New Year's Eve! Aliyya and I got up early and had a Spanish breakfast that our hosts prepared for us, then we were off on our own to buy tickets to get into the city. We just showed the lady our tickets from the day before so she knew what we wanted, then we said thank you because that's all we knew in Hungarian. Ha. Not knowing the language is really difficult and I kind of felt stupid and sorry for not knowing it, but we got by. Anyway, we went on the tour that we had planned to go on the day before and it was great.
We started the tour with talking about a brief history of Hungary. Hungary was established in 896 when seven Mongol tribes migrated to the land. Then, in 997, St. Stephen became the first prince and later the first king of the Hungary. With some obvious history missing in this story-telling, hundreds of years later (1526), the Ottoman Empire took over Hungary because it declined after King Matthias left no successors to the throne after his death. The Ottoman Empire ruled for a very long time, until 1718 (which is why there are a lot of Turkish baths--you'll hear about those in the next post). Anyway, the way the tour guide told it to us was that Austria came over to help the Hungarians defeat the Turks and then the Austrians "forgot" to leave. So you can see where this is heading... Hungary became the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867–1918. Still a chunk of history missing, but our tour guide can't tell us every single thing or the tour would have taken days. Anyway, Hungary finally gained it's independence in 1918. Then, after World War I, Hungary lost a bunch of land to Romania and other countries (remind me to talk about Translyvania later). Then, in 1919, the Communists took over in Hungary, then during World War II, Hungary joined Nazi Germany to fight against the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union occupied the country. Finally in 1989, Hungarian became a Republic again, so it is very much a new country in those terms.
After this little history of Hungary, we moved on to a park to briefly talk about Andrássy út (Andrássy Avenue), a main street in Budapest that has many shopping places, House of Terror, the Opera House, and Heroes' Square. Also, in the park, there was a tree with a bunch of locks on it. You know the story of the love locks? If you don't, it's when a couple (usually) writes there initials on a lock then put the lock on a bridge and throw the key into the river. Well, our tour guide made a joke about the fact that Hungarians don't believe in true love because the locks are on this tree in a park so that the couple has some time to think about their decisions as they walk to the river to throw the key in. I thought it was a pretty funny joke. Anyway, our next stop was St. Stephen's Basilica. I really don't remember much that was said about the basilica, except for that the dome collapsed during construction, which kind of stinks. Also, I remember another thing, too, but you'll have to read on to find out what that is.
After the church, we stopped briefly at the Four Seasons Hotel, at the end of the Chain Bridge, because the architecture of the hotel is apparently what would be considered Hungarian and also the hotel is very proud of their building so they let people come in just to look at it. We then took a little time to talk about the fun stuff of Hungary, like inventions. For example, did you know the Rubik's cube was a Hungarian invention. And so is the ballpoint pen. Those are the two big things. Also, in the spirit of New Year's Eve, our guide told us how to order two beers, two wines, and say cheers. Két sört, két bor, and Egészségére (pronunciation of cheers is unknown.ha)! Then, we crossed the Chain Bridge and made our way up Castle Hill again. We saw all of the things that we had seen the night before minus the President's office building. The office building was kind of funny to see because of the guards. Our tour guide said that the guards are a fairly recent add-in to the building mostly because they are a tourist attraction. Ha. But the funny thing about them is that they weren't really well trained at all. You know you have those guards in London that supposedly don't move an inch and don't crack a smile, but these guards were definitely smiling for pictures. Ha. Anyway, we saw the outside of Buda Castle again, the Matthias Church, and the Parliament building from across the river. I am really glad that Aliyya and I went to Castle Hill the night before and got good pictures because it was rather foggy on our tour day so it didn't make for the best photos. Anyway, the only thing that I really have to add from the tour is about the Parliament building. Not sure if I remember this right, but it used to be the largest Parliament building in the world because they built it one meter wider than the British Parliament. Then, the Parliament in Romania decided to build their building one meter more than Hungary's, so it's no longer the largest. That's too bad for them, but apparently we got really lucky because they just finished a reconstruction on the building like a week or two before we arrived, so we got a good view of it instead of it having a bunch of construction crap around it.
 |
| Matthias Church with Hungarian flag |
 |
| Office of the President |
 |
| Chain Bridge and St. Stephen's Basilica |
 |
| Inside of St. Stephen's Basilica |
 |
| The Holy Right |
We stayed at the house for several hours and didn't head back into town until around 10:30 p.m. Also, the most exciting thing about heading into town is that we had to buy the train tickets on a machine that had no English option and we accomplished it! It was awesome! We were very proud of ourselves and thankful for flashing buttons. Ha. Once in downtown, we were told that there were three street parties going on, but we saw none out of the two we looked at. Come to find out the real party was at the third place that we didn't investigate, but that's okay because we got into a ruin bar and order our pálinka shots just in time for midnight and I'm not kidding. Aliyya got handed her shot and we took them right away. Pálinka is a traditional fruit brandy from Hungary, that's why we chose that, but it was so gross. Also, I'll tell you what a ruin bar is because they are pretty popular in Budapest. It the beginning of the 2000s, there were several buildings in shambles, so people bought those buildings and turned them into bars. So imagine an apartment building turned bar/club. The one we went to was pretty cool. It had a lot of little tucked away rooms, but also a main dance floor, but Aliyya and I decided to go to one of the tucked away little rooms because we had three hours to wait for the train home. We chatted for a long time and then we joined another group of Americans who were from California. They were two adults traveling with their daughter who was maybe my age or older and they were really interesting to talk to. They have literally traveled everywhere and it was so cool to hear about their experiences. Anyway, we parted ways and caught the train back to our hosts' house, but not before we sat on the train for awhile waiting for it to leave. Then, a train worker came into the car and said something (in Hungarian) and everyone in our car started standing up and walking towards the front of the train. Aliyya and I had no idea (and still have no idea) what he said or what happened, but we did the best thing possible--we followed the crowd and we got home safely and crashed. It was a good day and night and I'm glad I got to spend it in Budapest. Also, at midnight, the people sing the Hungarian National Anthem. I don't have a recording of this, but here is their national anthem. Of course, this recording is a lot different then hearing a bunch of people in a bar singing it, but yea, here it is.
Bolgot új évet!
Happy New Year!
No comments:
Post a Comment