Budapest Diaries - Margaret Island and Óbuda

Anyway, Sunday (day four) I slept in a little later than normal. The plan was to go to the Parliament building around 11 to get tickets for sometime in the afternoon. So I putzed around and did some planning for the rest of the my trip. When I got over to the Parliament there was already two long lines and neither were moving. I won't get into the details as to how their little system works but let's say "user friendly" is not a word I would use to describe it. After about twenty minutes a lady came out and said that the tickets were sold out for the day. I was a bit frustrated, but I had figured this was a possibility so I just planned to come back the next day.

The rest of the day was filled with spots that are not typical tourist destinations. Although Parliament didn't work out, I headed north towards Margaret Island. On the way I passed a building called the White House, the former headquarters of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Social Workers Party. Margaret Island is a shady island in the middle of the Danube, about 2 km from top to bottom. Most of the people you will see on the island are locals sunbathing on the shores, jogging or walking on the park's many paths, or riding around on a rented bicycle. If you are heading north, the first interesting thing you see is the Centennial Monument. It is an odd looking split-cone sculpture built in 1973 to celebrate the union of Buda, Pest, and Óbuda a hundred years earlier.

From there, there are a number of things to see on the island. There are some ruins of a Franciscan church and monastery. There is also an open-air theater which houses plays and opera during the warmer months. Next to the theater is the octagonal water tower. Which contains the lookout gallery. The tower as far as I can tell is not, nor has ever been, filled with water - but it does have a pretty good look over the island. From there lie more ruins, this time of a Dominican monastery best known for being the place where King Béla's daughter St. Margaret. Legend has it that Béla promised to commit his daughter to a life of devotion in a nunnery if Mongol invaders were defeated (as everyone knows, no sacrifice is as noble as the sacrifice you force others to make on your behalf). Going further north there is a reconstructed Premonstratensian Church. Other spots on Margaret Island include a Japanese garden and a musical fountain.

After my tour of Margaret Island, I headed westward towards Óbuda ("Old Buda") which is now a district of Budapest. I checked out the Óbuda Parish Church and the former Óbuda Synagogue. The main thing I wanted to see here was the Imre Varga Exhibition House. A number of sculptures throughout Budapest were designed by Imre Varga, including a neat set of women with umbrella's a block south of the museum (which is quite difficult to find, if I do say so). The Exhibition House itself was one of the gems of the day. I'm not always into the artsy-craftsy kind of stuff but the small building was full of some really great art. I was kind of surprised that there was nobody else here, but my impression is that most tourists who visit Budapest may only have a few days and Óbuda and Imre Varga do not make the top ten list.

After that I was headed south, basically towards the Castle District, to check out a few more out of the way places. This was definitely not a tourist spot, and few stores on the way were open this Sunday. The first noteworthy spot I ran into was a 2nd century Roman military amphitheater, which took up an entire block in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Apparently it was actually bigger than the Colosseum in Rome and could house up to 15,000 spectators. Today it only housed me, a large pile of trash, and a young woman sunbathing in a micro-thong. After that I went to find the tomb of Gül Baba, a poet and companion of Suleiman the Magnificant. The tomb itself appeared to be in a contest with the Imre Varga Exhibition House for the most-difficult-place-to-locate-in-Budapest award, and let me add that Gül Baba certainly could have chosen a far less steep incline on which to die. Anyway I made it and took a brief look around the tomb before heading off yet again.

I was getting tired at this point so there were only a few more stops. I checked out Millennium Park but after I realized there was pretty much nothing to do here other than a movie theater I moved on. By this time I was right next to the Castle District, and headed south along the eastern edge of the base from the Vienna Gate. I got a few snapshots of Fishermen's Bastion from down below and headed back home. On the way, I passed over the Széchenyi Bridge which was closed to traffic for some kind of street festival involving, well, mostly beer. It took a while to wade through, but I suppose it at least offered a few good people watching moments.

Back in Minneapolis

Well gang, I am finally back in Minneapolis. The trip home was long but other than a 40 minutes delay all went went - all aisle seats and an emergency exit row on the trip from Reyjkavíc to Minneapolis. Plus I had a rather grandiose pick-up service from the airport, so other than a general source of disorientation and having to clean some mold that took up residence in my freezer everything in hunky-dory. Today I'm unpacking, getting everything back up and running, and catching up with people, but I should have some time to get some blogging done.

Budapest Diaries - Saint Stephen's Basilica, Andrássy Út, and City Park

My third day in Budapest started early, and I went north to take a tour of Saint Stephen's Basilica. Saint Stephen was the first king of Hungary and generally considered to be the founder of modern Hungary. The Basilica is always on the top list of things to see in Budapest and rightfully so. It's a pretty incredible building, with really ornate ceilings, columns, frescoes, and altars. In addition, entry into the basilica is free although you do have to pay if you want to go up to the tower. It is tied with the Parliament building for being the tallest in Budapest at 96m, which is a reference to the millennium of the founding of the Kingdom of Hungary in 896. The building took an astounding 54 years to complete, in large part due to the collapse of the dome which required the builders to tear down the rest of the building and start over again. Besides all of the other stuff it contains, the Basilica also holds the right hand of Saint Stephen which has quite a story itself, which you can read about here. I tried to get a good picture of it for you but the reliquary is kind of dark. After snapping some photos of Budapest from the dome I headed back down to take a walk up Andrássy Út, probably the most famous street in Budapest.

