I say Buda, you say Pest....Buda.....Pest!

Well actually it's pronounced Budapescht and it is known as the Paris of the East....or Paris may be known as the Budapest of the West....but I'm leaning towards the fist one. I arrived by train to find a chaotic train station. Because, of course, I had arrived on a Friday afternoon before Christmas. I wandered the train station searching for an ATM machine to take out some Hungarian money. And when I found it I also found a blank screen....I found a tourist information closet...ahem, I mean office and inquired about another machine. I was promptly directed behind her head and across the street.....which actually could have been either of 2 streets because they connected to form a triangle with the street of the train station. And of course it also could have been anywhere along the street so I asked again and got the same response with a hand flick behind her head. I narrowed the question down to "is it beside Burger King" and finally got an affirmative. Heading over that way I waited in line and watched as a sketchy character eyed up me and my human sized backpack....he glanced back continuously and I assumed it was the ATM I was soon going to be using that attracted him. So I turned his way and eyed him back and he hastily made his way in the opposite direction. Score one for Kirsty!

I finally arrived at my hostel to find it was beautiful! Brand spanking new and another shoeless shower! Yes! I got another room on the top floor where I dumped my stuff and headed down to check my list of places to see against my map. I met Corinna, a Filipino American with Austrian citizenship studying in Vienna. We chatted for a bit and decided to head out for some dinner. On a suggestion from the hostel reception we headed into the freezing cold night to a cafe just a few streets away. It was a cute little restaurant where you sat where you could find an empty chair. We squeezed in with two other women and each ordered achicken with curry and apples.....and it was so yummy. And almost the same dish my dad makes, one of my faves! I ordered a home made lemonade and I got a glass stuffed with fresh citrus fruit, yum! It was a great meal! We headed back to the hostel and ordered our free hostel bar drink and met Katie, also an American, who lives in Odessa, Ukraine. We chatted for a bit before each finding our way to our separate rooms.

The next morning I bought the breakfast and worked on my blog before heading out for the free walking tour. The receptionist at the hostel started to give me directions but I wasn't completely clear and realized I would have to hurry. I raced towards where I thought it would be and got nothing. I tried to follow the map but could not figure out where the meeting point was. Eventually I gave up, figuring I'd get it the next day. I went in search of some new shoes instead. After a couple of hours and some chicken Tikka I was still without a new pair of shoes so I wandered the streets of Budapest instead. I headed to Nyugati plyaudvar, a train station designed by the same architect who designed the Eiffel Tower. I enquired about train tickets to Ukraine (15 hours to Lviv and a whopping 25 hours to Kyiv). I passed people skating on a rink and stopped for a moment. I grabbed some food for breakfasts, got told off by the Hungarian Cashier for inquiring about weird numbers on the till, and grabbed some Chinese for dinner. I sure am eating some good food! On returning to the hostel I found a flight to Kyiv for under 50$, cheaper than the train, and only 1.5 hours.....SOLD!

Sunday morning dawned and I got up bright and early so I would have plenty or time to search out the walking tour. I did find it, hidden in the corner of a square in a Christmas Market. My Hungarian tour guide, whose name means Sultan like the Emperor, took us through the area around the square. We saw the first post communist statue, a little girl (who looked like a boy) sitting on a railing. It has no meaning other than it was cute. We learned about how the Hungarians sided with the wrong side in WWI and then again in WWII. They thought the Germans were going to help them get their land back from other countries who took it as punishment for the first war but were occupied instead. And then when the war was ending they waited to be rescued by the Americans only to be occupied by the Russians first. Did you know that Hungarians first descended from Mongolian people? They lost their Asian features as they brought people from other countries around them to help populate their country. Hungarian is unlike any other language; although most like Finnish it has not many common words. The language is based on root words and so the meaning of sentences are changed by adding different endings to words. For example if you are asking to buy something, like a beer, you take the word beer (sör, sounds like sure) and add a t.....sört (like shirt). Ta da! It is supposed to be one of the hardest languages to learn and yet so simple....claims the Hungarian tour guide! Lol We walked to the Chain bridge and up to Buda palace....the city is divided in two by the river. One side is Buda and the other is Pest. They were once 2 towns (3 actually because Óbuda was also joined with the other two). The views from the top of the hill by the palace were beautiful, if only it had been less cloudy. And of course it had to be the day I do a walking tour that it snows big wet flakes down on us. I was soaking wet by the end. We also saw the Fisherman's Bastion, which also has incredible views, and was named only because fishermen used to sell their fish where it was built. After seeing Mathias Church we ended the tour in the Hilton hotel, former monastery. I decided on the way back to the hostel I would stop for some food. I ate some delicious Chicken Paprikash in the Christmas Market finished with a cup of Hot Chocolate. I'm sorry, did I say Hot chocolate? I meant melted chocolate. It was so thick that it coated the spoon they gave me....wait a minute, spoon? Who needs a spoon with a drink? The Hungarians do for their Hot Chocolate. I drank the whipped creamed part but couldn't drink any more of the thick rich drink. I headed back to the hostel to dry off and got some groceries for food as the holiday in Hungary is the 24, 25, and 26.....but mostly the 24.

The next day I saw the Parliament buildings, which are amazing! The shoe memorial lining the river in front of them is lovely. I also saw Heroe's Square before deciding I needed some lunch.....uh oh. 3 pm on Christmas Eve.....nothing is open! Even McDonals's was closed! I did finally find a little place to get some Chinese food before I went back to the hostel to warm up. I made some flavourless pasta with tomato sauce and chicken for dinner (they had no spices) before hanging out with Katie and some other folks. I had woken up with a sore throat so I went up for an early bed time.

My feet have been in a lot of pain, and after a self diagnosis of a serious foot disorder I decided to take Christmas day off. Nothing was open and I needed a break. I spent the day watching movies, chatting with new friends and old friends back home. It was such a great break from a busy 3 months! Oh ya.......the 25th was the official 3 month anniversary of my trip! Time for a break! One of my new friends is from India, though he studies in Switzerland. He was a wealth of information for my upcoming trip to India in the next few weeks. We had a great time chatting about it. I had planned on maybe hitting up one of the bath houses in the city but just couldn't motivate myself to walk all the way there.....and I'm glad I didn't. My feet feel a wee bit better today.

Budapest had a great vibe, once you looked past the rough exterior of many of the buildings and saw the original beauty. I really enjoyed it and only wish it had been warmer so I could have spent more time exploring.

Off to Kiev to see the East!