It
is the fourth day of our vacation and things have been happening so quickly
that I’ve barely had any time to blog! But there’s so much to tell and so many
pictures to share that I need to get on it! I’m doing a different blog post for
each city we visit, so if you’re interested, make sure to see all of them!
Saturday
was the beginning of our week-long excursion into Europe. We woke up at 6am to
make sure everything was ready and the bus was on the road by 10:30am. It’s a
double decker bus, and Kate and I are situated on the bottom level, which is
actually pretty lucky because it’s smaller and doesn’t get as hot as the top.
The bottom is just Americans, but the top part of the bus is home to Americans,
Ukrainians, and others. There are a lot of other people traveling with us that
aren’t a part of our teacher group.
 |
| We practically live in this bus |
We
drove all day and all night. We stopped every couple hours for bathroom and
food breaks, although Kate and I mostly ate our snacks and sandwiches that we
packed for our journey. I have never spent this long on any form of
transportation in my life. At around 1am Sunday morning we started crossing the
border between Ukraine and Hungary. I say started because the entire process
took us about three hours to complete. We were stopped at the Ukrainian border
for a while and the border control boarded our bus and collected our passports
and checked them. Then at the Hungarian border we had to get off the bus and
line up to present our passports to be scanned and stamped. It was around 2:30am
when that happened, and it was pretty miserable. Kate and I probably each had
slept about eight hours between Friday night and Saturday night and it was cold
outside. It actually seems like a big blur now, but it wasn’t very fun at the
time.
Finally
we were back on the bus and on to Budapest. Everyone fell back asleep and we
were woken up at around 8:30am. Hungary is actually a hour behind Ukraine, so
we got there at 7:30am. We were in Budapest! The city used to be two different
cities, Buda and Pest, that sat on opposite sides of the Danube River. At some
point, in the last couple hundred years I think, the cities were combined to
create Budapest. Buda is the more ancient side where as Pest is more modern.
We
started on the Pest side, and our first stop was the spa. Budapest is home to
numerous hot springs and its bathhouses are very well known throughout Europe.
We grabbed our things and walked about five minutes to the biggest of the spas.
We spent a wonderful three hours soaking in different pools and trying out
different saunas and steam rooms. It was just what we needed after a long day
of traveling.
 |
| One genuine Budapest spa |
 |
| Spa time baby! |
After
spa time it was tour time. We were able to have an English speaking guide and
she took us around some sights for about an hour. We visited Heroes’ Square and
learned about the different people represented there. It was so fun to actually
be in a place that I’ve only seen pictures of. Next we walked around a little
castle museum.
 |
| Heroes' Square |
 |
| Touch the creepy man's pen--it's good luck |
Mostly
we enjoyed the beautiful weather. Kate and I walked around in flip flops! The
skies were blue, the grass was green, and the sun was shining! It was just a
wonderful day.
Before
we boarded the bus, we ran back to Heroes’ Square to take a picture by this
huge wooden Budapest sign. Our tour guide said that it was only up for twelve
days, so we were really lucky to be here right when it was there!
Then
it was back on the bus and over to the Buda side of the city. We passed over
the Chain Bridge, which was the first bridge of eight to connect Buda to Pest.
In Buda there are very old castles and houses. Our tour guide took us around
this area and we saw some churches and so many magnificent views from sites
like Fisherman’s Bastion. We had a bit of free time, but it was starting to
get windy and cold, especially as high up as we were, so Kate and I found
refuge in some souvenir shops and spent the rest of time window shopping.
 |
| It's a long way down |
 |
| The view from Fisherman's Bastion |
 |
| The Chain Bride and St. Stephen's Basilica in the distance |
The
bus then took us to our hotel which was on the edges of Budapest. We were so
tired, but I really wanted to see St. Stephen’s Basilica. We had passed by it,
but I had read that it was an amazing church, and Mass was being held at 6pm,
so I thought it would be neat to see that. I figured out what metro we needed
to take and then we headed out at around 5:45pm with a couple other girls from
our group. We got to St. Stephen’s just in time to catch the last five or ten
minutes of Mass. This church is gorgeous. I have seen quite a few cathedrals in
Europe, and I think so far this one is my favorite. The inside was so intricate
and huge, and the outside was just as beautiful. I wish we had more time to
explore and take it all in, but it closed after the Mass was over.