First I had to stop back at the hotel to get a replacement photo card and batteries, which turned out to be a wise decision. On the way I stopped to take a look at the Dohány Street Synagogue (more commonly known as the Great Synagogue) as well as the Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs which commemorates the some 600,000 Hungarian Jews killed by the Nazis and the Arrow Cross Party. Andrássy Út is a very pleasant street to stroll down, with a lot of trees and gorgeous buildings, such as the Hungarian State Opera House.

The one building I actually went inside was the House of Terror, which sounds like a cheesy amusement ride but is actually a really great museum detailing the former occupants of the building at 60 Andrássy Boulevard: both Ferenc Szálasi and the Arrow Cross Party, as well as the dreaded ÁVH (State Protection Authority, known as the PRO and the ÁVO at other times). Unfortunately they do not allow cameras in the building because they really had some great exhibits (heck, they even had a pretty good soundtrack). If you listened to and read and saw everything there is in here you could be here for a whole day. I have to admit I didn't know much about the Arrow Cross Party or Hungary's participation in World War II. I didn't know much about the Communist government there either, although their story is unfortunately similar to other countries under Soviet domination. The museum itself is not without controversy. There are number of critics who think that it puts too much emphasis on foreign occupiers rather than the role that Hungarians played, and that the museum itself is a swipe at current socialist parties. Having seen it, I tend to agree with the former and not really with the later, but perhaps I am not the one to ask.

Next it was on to Heroes' Square and the Millinery Monument. Definitely the most impressive monument in Budapest, I would place it on par with the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. It has two arcades with fourteen statues representing fourteen important leaders in Hungary's history. And yes before you ask I took pictures of each of them individually, just for you. The statues on top of the arcades represent Work & Welfare, War, Peace, and Knowledge & Glory. At the top of the Corinthian column is the Archangel Gabriel, and at its base are Árpád and the seven chieftains of the Hungarian tribes, who settled their people in the present territory of Hungary. In front of the column lies the tomb of the unknown soldier. All in all, its a pretty awesome site.

Beyond Heroes' Square lied City Park, which beyond offering shade on another scorching day has a number of attractions to see. Vajdahunyad Castle houses the Hungarian Agricultural Museum, and it seemed like there were about three weddings going on at the nearby Ják Chapel. Then there is the Statue of Anonymous close by, as well as a statue of George Washington built by Hungarian-Americans. Besides a couple amusement parks the Széchenyi Thermal Baths are here (which I went to on Monday). At this point in the day I was pretty tired, so I did what anyone else would do - I went to the zoo.

The City Zoo and Botanical Garden was a pretty good trip, although most of the animals looked as tired as I felt. Besides wanted to punch a few people (not to mention unidentified members of the zoo staff) for feeding the hippos a whole bunch of bread it was a pretty good trip. They had a closed building which housed a whole bunch of tamarins that climbed around only a couple feet from you (I assume tamarins must not be known for throwing their feces at people), as well as a sloth who was either on vacation or doing a very good job blending in. After strolling around and seeing the animals it was time to call it a night, and I trekked back to home to get some rest for yet another day of adventure.

Budapest Diaries - Castle District & Trip to Aquincum

It was back off to visit the non-Palace-related parts of the Castle District. I don't know if there was anything terribly important to report here. For the most part I just strolled around and looked at buildings and stuff. I had wanted to see the statue of the Holy Trinity (a plague pillar, built to celebrate the end of the plague) next to Matthias Church but it was being completely reconstructed so that was a no go. I did get to see a number of statues, including an equestrian one of András Hadik best known for the fact that students are known to give the horse's testicles a shine for good luck before exams, resulting in them being much shinier than the rest of the statue. I also visited the much-touted Buda Castle Labyrinth which turned out to be an overpriced piece of junk. I saw the Mary Magdalene Tower as well as the tomb of Pasha Abdi Arnaut Abdurrahman, the last Turkish Grand Vizier of Buda. After scouting out some other buildings (and seeing a strange street seemed to imply that one was not allowed to walk him grnadchild across the street), I headed back to the Corvinus Gate and took a trip down the Sikló, which is a funicular railway that runs from Buda Castle down to Adam Clark Square.

I hopped on the HÉV line going north to visit the Acquincum ruins, the largest site of Roman ruins in Budapest as far as I know. It was pretty quiet here, with only a handful of other people around. Apparently ruins are not as big of an attraction as Buda Castle, although part of it was the fact that they were kind of out of the way. It took quite an imagination to think about what things looked back in the day, but there were a few identifiable structures and a lot of maps. The Aquincum Museum occupied a small building, with most of the displays of stone carvings on the outside. Inside were the small blocks of mosaics as well as the usual assortment of tools and armor and stuff.

At this point my throat was pretty parched so I decided to eschew the long hike south and hopped back on the HÉV and headed south the Margaret Bridge Station where I planned to cross the Danube and come down on the Pest side and take some close up pictures of the Hungarian Parliament building, the most amazingest building in the whole world. Seriously I could just stare at the building all day. The tours are all around midday so there was no getting in but as you know if you've looked at Facebook I spared no expense taking a million shots of the building. The Parliament is very large so it is hard to get a great shot of it with a better angle and camera but I did my best people. I took the one of the left, but below I have attached one I found on the web below. Tonight there was some cheesy looking movie festival that was taking place in front of the Parliament which looked to me like the Hungarian equivalent of Telemundo. Anyway I let you go with that, you'll be hearing a lot more about my adventures trying to get into a tour of the building later.

