Hungary

HUNGARY BLOG

 

Hi all,

This blog is long overdue. Indeed, we have been remiss in not updating the blog site. Please accept our apologies.

 

A few weekends ago we went to Budapest, Hungary. It was a weekend trip with just our family. We found a city sale fare on the OBB website, which is the Austrian website for rail travel. Annamae was reluctant to go because part of her wanted to stay in Vienna and enjoy our beautiful house while meeting with new friends. In retrospect, however, we are glad we went (and no, not because we now no longer like our friends or our beautiful house in Vienna!). We simply had a delightful time in Budapest!

 

One of the challenges of traveling, regardless of country or method, is the fact that mobilizing a battalion that includes three children is no easy task. When we say "we dragged our kids through the museum" you should interpret that in the most literal sense. We, of course, stopped short of actual abuse, but I do not doubt that our children will forever tell their children and all generations that follow that we were awful for subjecting them to historical museums. But in the end the kids were excited to go to Hungary so they could color a new country on their map and find a Turel, which is a bird that is an important Hungarian symbol. It represents the souls of unborn babies (or something like that--our Hungarian isn't very good, you know). These "adventures" give the kids something to think about other than their hurting feed and tired legs. Steve decided a game of ABAYS (sounds like 'obeys,' which he likes), which stands for Always Be Aware of Your Surroundings, would be a good way to occupy the kids as we walked around the city. Steve would see something and then ask the kids what they noticed. If they noticed the object (like the color of the car that just went by) they got points. We finished exactly ONE round of the game before the kids started fighting about the points. Game over.

 

Our first priority upon arriving in Budapest was to visit a Turkish bath. Budapest has 10 medicinal bath and 119 public baths that have earned it the reputation as "the city of baths." The bath we visited had 3 outdoor pools (one was warm, one was cold--for lap swimming, and the third was very hot), or as Goldilocks (Annamae) would say, "one is too cold, one is too hot, and one is just right." These pools were filled with water that was pumped from deep below the surface of the earth. The water is so hot that it has to be cooled before it reaches the surface. Inside there are more small pools, like hot tubs, and a variety of saunas. Steve's favorite sauna was the mint one—it made your nose clear right up. Some of the indoor pools had different minerals and some of the saunas were extremely hot. We spent 4 hours at the baths. That evening Steve slept better than he has in a long time!

 

Sleeping brings me to our next point. Annamae found a wonderful apartment at an affordable price. The apartment was in a good location, across the street from a 24-hour grocery store. We had a full kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and a pull out sofa. We felt like we were living in luxury.

 

The next day we decided that in order to enjoy the breadth of the city we would pay for a hop on-hop off bus. This allowed us to see the entire city while affording us the flexibility to . . . yep, you guessed it . . . hop off the bus when we saw a place worth visiting and hop back on when we were ready to keep moving. Our bus tour allowed us to visit the Citadel, the House of Terror, a castle, and the Jewish Museum. 

 

The Citadel sits at the top of a large hill overlooking Buda and Pest. Though very breezy, it afforded us an opportunity to get a sense of perspective on the city. The House of Terror sounds like a cheesy name for a Disney ride, but it was actually an amazing museum. The house was the former building used as the Nazi headquarters during WWII, and then later as a place of interrogations by the Communist occupiers. The museum is well done and a somber place to realize the worst of human ability to exploit and treat neighbors as something less than human. But those people who managed to survive have served as an inspiration and testament to the capacity of the human spirit for hope and survival. One of our college students said that he learned more in that museum in a few hours than he did in a year of history class. We would agree with him.

 

The other museum we visited was the Jewish Museum that was in a huge synagogue. This was a sacred place that few words can describe. There were many monuments to many Jewish, and even non-Jewish, people who died at the hands of the Nazis. Our last stop was to a castle that we were told was the inspiration behind Sleeping Beauty.

 

Overall, we really enjoyed Hungary. Everything was much more affordable than in Vienna, most of the people spoke good English, and we found that people in general were very amicable. Given its history, beauty, and affordability we would strongly suggest a visit to Hungary for anyone looking for an eastern European excursion!

 

 

Jointly submitted by Annamae and Steve