This past weekend we decided to venture off to BUDAPEST! 

    With two weeks off for spring break, we wanted to travel somewhere but were unsure of exactly where. We decided that we wanted to go to a place like Turkey or somewhere not super "touristy." We looked for flights to Turkey but couldn't find any cheap ones. One of the girls suggested we look up flights to Budapest just to see the prices. I personally knew absolutely nothing about Budapest and frankly I'll admit that I didn't know where it was. We saw that flights were really cheap ([2 euros the way back =)] and saw that since they use a different currency (the Hungarian Forint) a weekend there would be relatively cheap. We booked the flight without giving it a second thought and prepared ourselves for the weekend. 

Once we arrived in Budapest, we had no idea how to get to our hostel or how to get around. We found a taxi company right outside the airport and decided to take a taxi to Parliament. The taxi driver was super duper nice and pointed out building along the way. He told us really cool stories and it was like we had our own tour guide. When we got to Parliament, we discovered  that there was a race going on so we didn't get to actually see it. 

We wondered around aimlessly for a while and discovered some beautiful places. We came across this beautiful basilica with a breathtaking view of Budapest. I think the architecture here is my favorite of all the places I have been to so far. The Hungarians pay very close attention to details, a fact that anyone can appreciate by simply looking at the roofs of the buildings there. 

View from basilica (notice the detailed roof)

After we wandered around some more, we figured out how to get to our hostel. Let me tell you about our overall experience with trying to get tickets for trains and buses in Budapest. We did not speak the language or understood anything and none of the people that worked there knew English or French. So far in our travels, we never had any problem with communicating but Budapest was really hard. The people were a little bit rude and has absolutely no patience with us. We ended up having to communicate with just gestures and got by with a lot of pointing. 

Our weekend in Budapest was a lot of fun and we got to see some amazing buildings. While wondering around, we found a store with Hungarian treats and the owner was so nice. He ended up telling us about the Hungarian cuisine for about an hour. I really appreciated the fact that he took time to tell us about and it and you could tell that he loved talking about it. It's people like this that make me appreciate other cultures and makes me like travelling around. Thanks to him we made it a point to try different plates in Hungary, something that we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. 

Here are some of my fave buildings and places:

church we found while being lost in Budapest 

Terror Museum about the Holocaust

Along the outside of the museum, they had a wall lined with candles for each victim

Parliament

If you ever travel to Budapest, here are some key things to know:

• learn some key words in Hungarian, especially ones about buying tickets
• Never put money in their hand: This struck me as very interesting. I don't know why but in Budapest you cannot put money in people's hands when your paying for something. You just set it on the counter. When I first got there I tried to pay for my ticket and the lady would not take my money. She just kept pointing to the counter. 
• The food is obviously very different than in America. Key things to try for a true Hungarian experience are 
• Goulash- a stew of meat and vegetables that is seasoned with paprika
• Palinka- a brandy made of distilled fruits. There's different ones and the one we took helped with digestion. It definitely settled my stomach. 
• Paprika- Hungarians LOVE paprika. They put it on everything basically =)

Well that about concludes our Budapest adventure, complete with us spending the night at the airport and sleeping on benches like hobos because our flight left at 6:00 am. All in good fun =)