It was getting fairly late to visit anything else so I took a winding path homeward. I passed a monument to Imre Nagy, a reformist Communist Prime Minister executed for his role in the 1956 Uprising. Then I passed the Soviet War Memorial (one of the few left standing in the city), the Contra Aquincum ruins, and a bunch of other statues. I think the one I liked best (possibly because I had to go quite out of the way to find it was the aforementioned Shoes on the Danube memorial to the Jews killed by the Arrow Cross Party.

Budapest Diaries - Buda Castle District

I got up bright and early (although not by Copenhagen standards) and headed off to Castle Hill, which is a smaller hill just north of Géllert Hill along the Danube. Buda Castle as you might expect occupies most of Castle Hill. The day turned out to be a real scorcher, somewhere in the low nineties requiring a large number of pit stops to buy water. I think I must have had at least three gallons in addition to a couple of Coke Lights. Buda Castle involves a large number of small streets and pathways which are not always clearly marked and it can get a little confusing, but it is relatively small and the sheer number of landmarks makes navigation fairly easy.

The day started off by crossing over the Elizabeth Bridge* and headed north until I hit Adam Clark Square, and headed up a path that took me to Matthias Church and the Fishermen's Bastion. Several corronations and royal weddings have taken place in Matthias Church, although after the Turks conquered Budapest in 1541 the church was converted into a mosque. Legend has it that during the Holy League's siege of Buda in 1686 a piece of wall came down revealing a statue of the Virgin Mary to a group of praying Muslims, causing the morale of the garrison to collapse. Unfortunately Matthias Church is largely under construction so it wasn't possible to get a great shot of the whole church. Fishermen's Bastion is pretty awesome as well. It has the look of a fairy tale whitewashed castle wall complete with towers and staircases, although methinks Buda might have had a better time of it if the castle was not defended by the guild of fishermen. The Bastion itself was not actually built until around 1900, but the fishermen had been defending this stretch of the wall since medieval times. Besides just being cool in general, Fishermen's Bastion has some great views of the city and a kick-ass statue of Saint Stephen (more on him later). I took a tour around the very impressive interior of Matthias Church, and learned a little bit more about its history. FYI for future visitors most churches in Budapest will not let you visit if you are wearing a tank top or sports bra, so make sure you bring a sleeved shirt with you. Fortunately I telegraphed this one so I just pulled a quick Superman before going in.

NOTE: you may have noticed that Budapest has a lot of saint-related stuff going on. As you will notice if you ever visit it is a rather Catholic city, with Catholics outnumbering Protestants by about three-to-one. Political correctness towards Protestants and Muslims is sometimes absent from historical descriptions around here, with Transylvanians and Turks being common foils in Hungarian history.

After I took my leave of Matthias Church I headed south along the castle grounds, passing a number of important buildings, statues, and gates, including the Sándor Palace, a large statue of the mythical turul - a sacred bird of the ancient Magyars, resembling a large falcon - that sits at the head of the Hapsburg Steps, and the Corvinus Gate which leads into the Buda Castle a.k.a. the Royal Palace. Going through the gate leads to the courtyard in front of the east side of Buda Castle, where a large statue of a mounted hortobágy csikós (basically a Hungarian cowboy) stands triumphantly.

I decided I would take a break from the sun, and headed inside the Hungarian National Gallery which occupies this wing of Buda Castle. It turned out to be a great choice, since the museum was full of some great stuff including a restored altar of Saint John the Baptist from Kisszebes. Most of the art centered on war and religion, two of the favorite pastimes of Hungarians apparently. There was also some neat modern art to see, as well as some surprisingly interesting art from Hungarian children. In addition there were a number of older stone carvings to see. Note number one billion to future visitors to Hungary if you want to use your camera in any museum in Budapest you will probably have to buy a photo ticket but don't worry they don't seem to be very expensive in general.

During my tour of the Hungarian National Gallery, I was introduced to Hungary's most potent natural resource: little old ladies. I swear every museum I visited had an army of small grandmas who shuffled after you to make sure you weren't doing God only knows what. They are apparently even hired by small grocery stores to make sure people put their croisants in a little plastic baggy lest perchance they get some crumbs on the floor. In general they didn't speak any significant amount of English although many of them were very effective at standing around and looking cantankerous. Some of them were very friendly though, particularly the ones at the Imre Varga Exhibition House.

After I was done with the National Gallery (which, even though I only saw about half of it, took a while since it's huge) I strolled around the Palace grounds for a while. I got to survey a number of more statues, fountains, gates, and tours, as well as take a stroll into what appeared to be a highly restricted area. Pictured here is the Matthias Fountain, which shows the young King Matthias Corvinus and Szép Ilona (beautiful Helen) who according to a poem fell in love when she saw him hunting and then died of a broken heart because she felt unworthy of him after learning of his true identity.XThen I headed back north to explore the rest of the Castle District but that as they say is another story (or post... whatever).

*Speaking of bridges I never saw the bridge that was supposed to be named after Stephen Colbert. The M0, or Megyeri bridge, is several miles south and not on the way to the airport.

Budapest Diaries - Sojourn to Géllert Hill

It was still pretty early in the day, so I was off like a rocket to explore Géllert Hill, which was located about a half mile to the west of Kalvin House. Now there are a couple of things you learn about Budapest pretty quickly after you arrive there. In no particular order:

1) The Hungarians (or Magyars, as they refer to themselves) love diacritics - those little accent marks over letters. Every other word has one, and some words have two, three, or even four diacritics in them. Although cute, it makes typing and searching for things on the Internet kind of difficult, the later because the a letter with a diacritic is considered by most search engines to be a completely different letter than one without. I don't know how easy it will be to make out but I took a picture of the keyboard in the hostel.