We
were pretty hungry by this point, so we started looking for a place to eat. We
found a place called Jack’s Burgers and suddenly the desire to have a big
cheeseburger became too much to bear. I know it’s not traditional Hungarian
food, but it was so delicious. I have no regrets. We did do something pretty
awkward, however. Kate and I sat down at a high table with bar stools. A few people
were already sitting there, but we sat on the other side so it wasn’t really
awkward. Until the rest of their friends came and filled up the rest of the
seats. Then it was awkward. But at the point it would be really awkward if we
just left, so we sat there awkwardly trying to delicately eat our gigantic
burgers and not make eye contact with anybody. I’m pretty sure the other people
felt the awkwardness too, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter because that
burger was delicious and nothing can taint that fact.
 |
| It was delicious |
Next
we wanted to make our way to the river to see all of the lights. We took kind
of a roundabout way getting there walking through the little shopping streets
of Budapest, and actually didn’t get to the bridge we wanted to (which was the
Chain Bridge.) We were one over, but the view from the river was just as
beautiful.
 |
| This is not the Chain Bridge |
We took some pictures and I almost touched the BIGGEST SPIDER I HAVE
EVER SEEN. I put my hand up on the rail to take a picture and Kate yelled at
me. Turns out I was THIS CLOSE to touching a spider. I still have the chills
because spiders are disgusting and I’m like 96% sure they can jump on me and
not let go.
 |
| Me terrified because spiders are scary |
From
there we split up from the girls we were with and decided to make our way back
home. Simple right? Incorrect. If you have read this blog with any kind of
consistently, you know that Kate and I are plagued with the curse of
misdirection. We are constantly getting lost, even in Kiev, the place we’ve
been living in since mid-January. We found the metro very easily, but we had
neglected to pay attention to the metro stop we needed to return to. We rode
down one way, and then I panicked because I thought we were going the wrong
way. Unfortunately, the Budapest metro isn’t as swanky as the Kiev metro, so in
some places you have to pay again to start going the opposite way.
Unfortunately again, we were 100 forints (about 50 cents) short of enough to
buy two tickets back. We were almost to the end of that line so when we walked
outside, we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We were hoping that
maybe we could get someone to give us the money we needed or that we could find
an ATM. Luckily, a lot more people speak at least a little bit of English in
Budapest compared to Kiev, so we were able to ask for help and find an ATM.
So
we got back on the metro. At this point, we had no idea if we were going the
right way and I was doubting everything that I thought I knew about how to get
back home. We were both really tired and sore and to make things worse, it was
completely our own fault that we were in this predicament. We had no phone, no
contacts numbers, not even the address of the hotel we were staying at. We had
neglected to be prepared in any way to wander around a completely foreign city.
I had remembered that Olya, one of the foreign coordinators for our school had
said something about the second to last stop being the one that would put us by
the hotel. We decided to keep going the way we were and to take it to the
second to last stop. We emerged from the metro and recognized nothing. Once
again we were in the middle of nowhere and had no way of getting help. You
would think that we would have just gone the opposite way to the other second
to last stop, but at this point we were so scared and tired and lost that we
weren’t thinking very clearly and we were not sure of anything. We went back
underground to try and figure out our next move, and we went up to a man and
woman and started asking for help. The man had an iPhone, so we tried using his
Facebook to send messages to our head teacher, Alysha, and some other girls in
the group. No one got back to us quickly enough, so the woman got someone on
the phone and after I talked to him for a while, he told us to get off on a
certain stop going the other way. So we bought another ticket and ran off to
catch the metro. As we approached that stop, I knew it wasn’t the right one. We
got off and then at the last second, we jumped back on the metro before it
pulled away. We decided to take our chances with going to the second to last stop
on the other side of the line. As we got closer, we started recognizing things
and we were finally in the right place. I wanted to cry. We stumbled back to
the hotel and collapsed on our really comfortable beds. We now refer to that
event as The Terrible. I have never felt so hopelessly lost. All in all, it
took us about two and a half hours to get back to our hotel.
The
Terrible aside, Budapest is a beautiful city. I never really thought about
visiting there, but now I would love nothing more than to come back and stay
for longer. It’s so beautiful and romantic and charming and interesting. It was
a perfect first day.
