More Budapest, Bratislava and Day 1 of Prague

Hero's Square

Since we only had one full day in Budapest, our schedule was pretty full of sightseeing and tours. We started off very early in the morning after a delicious breakfast with a bus tour around Buda (one side on the Danube) and the Pest (the other). Our tour guide was Hungarian so she gave us really great insight to the attractions, the history and some aspects of Hungarian culture. We started out first with the Hero’s square.

A large square in the middle of the city surrounded by statues of important Hungarian citizens and monuments to some important events in Hungarian history. Our guide was able to describe and tell us stories about some of the statues which was pretty neat. We then drove around the city seeing sights such as a large amusement park, a modern art museum on a man-made lake (pretty interesting) and one of the main mosques of Budapest.
 After driving to one of highest points in the city, we saw some of the old fortifications and monuments to the Communist and Nazi regime that are now focused on the remembrance of these dark times. It was a beautiful view of the city, and interesting to see some of the old artillery and statues. After exploring up there for a while, we then went to the castle of which was really beautiful and some very interesting architecture. It was one of the palaces of the Austrian Hungarian Empire, ajoined by Saint Stephens church. Walking around near the castle we saw the president’s house, a hawk-trainer who offered for the hawk to sit on my arm (not interested) and a horse statue who you were supposed to rub the ahem male part of the horse for good luck… and no thank you.

We had a quick break for lunch so as a group we decided to go to McDonald’s. Unfortunately the people there did not speak any English, and I ended up ordering this really gross sausage burger, but that happens sometimes unfortunately. After a quick lunch break we went to the terror museum, which was housed in the Nazi and then soviet headquarters of Hungary. Most of the descriptions were in Hungarian with some English descriptions, but much of the rooms did not necessary need any to communicate the message. It detailed the torture practices, who, when and why they deported millions of people and many of the horrible atrocities committed by both the Nazi and the Soviet Communist party.

IT was sometimes hard to see, but I think that it was important for to better understand the Hungarian culture and all of the hard times that they went through. I have a whole new appreciation of the Eastern Block then I did before I traveled abroad. After the Terror museum, some of the students went to the biggest Turkish bath in Hungary.



Terror Museum

It was like a huge gym/pool/massage facility except for the fact that it was very old! We went outside because it was a pretty warm day and hung out at the pool for a couple hours. There were some very old men playing chess and some of my classmates joined in… very interesting to watch. It was nice to see a different side of Hungarian culture and soak in the sun for a couple hours, something that I never did in France.

Turkish Bath

After the bath (although more like a pool) we got ready for dinner. We went to this delicious Jewish/Hungarian restaurant that also served as a small concert area where this very traditional Jewish band played for about an hour. Although I couldn’t understand a word, it was a lot of fun and I was clapping and fake singing through much of the songs. It really made me feel like I could have been in the early 1900’s by the way the band was singing and dancing, but the audience loved it and most knew all of the words to the famous songs. After the concert, we had a delicious dinner of a side of goulash, a glass of champagne and then a yummy tomatoes pork dish. We had our own little area which was nice, and a live piano player that played a couple Edith Piaf songs so I was happy. That night most of us went out, and got pretty lost trying to find a fun bar near the main district in town. We went a couple places to get some drinks, and all around had a great night. I would not recommend walking around by yourself at night, especially if you are a girl. Luckily we had a big group of guys that took care of the girls so we were fine. It also didn’t help that we were in not the best part of town as well.

the tradional jewish band in Budapest

We had an early start (as usual) as we made our way to Bratislava, Slovakia. I’m sure if you have seen Euro Trip then you have a pretty bad image of Bratislava, but it actually was a really nice and charming place. We were able to take a little mini-tour from our professor and then we did some exploring on our own. There were many cute shops, restaurants, and also a couple neat museums and churches. After some exploring we had some lunch of chicken cordon bleu, some beer and a delicious mushroom soup. It wasn’t typical Slovakian obviously, but still good of course. I saw the US embassy, some fancy hotels, and then we were off the Prague. We were only in Bratislava for about 4 hours, but I would definitely recommend it as it is a nice and charming town to spend the day at. However, I heard there isn’t too much to see past the old town, but it would be nice to try.

Bratislava

Sadly we hit some horrible traffic on the way to Prague, which made our 4 hour bus ride into about 6 ½ hours. But we finally made it just in time for dinner and to explore on our own. I went to Tecco, a huge hypermart with 2 of my friends to buy some snacks and some drinks for the nights ahead. They had a huge variety of stuff, similar to a Wal-Mart but with about 3 floors and higher quality stuff.  We bought some absinthe (classic in Prague) and some pretzels to self curb our hunger. We were feeling something a little different so we went to this small Italian restaurant that accommodated a huge group of us. I ordered a mussel and artichoke pizza, which ended up being delicious but it really was one of the weirdest pizzas I have ever had. I enjoyed some Italian wine, and shared some funny stories about USC.
 We decided to go out in style and go to one of the most “famous” things about Prague, a 5 story club with a different theme on each floor. It was a lot of fun as we hung out on the chill floor, electronic, and of course the oldies which consisted of songs such as “Tearing Up My Heart” and the “Macarena.” It was a great night and probably ended up being one of my favorites in Europe (I had a couple of those) There were a lot of Americans as well so that made things pretty interesting and we were there until the early morning.