2) Budapest is the PDA capital of the world. Seriously when I went up Géllert Hill every time I turned a corner there was another couple making out on a bench. This also holds especially true when you are walking along the Danube. I can see why though, Budapest is chock-full of a lot of romantic views - rivers, bridges, parks, great views. There were several times I was looking around for someone to smooch, but usually the only person within lip-locking range would be some older German dude.

3) There are a ton of feral cats in Budapest. Besides the ones in the courtyard next to the hotel, there were a mob of them along the base of Géllert Hill, where it appeared a park maintenance worker left food out for them (this was also the case of the other cats). You would other cats running around in other places as well. This is very different than places like Copenhagen or Stockholm, where you pretty much never see cats running about.

4) There is construction everywhere in Budapest. Fortunately, this never really got in my way although a few of the buildings and monuments I wanted to see ended up being partially obscured by reconstruction efforts (Independence Bridge, Matthias Church, the Holy Trinity Column, and part of Parliament being the ones I remember off hand).

I'll save other observations for later. I headed west over Independence Bridge (BTW I am going to use the English spellings here on the blog, but if you are weird like me you can check out the Hungarian spellings on my photo comments on Facebook - again the link to my photos can be found here). After passing the semi-famous Géllert Hotel* I found a road that started to lead up Géllert Hill. Although the paths here were a little all over the place you could generally keep your way by simply following the ones that went up (or down). My first stop was at the Cave Chapel, which was closed for mass when I first visited although I checked out the interior on the way back down. The caves here had been in use for a while, but monks built a modern entrance to them in 1920s. The Cave Chapel was shut down in 1951 as part of the Soviet crackdown on the Catholic church, and the entrance was sealed until after the fall of the Communist government. Outside the cave is a stylized statue of Saint Stephen, be sure to check out his feet.

Moving up the hill, the view of Pest (the part of the city on the east side of the Danube) kept getting better, as you might expect. After a relatively short but sweaty hike up the hill, I reached the Independence Monument, one of the unofficial symbols of Budapest. It is tall column on top of which there is a lady holding a palm leaf above her head, and there are a pair of statues flanking the base of the column. Apparently there were several other statues that were removed along with most of the Communist statues monuments and dumped into a place now called Statue Park. Originally built as a thank-you to the Soviets for liberating Budapest from the Nazis, it soon turned into a symbol of Communist oppression and after 1989 it was changed to the Independence monument. It is a pretty cool monument I must say, and it is visible from most parts of the city, especially at night when it is lit up.

After that I went on to explore the Citadella, a fortress built by the Hapsburgs in 1851 (back when Hungary was basically part of Austria) to prevent an uprising but was never really used as such. Currently it is mostly a tourist trap filled with seedy vendors (still, I was glad for the ice cream and bottled water. Oh, another FYI if you are buying bottled water in Hungary and someone asks you "gas, no gas?" they are asking if you want carbonated water or not). Besides a hostel and a restaurant, for a couple hundred forints you can roam around the Citadella and check out wax exhibits that detail some of Hungary's history. There is also a bunker you can visit that was used by the Nazi Air Defense Ministry during World War II.

When I was done checking that out I went back down the hill and stopped by the large cross on the hill, and then went back and went into the Cave Chapel. After saying hello to the local cats, I followed the road up the Danube until I got to the far side of Géllert Hill where I found the monument to Saint Géllert himself. It is a nice looking monument if I do say so, sitting over a bridge which itself is over a waterfall. Saint Géllert is one of the patron saints of Hungary, and is generally known for helping convert Hungarians to Christianity and for being killed by those same Hungarians during a pagan uprising. The monument is supposed to be the place where Saint Géllert was hurled off of in a spiked barrel.**

Finally it was off to the night cruise along the Danube, brought to you by Legenda. I choose the night cruise because according to several sources it was more exciting than the day cruise. That it was, although it definitely tested my ability to take pictures without a flash. It was a pretty classy ride, complete with headphones that offered thirty different languages as well as a complementary glass of champagne and another beverage of your choice. I choose a beer, which turned out to be Budweiser, the King of Beers. The tour itself was of course kind of sappy, but it was a great way to see a lot of Budapest lit up at night, in particular Géllert Hill, Buda Castle, Parliament, and many of the bridges, as well as pick up some more Hungarian history. Finally, a little drunk and not having anyone to snuggle with along the Danube I headed back to Kalvin House in search of rest to get ready for my big day tomorrow exploring Castle Hill.

*Hey if it has a Wikipedia entry it has to be at least semi-famous, right? Right?
**No, I don't know why they didn't just stab him or something. I guess the pagans just had too much free time on their hands.

Budapest Diaries - Arrival in Budapest

First off, in case you haven't noticed I uploaded about 450 photos from Budapest onto Facebook. Almost all of them are labeled so you should be able to tell what the heck is going on. And yes, I know I took about fifty photos of the Parliament building. Deal with it!!

Also, for those who need more info on the missing luggage situation, what happened was that I had a very short layover in Vienna while flying from Budapest back to Copenhagen. And by short I mean I have no idea how the airline thought this would work. The scheduled time between landing and the closing of the next gate was thirty minutes. Keep in mind that this was a smaller flight that had to take a bus to and from the terminal. Plus I didn't realize that traveling between Denmark and Hungary requires that you have your passport and carry-on checked again (it turns out that only works for countries that are party to the Schengen Agreement, which Hungary will not be a part of until March 2008... thanks a lot). And of course this plan assumes that the flight will actually take off on time which didn't happen either. However Tyrolean Airlines (a.k.a. Austrian Arrows) at least had a plan to get me on board the next flight. I was hurried off the plane and onto a special van that took me to an expedited customs and baggage check and then I got to through a top secret door straight to the jetway and onto the plane.

