you say good bye and I say hello

This is just one of the things we learned while in Budapest. To say hello in Hungarian is something like "seeya" and to say goodbye is "hello".

castle hill... the buda side of budapest

We got up this morning, and it was snowing... the good stuff, at least for playing in - the kind that makes snowballs/snowmen well :). It was not so good after we had been walking 20 minutes and our feet were soaking wet and cold, not to mention the rest of us... but we sucked it up and braved the cold and wetness to go explore the city. And what a beautiful city it is.

one of my favorite pics from the trip, from the love lock tree

In the morning we went on this walking tour. It was led by a native Hungarian, but she spoke English. Joining us were 5 boys from London. We saw lots of sites from the city, both halves (the city of Budapest is actually split into 2 parts by the Danube - Buda and Pest). Parlament, was way cool, it is modeled after the British Parlament building. Other cool sites was St Stevan's basilica (the first King of Hunagry) and St Matthias church.

The architecture and buildings of the city are so different - becuase 2/3 of the city was destroyed by bombing during WWII. And since it was part of the eastern block during the cold war, it had alot of communist influence in the rebuilding of the city.

It was also interesting to hear the Hungarian view of the Hampsburgs. They were the monarchy that ruled Austria-Hungary empire for over 300 years, up until the end of WWI (when they lost). We have heard they Austrian view, actully some of the rulers are engraved in our brains we have heard about them so much. But hte Hungarian view is different, becuase Hunagry has been seiged and ruled by many monarchs since the middle ages, they aren't too much of a fan of the Hapsburgs, with one exception, the beloved Queen Elisabeth "Sisi". They love her, probably about as much as she loved Hungary (which was more than Austria).



me with pest in the background... you can see the parlament



We ended our tour after 2.5 hours of walking around the main sites of the city and ate lunch at this cafeteria style restraunt that served typical Hungarian food. I had lamb stew and dumplings... it was, alright I suppose. After lunch we headed to the Christmas market to look around until our next tour started... the communist tour. This was a very interesting tour. We learned what it was like in Hungary during the Cold War. Hungary was on the "lucky" side as their freedom during Soviet rule became a little more relaxed after the 1956 revolution and through the 1980's up until the collapse of the USSR.

The next day was pretty relaxed. We woke up to sunshine, but it was decieving becuase it was freezing outside. But we braved the cold and were off. We went to this market and walked around, then went to the christmas market and walked around some more. To warm up we headed inside St Steven's Basilica. Very gorgeous inside. We sat there and stared for a while, then we went into the back and saw the mummified hand of St Steven, that was pretty cool. After that we headed back to our hostel, got our stuff and started the treck towards the train station, stopping in places along the way to get warm, and do a bit of homework (cause it has to get done...). Then the long train ride back and our long cold walk back to the dorms from the train station becuase the busses quit running (cause it was 1:30 by the time we got there).