Touristing Times

Szia buds.
In the past two days, I have learnt two things. One, that there is nothing wrong with the Hungarian language but there is something wrong with my phrasebook, because, as you may have noticed from the first word of this entry, there are Hungarian words for 'Hello' and 'Goodbye'. Two, I'm moving to Budapest.

I'm not sure when I'll do this, but preferably before I turn thirty, and I probably won't be able to live here very long as I'm a solid sixth generation New Zealander on all sides thanks to sixteen unpatriotic immigrant great-great-grandparents, which means a maximum two year visa. However, I know I am going to do this, because even though I've only been here 4 nights, I've fallen in love with this city.

And by love, I mean LOVE. You may agree with me that this word is so overused these days. I mean, people can say they love their new hairclip because it has sparkles on it. I honestly think they should invent a new word to represent love of possessions. Love, is a word meant for people, places and passions. That's what I think.

So yes, I've had a pretty action-packed last two days, and two pretty lazy last nights. Yes I know, I'm in Budapest and should be experiencing the awesome nightlife, but everyday by sunset, I'm always really tired. In the past three nights, I've watched 'Toy Story 3' twice, I watched the shitty American remake of 'Death at a Funeral' (it sucks), I've watched 'Public Enemies', 'Revolutionary Road' and just now, 'Inglourious Basterds'. Not that these all aren't very good movies, but I know I should go out. Tomorrow however, I'm not having a lazy night. Tomorrow night, I'm going to a dance show at the Opera house. I'm not sure what kind of dancing it is as the ticket seller's English was only so good, but I don't care. The tickets were stupidly cheap too. Something around five euros.

However, my days have been epic. Yesterday, we kicked it off with a free walking tour where the guides work off tips, however, the downside of these tours, is that you feel obligated to tip. The whole reason for me doing the tour anyway was to learn some Hungarian history so that I wouldn't go to a place and not know what it was about. So we started at St Stephan's Basilica, a rather stunning Cathedral in the centre of Budapest. We didn't go inside but (conspicuously because I hate looking like a tourist) got some pictures. St Stephan by the way, was the first Christian King of Hungary. The people here seem to like him, kind of in the same way the Jews like Moses, if you catch my drift.

So from there, we headed over to the hilly, but beautiful other side of the city on Buda. (They used to be two cities, Pest and Buda, divided by the river. I might add that it was while we were in Buda that I decided to move here). Anyway, we walked up a hill, which I was not very happy about, learnt heaps of Hungarian history on the way and ended up seeing Buda Castle (outside), learnt about the caves and baths, and here's something interesting, in 50 years, Hungary will be very rich because there's so much water underground. so people, when you find that the world's going to hell from lack of water, then would be the time to move to Hungary. We finished the tour right next to Walt Disney's inspiration. The castle you see on a blue background before every Disney movie. Well it's not actually a castle, as it is way WAY too small, very adorable though.

So after the tour, where I tipped, and had some places marked on the map by our lovely tour-guide, we backtracked to the caves and adventured through perhaps the most creepy labyrinth of all time (creepier than the Faun's one because it's underground and you can't get through without a lantern, and creepier than David Bowie's because the only thing creepy in that movie was the Goblin King's sadistic obsession with that girl). It was very cool. Dark, drum beats coming from hidden speakers, carvings on the wall of animal-man hybrids.

So that concludes day one, and believe it or not, day two required even more walking. First, we went to the Opera house to get tickets to whatever was on, as we were told by our tour guide that it was easy to get cheap, last minute tickets to stuff, and there was always something on, from there, we went back to St Stephan's Basilica, this time going inside. I have to admit that it's not quite as stunning as the Berlin Cathedral, however, this one housed the mummified hand of St Stephan, so that earns it some points, and if you'd never been to a European Cathedral in your life, you'd probably think you'd died and gone to heaven walking in there, it may just be the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen.

Then nerdy, historian Kate took over my body and decided that we would hit the museums, so from the Basilica we went to the 'House of Terror'. I know it sound's like some kind of funfair ride, but it's actually a museum about Nazi and Communist Hungary. It was a prison (there are cells down in the basement. I stood in some of them and imagined how insane I'd become living there for a few months, being tortured in the Commie soldiers' spare time and knowing I was going to die). So I wandered around the creepy basement, saw the cells, torture rooms, execution rooms, and lots of video footage of survivors being interviewed. On the upper floors it was equally depressing but not as scary. We learnt stuff needless to say, for instance, I learnt to hate Nazi's and Communists. LIBERAL THINKERS FOREVER! INDIVIDUALISM! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY! etc etc.

Anyway, I think my Dad would really find that museum interesting, him being a bit of a war-history buff and all. So from there, we went to see the Art Gallery, and saw a bunch of Renaissance art, mostly involving Biblical characters or Greek gods or heroes. I know it's not a very enthusiastic description, but I did really enjoy myself. We finished the day with Chinese food and 'Inglourious Basterds' (inspired by our House of Terror trip).

Excellent fun.
Sziasztok bros.
When I move to Budapest, I'll send you a bottle of water every week in the post. Just give me your address.