My checked luggage on the other hand was not so lucky, so I got to be the guy who sits next to the conveyor belt for an hour with an increasingly dour look on his face as he starts to realize that the baggage from his flight has been completely unloaded. After an hour or so I gave up and looked for a place to report missing luggage. Never having lost any before I didn't quite know what to do. There was no place with a sign saying "lost luggage," but I went to a security desk and asked. After some confusion we concluded that I needed to go to the SAS arrival counter. I went over and took a queue number, and I think I was about twenty five or so from the top. I walked around pretending like I might actually find my bag lying around and came back after ten minutes to discover that the line had moved one spot. I repeated this exercise in futility again and once again the line had moved one spot. It was a little past 11 o'clock at night. I don't know about the train from the airport to downtown, but the last train from central station to home stopped running around 12:40 or so. People were crying. There was an announcement every fifteen minutes or so that started with the phrase "due to extraordinary volumes..." Things were not looking good for the Pete-ster. Fortunately the line started to move much faster and I think it only took another twenty or twenty five minutes or so to speak to someone. Although I was half expecting to be told I was in the wrong line, things started to look up. They knew that the baggage had been left behind in Vienna it was just a matter of getting it to Copenhagen. So I got my service number and went home. I could track the progress online and the baggage arrived the next afternoon. I wasn't fretting too much, since I was completely reassured by the fact that the SAS website didn't even have an option for "lost luggage," only one for "delayed luggage." Anyway it finally got delivered around noon on Thursday so all is well.

So anywaaay back to the fun stuff (sorry, that was a really long explanation of the luggage situation). I landed in Budapest early afternoon last Thursday. My first two tasks were to take get some forints (the Hungarian currency) and get to the hostel. The first was accomplished pretty easily, and let me tell you nothing makes you feel like a pimp than taking 50,000 of anything out of a cash machine. I tried not to think about the fact that the exchange rate was something like 185-to-1. Let me tell you that is not an easy computation to do in your head. From the other travelers I spoke to the general method of converting to dollars (U.S. or Canadian) was to take off two two digits, divide by two, and then add some kind of fudge factor like 10%. Then I found my way to the ticket counter for the airport minibus and got a ticket, and eventually made it to Kalvin House, my hostel/hotel for the week. At $70 a night it was a little spendy for me, but in anticipation of the heat I decided I would need a little pampering - this turned out to be a very good choice in my estimation. It was a very nice place with a very helpful staff, and my room had fifteen foot ceilings, a small patio (from which to watch the ten or so semi-feral cats play in the courtyard), a nice bed, a shower that didn't look like it would be painful to use, and (gasp) an air conditioning unit. It also had free internet and wi-fi, although I didn't bring my laptop. Yep, things were looking good and after unpacking I took off for my first of many hikes throughout Budapest, this time to Géllert Hill.

Back In Business

Hello y'all, I have been back in Copenhagen in a couple days and finished my second exam yesterday. Right now I'm cleaning my place and and starting to pile things up for packing. I haven't quite decided what to do over the next couple days but I'm sure I won't just sit around in my room all day.

I have a lot of adventures to write about, I think I should create a few more posts over the next couple of days (Budapest, plus Malmo, Odense, Christiania, and generally running around) . For those that knew that my baggage was left in Vienna, it has been delivered and all is good. Other than that I have been trying to process the news of the I35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis. For those of you that don't know where the bridge is or where I live it is about a mile from my condo. I used to drive on it all the time going when I traveled north and walked close to it when going to school. It's going to be really weird going back to see it. From what I can tell from here, it is has been front page news for several days and obvious the hot topic in Minneapolis.

Other than that I am pretty excited to be going home, as there are a lot of things I've been missing (sorry William, not work hahaha). I've talked with a couple people here about it, but I think there is a certain point for everyone when you go someplace where you either want to go home or start setting down some roots and I think I am at that point. I'll be glad to sleep on a real bed with real covers, have access to a gym, catch up with friends, and other stuff. I found a couple of Danish students who are coming to Minneapolis in the Fall so I'm going to help them out once they arrive, and have considered turning that into an ongoing project. I'm sure there be lots of new adventures to tell you about soon.

Anyway, posts about Budapest are coming soon! Hold your horses people!

The Pest Side is the Best Side

Alright the Flying Danish continues on his preview of Budapest. Now class let us go over the highlights we are going to see in Pest, which lies on the east side of the Danube. Pest seems to be the more modern side of Budapest, and trust me it has a lot more to offer than just a proliferation of accent marks and z's. First off my hostel (Kalvin House) is located here, close to the Szabadság Hig (that's a bridge people), if hostel is even the right word (see photo). Speaking of bridges, the Megyeri Bridge that was almost named after Stephen Colbert (or Chuck Norris) is located about five miles down the Danube from here in case you were wondering.

Belváros (Inner Town) is the part of Pest that is next to the Danube. One of the most awesome sights in here has to be the Hungarian Parliament building, also known as the Eclectic Parliament. Besides being an amazing building inside and out, it also houses a number of artifacts including the Crown of Saint Stephen, which apparently is recognized as one of Hungary's national icons. Speaking of Saint Stephen, the Basillica of Saint Stephen is also located in Belváros. At 96m, it is tied with the Parliament building for being the tallest in Budapest. Besides offering great views of the city, you can apparently also find the mummified right hand of Saint Stephen here as well. Also in Belváros are several statues and monuments, including one called Shoes on the Danube commemorating Jews killed by the Arrow Cross Party in 1944.

