were. There were a whole bunch of different baths (aka pools) of varying temperature. This kind of reminded me of being in India, because I had to keep telling myself to not look at the pool water with things floating and to not think about when the last time the baths were chlorinated or diseases that could be lurking. We also didn't come fully prepared, because we forgot flip flops. This gave me the heeby jeebies walking around barefoot, but again I just had to breath and enjoy the experience. We wandered into the different indoor thermal baths, trying to find the hottest one. It couldn't be found. They were all warm, maybe hot, but not burning. I guess they don't want to give people third degree burns. We spent some time in the steam room and the wooden sauna and then made our way back out into the outdoor area. Now this is definitely where we had the most fun. There is a lap pool in the center and then two pols on either side. One of the outer pools had a ring in the center with jets pushing people in a circle. It was really fun. The hottest pool was one of the outside ones and this is where we spent the most time. It had some very nice jets that were almost like fountains and the y shot out and felt like back massages.
After about 2-3 hours, we had bathed enough! We went home and freshened up and then headed out to a delicious Indian restaurant where we met two American girls who were a blast. We went with them to one of the best ruin bars in Europe, Szimpla. It was a really quirky place and had some communist throwbacks like soda from the era.
Pics:
1. The brass shoe holocaust memorial by the Danube
2. The New York Cafe - Elizabeth's Hot White Chocolate
3-5. At the baths
6. A real hungarian vizsla (my boyfriend's dog - the breed is from Hungary)
7. Erzebet and I
8. Erzebet street- named after Sisi (the empress of Austria-Hungary who helped Hungary get freedom in the 1800s
9-10. The willow at the New Synagogue
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