We got up and headed down the street to change our money from euro into hungarian forint. Our next stop was breakfast. We tried to go to a spot Mark found on Lonely Planet but it was closed so we went to Fekete instead. They had real orange juice which was an absolute luxury because in Albania the only option is 'sugared orange drink'. I had a fantastic vegetable quiche to go with my large glass of oj and Mark had waffles topped with salmon and lox.
"mmm... ok. sweet. thanks for your help. could've planned this online from my couch had I known this was the case."
So we did just that. We planned our next few days from the hostel couch.
Our first activity was a free walking tour of Budapest that left from the center. As we walked there we came across a row of Christmas stalls selling candies, hot drinks, traditional foods, trinkets and clothing. We tried marzipan chocolates (neither of us cared for them very much) and strawberry flavored hot wine.
We learned how to say 'thank you' (koszonom) and 'hello' (szia) from one of the women selling winter gear. We both bought hats and in hindsight are so, so glad we did. We walked through a park with tons of wooden christmas trees decorated by different businesses/clubs from the community and finally stumbled upon a Langos (hungarian traditional fried food) vendor. We ordered one topped with sour cream and cheese and it was hot, gooey and filling! We loved it but we definitely wouldn't have been able to eat more than one.
We met in the center for the walking tour but since it was just Mark and I who had shown up the guide said it wasn't worth taking us around (but we're fun I promise!) Never fear, he recommended a larger tour that would be taking off in half an hour from the lion statue inside of the Christmas Market. In hindsight, I think our first tour getting cancelled was actually a blessing in disguise because this two and a half hour walking tour of Budapest was fabulous! We learned so many things, such as: Hungarians have lost every revolution they've ever started (A for effort?), Budapest originated with 7 pagan tribes that came down from the mountains. However, they were surrounded by christians so Stephen (who later became Saint Stephen) converted all 7 tribes to christianity in hopes that they wouldn't be conquered by their neighbors (wishful thinking). The Turks decided to occupy Budapest first and even though it wasn't ideal, this is where Budapest gets its famous "turkish baths" from. Budapest was then on the losing side of WWI so after the war, much of their land was taken and divided. Hitler gave them hope during WWII so they sided with him until they found out what he was doing to innocent Jews. Instead of backing out on Hitler Budapest started making secret dealings with the allies. Unfortunately, Hitler found out about this so he sent troops to occupy Budapest and while there sent thousands of Jews from the Jewish Quarter (a famous jewish ghetto in Budapest) to die in concentration camps. Budapest was then under communist rule courtesy of the soviets until 1989. Because Budapest has been occupied so many times, their economy is much weaker than many places in Europe, so they use the hungarian forint instead of the euro.
We also learned that the river Danube separates the Buda and Pest (pronounced 'pesht') sides of the city. In order to get across you must walk along the chain link bridge which is the oldest and narrowest in all of the city.
Many years ago there was a great flood on the Pest side. Many people died. Those who were left built a basilica to thank god for sparing their lives. The basilica took over 56 years to be completed.
Although Hungary has a religious history, what it's really known for is its wine and beer. Hungarians love to party and therefore have things to do every night of the week. The ruin bars are one of those things. Ruin bars originated after WWII. The country was trying to rebuild but had no money to do so. Why not use abandoned, decrepit buildings as bars? Surely if there's alcohol, people will come. And come they did. It's become such a thing here that there are actual landmark ruin bars.
Unfortunately we didn't get to visit any on our tour, but we're planning to go to one later for sure. And last but not least, the tour took us to Fisherman's Bastion, one of the best viewpoints in the city. From there you can look down on the parliament building and the castle (the castle was bombed badly during the war, and like we've already established there wasn't money for rebuilding after, so the castle is outfitted with plastic windows). Maybe they should start referring to it as a "ruin castle" and then more people would want to visit?
Our guide Suzy was incredibly knowledgeable; we learned so many things from her about the beautiful city of Budapest and are so thankful to have gotten to spend the day with her!
After the tour we walked back through the Christmas hustle and bustle to Ghetto Gulyas, a restaurant Suzy recommended.
We had potato dumplings with mushrooms, goulash and chicken with paprika sauce and noodles. Mark even tried tokaj, a traditional dessert wine that is famous in Hungary. Everything was delicious!
After, we stopped in one of the ruin pubs, Simply Kert and oh my god. it's insane. it's a must see. it's the most eclectic combination of furniture and rooms and decorations that I've ever seen and oh my god it just keeps going. forever and ever. it's truly a sight. a sight you certainly can't miss when visiting Pest.
Earlier in the day we had seen a flyer for an open mic night pub crawl which we thought looked pretty cool so we left Simply Kert in order to make it to Ellatohaz, the bar the crawl was supposed to start at.
When we arrived there was this crazy screamo rap band onstage. Surely this wasn't the open mic. Maybe it was in the back of the bar? While looking, we accidentally stumbled into the weed den and were met with haze six inches thick and a few too many stoned expressions for our liking. We deduced that the crawl wasn't happening because of the holiday so decided to make our own ruin bar pub crawl. This proved more difficult than we were expecting however because so many places were closed because of Christmas. After wandering in the rain we found a mexican taco lateria ruin bar that was open. Score!
We met some friends and tried polinka (the hungarian version of moonshine that can be anywhere from 30-70% alcohol). This particular batch had plums floating in the bottom and damn was it strong.
On our way home we stopped for late night food at 'Dondi's because we just had to :)
Overall it was a fantastic first day in Budapest!
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