Winter Voyage: Part 3 of 8: Hungary

Hungary was lovely. Honestly I think it was my favorite city from this trip in terms of urban aesthetics at least. There was so much beautiful architecture everywhere, all these creative and intricate details on most of the buildings. Often there were very different styles applied to buildings that were right next to each other. We went to a square where one building was Romanesque, one was Baroque, and one had a Gothic part and a Renaissance part. Other than that, even the buildings on regular streets were beautifully decorated. This was one detail I especially liked:

We took a walking tour that was a nice way to get around even though it wasn't nearly as informative or interesting as the tour of Berlin. Budapest actually used to be two cities: Buda and Pest. Go figure. Even though they are technically part of the same city they are separated by the Danube and apparently there is rivalry between the two sections.

Below is a big square we visited on the tour. All the statues were stylistic in a really cool way and represented important figures in the founding and development of the nation:

While there we visited these baths that are apparently a big thing, and not just for tourists but also for locals. I think they used to be just natural hot springs until an official bathhouse developed around them, using geothermal energy to heat the water. It was really lovely. There was this one really big bath outside (below) and inside there were a whole bunch of smaller baths at different temperatures. There were some that I think also used special water. It smelled awful special at any rate. The boys got professional massages as well. It was really nice to relax here for a bit. We also met a group of students from all over who had actually been on the flight to Budapest from Berlin with us. It turned out that they were all studying abroad in Berlin and had come here for the weekend. We wanted to meet up with them that night but somehow it didn't work out. This is the big outdoor bath:

While in Budapest we visited the Museum of Terror. This wasn't as rough as the tour of the concentration camp was but it was along the same lines. It focused on atrocities experienced by the Hungarian community that were committed by Nazis as well as by the Soviets after WWII. It was a very creatively designed museum, totally unique, but so long and in-depth that it was hard to really take advantage of all the given information. Plus it was real depressing.

Our last day there we visited the Parliament. This is it next to the Danube:

Apparently it's the world's biggest government building after the Pentagon. It was really impressive. We could only go in with a tour but the English tours were sold out so we went with the Spanish tour. So I was the only one who understood what was going on, but no one was bugged about it. The interior was incredibly ornate with a lot of gold-leafing. Apparently the leaves of gold were so fine that they would melt if the artisans picked them up, so they had to rub there hands on their faces in order to create a static force to move the leaves.

In other news, we ate Mexican food at least three times. It wasn't great in Mexican-food terms, but it still scratched the itch. We went out clubbing a couple times as well. One place we went to played old jazz and rock and was quite fun for me, apparently not as much for the others. We also visited Morrison II which had two dance floors and karaoke. We sang a little Backstreet Boys, some Little Mermaid. All in all it was a good time.