Erzsébetváros is a district east of Inner Town, and is home to the Dohány Street Synagogue, also known as the Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in the world besides the Temple Emanu-El in New York City. Józsefváros and Ferencváros are districts south and southwest of Inner Town, and house a number of museums.

The best known street in Hungary is perhaps Andrássy Út, which stretches two and a half kilometers from near the Danube to Hősök tere* (Heroes Square) in City Park. Along with Castle Hill, Andrássy Út is listed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is chockablock full of famous buildings, restaurants, monuments, and shops. In the center of Heroes Square lies the Millinery Monument. Heading north you can find many great places to visit including the House of Terror** which has many exhibits related to the Fascist and Communist regimes of last century. There is also the Hungarian State Opera House and the Museum of Fine Arts.

The street ends at Városliget, or City Park. City Park has everything you could want, castles (Vajdahunyad), thermal baths (Széchenyi, the largest in Europe), more museums, a zoo, an amusement park, restaurants, ponds, and let's not forget the Timewheel, the world's largest hourglass.

Despite Mindy's recommendation I am not entirely sold on the thermal bath idea. Then again, after India I might as well continue on my tour of cultural uncomfortable massages.

*Seriously dudes, double accent marks plus umlauts? It's a five letter word
**Not to be confused with Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

Want A Piece of That Buda

Well, I will be landing in Budapest almost three days to the dot since I started this post (Monday at 2 p.m.). As many of the people here have noticed I tend to plan things out a lot before I travel and Budapest is no exception. Fortunately I have five and a half days or so, so I don't think I will be rushed. I've looked into the weather some more it looks like it will be pretty hot on Thursday (87 degrees) but living in a state normally mired in humidity I must say that it appears to be a 'dry heat.' The humidity today in Minneapolis is 71% while in Budapest it is 22%, which is phenomenally low; hopefully, this turns out to be the norm.

Anyway... back to Budapest. The city can be traced back roughly 1,000 years when Magyars settled in the area. Buda and Pest were originally two different cities, which were unified in 1873. Budapest has seen a lot of trouble in its days, from a Mongol invasion in 1241, a Turkish invasion in 1541, controlled by the Austrian Empire, being attacked during World War II, as well as several decades of communist rule. Despite enforcement of Nazi policies by the Arrow Cross during World War II, Budapest has the highest per capita number of Jewish residents of any major European city. It is also believed to be the "gayest" city in Europe, although I'm not sure how one would measure that.

There are a number of districts and attractions in Budapest that are worth noting. One of the obvious ones on the Buda side is Castle Hill, an area that contains Buda Castle complete with labyrinth, the Hungarian National Gallery, National Széchényi Library, Matthias Church, the Holy Trinity Column, and the Fisherman's Bastion among other things.

To the south of Castle Hill are Gellért Hill and area called the Tabán. In the former is one of Budapest's famous thermal baths, the aptly named Gellért Baths. The hill itself is said to be one of the best views in Budapest, looking over Castle Hill and the Danube, and is also home to the Citadella, a castle that now also doubles as a restaurant, hostel, and disco. Gellért Hill is also home to a number of famous caves and statues, mostly prominently the Szabadság-sabor or Liberty Statue.

The part of Buda right north of Castle Hill is called Víziváros which is home to Millennium Park, the Lukács Baths, and the Tomb of Gül Baba among other things. Further north is Óbuda or 'Old Buda.' Here lies the Aquincum museum among the ruins of the ancient Roman settlement, along with a variety of other reconstructed Roman buildings and a smattering of museums. Other areas around here are the Buda Hills and Margaret Island, which actually lies on the Danube between the Buda and Pest.

Alright this post appears to be going on and on so I will cut it off at the Buda side of Budapest. Plus I think it may break the spell checker. I may add some more stuff here later as I peruse my Budapest book and the Internet.

Sziasztok!

You Got Your Buda in My Pest!

Hello true believers, it's yet another rainy Monday and I have some quick updating to do. I've got two projects for my International Investments class that we have to finish up by Monday and Wednesday respectively. I will probably blog about my return trip through Malmö soon and my ramblings around town and to Odense, once I get those things done.

In the meantime it is my proud duty to inform you that I will be headed to Budapest for a relaxing five night, six day stay starting on Thursday. I have a take home final I will receive and complete on Wednesday night and then Thursday morning I am off to the airport. My final exam is on Thursday afternoon so it works out quite nicely for me.

I was getting a little worried since Budapest is currently going through quite a heatwave. Yesterday it topped out at 100 degrees, with temps of 98, 89, and 96 today, tomorrow, and Tuesday expected. Oof-da! However, the expected temperature on Wednesday is a near perfect 78 degrees, which will hopefully stick around after a while. At least Budapest seems to cool off greatly at night. If the last couple days are any indication it looks like it drops anywhere between 20 and 40 degrees at night. Either way I'll pack for both.

More posts coming soon I promise!

Stockholm Weekend (Day 2)

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Day number two started out fairly early. Somehow I didn't get woken up once during the night, despite being in a room with twelve other people most dudes who got back after I went to bed and right next to a loud road (not to mention the four o'clock sunrise). We set out to walk around Gamla Stan before the tourists showed up. None of the shops were open when we started, so there was little activity other than a couple of people milling around or getting their store ready.

