Budapest Part 3

Saturday was another late day. I was hanging with Tyler, and he is not a morning person. Either that or he was exhausted because of other things. Like the fact that he'd been really busy ever since we got back from Sofia, and Sofia wasn't exactly full of sleeping. It's hard to when you have FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). It's easier to stay up with people instead of going to sleep...

So, we met at the train station. I waited because Tyler was late. I was early. I met some homeless guys, and I started talking to them in Polish when they wouldn't leave me alone. This worked, and they left. Then they went and got their extra homeless friend, who speaks Italian. We didn't communicate. Then they finally left me alone. Then I hid upstairs for a while before meeting Tyler downstairs again.

We went to Szentendre. Szentendre is a small town near Budapest that caters to the Budapest tourist. It has a large open-air museum that we did not go to, and it has lots of souvenir shops that are overpriced and selling everything from kitschy to homemade (and sometimes both at the same time).

We went to lunch, and I had totally Hungarian food. Goulash - which, for those of you who aren't in the know, is not at all like Goulash we make at home. It's a soup with lots of paprika. Because they LOVE paprika in Hungary. Paprika is to Hungary as Dill is to Poland.

They had a really narrow alleyway, just like the one I saw in Stockholm. I'm tempted to figure out which one is narrower. But I really don't care.

That evening, we got back to Budapest. I read at Starbucks while Tyler prepared for his classes. Then we went to a Scottish pub for dinner. You know it's legit because, as we neared the establishment, a man in a kilt left the bar. We stayed there until midnight, and I had absolutely delicious stout from Bellhaven Brewery (Mom and Dad - you should see if Bricks has this. And/or require that they order it in. Yummy!).

The next day was my last day in Budapest. I left the hostel and made my way to Momento Park. Momento Park required that I take a metro and two buses. However, it was totally worth it.

In the Uprising of 1956, they cut off the Stalin statue at his boots. So these are Stalin's boots that remained.

This one is really cool because it's full of metaphor. Like, evidently, in Hungarian literature, a lamppost means the gallows. And the left side is the shiny Hapsburgs. I forget the rest of it, but you should trust me that the significance is actually cool when its finally logical.

This is my favorite and probably one of the most famous statues in the park. It's of a man running forward, waving a communist flag. However, because the thermal baths are so well known in Budapest, they came to call it "Hey, Wait! You forgot your towel." Or something along those lines. Winner.

After that, I had to catch my plane. I lost one red glove somewhere between Budapest and Warsaw, which is a bit of a bummer. But I guess that's a reason to go shopping again! So, that'll be on my to-do list.