Gamla Stan looks more cosy when it's not full of tourist groups, and besides the retracing some of the steps we took yesterday, we found some cool nook and crannies such as a statue of Saint George slaying the dragon, and Mårten Trotzigs Gränd - the narrowest street in Gamla Stan. We ended up near Kungliga Slottet again and checked out the Royal Guard. Let's just say if you wanted to attack Stockholm now might be a good time to do it. I know Buckingham Palace is a high standard to live up to but come on guys. These dudes were chatting and taking photos with tourists and looking around, all the stuff everybody knows the palace guards are not supposed to do. We even saw one guy go back to his car because he apparently left the plume to his hat in the trunk.

On another note, we were greeted by the Crown Princess Victoria as she was driven back to her residence. Unfortunately I was just putting my camera away when she turned the corner but that's her in the black car, I promise. She waved at me. One odd thing Laura and I noticed was that on all the postcards we found of the royal family they all looked very plastic and well, less than attractive. But I can vouch for Princess Victoria and say she is quite the looker.

Brunch was at another great little cafe, this time Chokladkoppen ("the chocolate cup"). I had a large chocolate muffin that was very good. I would also give this cafe the thumbs up. Once we had our snack we hurried off to get on a short boat tour around Stockholm. We got there just before it took off and unfortunately got stuck in the middle of the aisle which wouldn't have been a problem but the top windows were really scuffed and hard to see out of. Like most boat tours seem to be this one was a little weird, but we got to see a few neat things and pick up some strange facts about housing regulations in Stockholm.

Our next stop was the Stadshusset (City Hall), which besides being kind of a cool building has a tall tower that gives you a great view of the picture, and is definitely the source of many postcard views of Gamla Stan (the picture at the top of the post was taken from there). They only allow 30 people at a time to be in the tower so it took quite a while but if this is your kind of thing it is definitely worth it.

Once we got our fill of the view we meandered back to Gamla Stan and passed by the Royal Palace to witness yet another bizarre Royal Guard ceremony. It might have made more sense if I spoke Swedish but it involved cleaning the muzzle of their rifles in a pair of tubes that was being dragged around in something that looked like a Radio Flyer wagon. We took a tour of the Royal Apartments but didn't run into my girlfriend, Queen Victoria. The Royal Apartments were a little boring but I thought the Hall of State was pretty cool. We made a short stop at the Nobel Museum although I almost fell asleep watching some short videos about life at Cambridge and I think the Bern Institute of Immunology or something similar.

After picking up tickets for the bullet train (120+ mph) back to the airport we stopped in to the Absolut Icebar. Their reservation system is kind of strange so if you want to go I would either plan ahead and be prepared to get there early and start the line at least by 9:15. The Icebar itself was kind of cool, both literally and figuratively although -5 degrees Celsius isn't all that cold if there's no breeze. Like most things in the bar though the glasses are made of ice so the gloves come in handy though. Not much too it but if you don't have plans the novelty of it is worth a trip.

After spending a chilly forty five minutes or so we heady back to Gamla Stan for a little cheaper fare, and after being rained on again we stumbled into a cellar bar that served mead and had a number of servers who were dressed in medieval costumes. We met up with some locals (pictured here) and chatted them up for a while before retiring for the evening.

Stockholm Weekend (Day 1)

I was off to Stockholm this weekend for a well deserved vacation, after working hard to get all of my school work down before Friday. Of course, I only had two and a half days to enjoy Stockholm and Malmö. After a near miss Friday morning, Laura and I made it to Malmö airport Friday morning and landed at Arlanda airport outside of Stockholm around noon. For those of you that don't know, I'm about a quarter Swedish.

It would be a couple of hours before we could check into our hostel on Gamla Stan ("The Old City"), right in the heart of Copenhagen. Stockholm is apparently known as the "Venice of the North," although so are a about five other cities so I guess it's kind of an empty title. Either way you can see how someone would come up with that, especially on Gamla Stan. Much more so than Copenhagen, you always feel like you are surrounded by water when you are in the center of Stockholm, since the city is basically bisected by the water that flows between Lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. Between the canals, the narrow streets, the cafes, and the Renaissance architecture, Gamla Stan in particular feels very Venetian. Not that I've ever been to Italy but I'm just saying.

Our initial journey mainly would through the area north of Gamla Stan called Norrmalm, through some shopping areas, Sergels Torg, past some well-known statues, buildings, and churches to one of the Stockholm tourism offices where we purchased a Stockholm card which for around $60 gives you free or discounted access to a number of tours and museums as well a unlimited public transportation for 48 hours (for any of you traveling to Stockholm or probably any major city for that matter you can get them for 24 or 72 hours as well). Then it was down to Gamla Stan for lunch at the Martha-recommended (and now Peter-recommended) Cafe Cronan which has a ton of delicious menu items. Then we checked into our hostel, the "cozy" 2Kroner Hostel which by cozy I mean cramped but it was pretty clean, cheap (about $35 a night in the dorm), and had a prime location.

After dumping most of our stuff off at the hostel we set out again. We roamed around Gamla Stan and checked out the Riddarholmskyrkan, one of the oldest buildings in Stockholm dating back to the 13th century. A number of Swedish monarchs are buried here, most notably Karl Knutson Bonde, and if you're a heraldry buff it will probably be on your "must see" list (but no photos allowed). We also roamed around the Storkrykan (St. Nicolaus Church), Riksdaghuset (Parliament), the Riddarhuset (Swedish House of Lords), and the Kungliga Slottet (Royal Palace).

We were running out of time before the museums and such closed, so we trucked over to the Vasamuseet, a maritime museum that houses a remarkably maintained 17th-century Swedish warship, the Vasa. As Mindy can and has repeatedly attested to, it is quite difficult to take a photo of the Vasa because the museum is dark and the Vasa is both dark and pretty huge (I took the photo on the right off the web). We happened on the last tour of the day and got to hear the history of the Vasa, which was quite short because the boat sank a couple hundred meters into its maiden voyage. The Vasa might have been easier to photograph if it still had its original paint which from the samples I saw would have been some horrible combination that would have made it look like some kind of hideous floating gingerbread house.

Then we trekked to the Kaknästornet, a large TV tower that is rumored to have some of the best views of the city. You could see for quite some distance from the top deck, although the tower is kind of far away so most things are pretty hard to see and glare from the sun on the (dirty) windows made it pretty hard to take photos. After we got our share of the view we took a walk through the forest on Djurgården where we unsuccessfully looked for a monument to Gustav something or other and a cool old tower (Bredablick Tower), we did manage to find Rosendals Slott before making our way to Stockholm's Tivoli. The Gröna Lund Tivoli lacked the ambiance and character of Copenhagen's Tivoli and seemed a lot more directed towards kids. Still it was free to get in with the Stockholm Card and we took a look around. Laura went on some ride called the Fritt Fall, which I'm assuming means Free Fall, which basically takes you really high and then you just drop. After eating way too much popcorn we were off to the hostel to get some well deserved rest.

Copenhagen Jazz Festival

Last Tuesday we took a little jaunt to see some of the music of Copenhagen Jazz Festival (yes, I'm still a week behind leave me alone). Not too much to say about it. We saw a jazz band play near the big anchor at the tip of Nyhavn for a couple hours. I don't do a lot of jazz back in the Twin Cities, but apparently it attracts a lot of old people and backpackers.

Anyway, the music was fine and I got to get in touch with a few students I hadn't seen in a while. I don't know what other jazz festivals are like, but this one goes on for several weeks I think and involves small concerts scattered about town. Once the band stopped, we wandered about the city looking for the other venues but it turned out that they were all in bars and restaurants and you had to pay 40 or 50 kroner just to get in. Since I was traveling with the undergrads that was kind of a deal breaker. Anyway we moseyed around for a while and headed home, time to get ready for another day of classes.

Ich Ben Ein Berliner (Day 3)

We got up early to leave Berlin and head out to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which is located in northern Berlin or just north of Berlin depending on how you look at it. As you might guess, it wasn't exactly party time but it was a good trip in terms of experience. Most of the barracks and prisoner buildings were no longer there, but the large stone buildings were mostly still fully intact.

There are several exhibits around the camp, mostly centering around either daily life in the camp or the history of the camp, with numerous smaller exhibits focusing on smaller details. We didn't have a lot of time, but I wandered about the camp looking at some of the old guard towers and buildings, including several memorials.

Finally we loaded back up on the bus and started our trip back to Copenhagen. Unlike the trip to Berlin, this time I actually got a bunch of reading done. When drove back to Rostock where everybody stocked up on cheap German beer and chocolate and we took the ferry back to Denmark.

Ich Ben Ein Berliner (Day 2) - Part II

Alright, it's time to get to the second half of our second day in Berlin before the memory of if completely escapes me. Now where was I... oh yeah, we had just finished our guided tour of the former East Berlin.

After a little fuddling around we decided to walk towards the Reichstag and stop at any cool shops we saw along the way. Our first stop was the aforementioned Ampleman store and then browsed a long flea market where I think I picked up an "You Are Now Leaving the American Sector" fridge magnet. Unfortunately when the got to the Reichstag the line to go up to the glass dome on top was hundreds of feet outside and not moving noticeably. So we did the next best thing we could think of which is to take a million pictures of it.

Then we headed back to Pariser Platz to buy a new umbrella and get some more trashy souveniers. My crappy (but free) American Express umbrella had finally eaten it on account of the strong winds that decided to accompany the many, many rain showers. I choose a small, sturdy dark blue umbrella that had the word Berlinerin writen on it. I didn't find out until I got back to Copenhagen that Berlinerin means a woman from Berlin. Awesome. Either way it was good timing because a few minutes after we left the store with more fridge magnets and golf balls in hand it started to downpour.

Once the rain slowed down to a more manageable level, the four of us (a.k.a. Melanie, Yaron, Talma, and myself) headed down the Straße des 17. Juni towards the Siegessäule a.k.a. the Berlin Victory Column, which is pretty much another kick-ass Prussian monument. We would have liked to venture over to West Berlin but we were starting to run out of time, so we jumped in a taxi to Al Hamra, the dinner spot of the night. On the way over we passed a couple establishments of note. The first was the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (not my photo), which is most notably for the ruined belfry of the old church which was bombed during World War II. After the war a new church was built right next to it, but the belfry was kept as is. The other strange siting was what appeared to be a Chinese restaurant called White Trash Fast Food. It actually turned out to some sort of hipster tattoo parlor-barber-club-restaurant deal, which was kind of disappointing to be honest.

The rest of our night was relatively mundane but it was still a good time for all. We had dinner at Al Hamra, some sort of Middle Eastern joint that served ala carte which always seemed to be ala half empty whenever we got to the front of the line (we never did get any chicken, grrrr). The four amigos decided to skip the pub crawl and head out on our own, following the suggestions of a few locals. We walked up and down a few streets where I learned the joy of Original Berliner Weisse Red, a somewhat weak beer which is flavored with raspberry syrup to cover up its sour taste (there is also a "green" which is flavored with herbs and is described as woodruff-flavored, whatever the hell woodruff is supposed to taste like). After that is was off for some ice cream, and then back to the hostel for bed.