Budapesssht

Budapest was beautiful and elegant and crumbling, decaying, plucky and sad.
-All My Puny Sorrows

I remember reading that quote in the Fall (before I was offered a job in Budapest - also thanks for the book Dad!) and thinking that the quote pretty much summed up everything I could want in a city. Something that isn't trying to put up a front for the tourists but really has a soul. Somewhere that isn't perfect but is ALIVE. And Budapest has so far lived up to that hype, I am surrounded by beautiful buildings, passionate people and so much history.

 Someone told me that Budapest is known as the Paris of the East because they have similar architecture and I believe it. Sadly my apartment building is from the communist era so it is incredibly ugly from the outside. Incredibly.

But. 

The inside is a seventies paradise. There are five elevators and they all have separate buttons you have to press to call them down. They are also wont to seize up for a few seconds before letting you push the doors open. I have minor panic attacks about being stuck in one for hours and no one hearing me shout. And I can never remember the emergency service number (is it 112? 111? I should look this up) so I almost always take the three sets of stairs up to my place. My apartment itself is tiny with one wall being entirely windows so it's bright and cold. Did I also mention it's a block and a half from a main metro/tram/bus station? I am directly across from Parliament with only the Duna (the Danube) separating us. It's a stupid pretty sight to bus home to. 

Teaching has been keeping me pretty busy on weekdays so I've saved the weekends for sightseeing. The only sights I see on the weekdays are the little corner store by my building to get breakfast (kakaós csiga or chocolate snails yo) and this guy at my bus stop who always seems to have a wreath or two on him (I just googled him and he was the first prime minister of Hungary). 

Even in snow he still has flowers.

The Parliament all lit up when I come home.

On the weekends I've been trying to see as much of the city as I can. Last weekend was a rainy/snowy deluge so I holed up with my friend Jen in an english bookstore and basically only saw the inside of that and the outside of this on our way there.

The largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world.

This weekend though the weather was generally sunny so I trekked with Jen to some of the major sites of Budapest.

This is the back of parliament and it's pretty much just as fabulous as the front (I see the front from across the Duna)

There's a statue of Ronald Reagan on the way to parliament. So we took a walk together.

This is a memorial on the banks of the Duna for the victims who were shot and thrown into the river in 1944. Each pair of shoes represents a person.

We then walked to Margitsziget (Margaret Island) and puttered around for a bit, avoiding joggers and giant puddles. I was craving lángos (it's deep fried dough with different toppings) and eventually we found THE MOST MAGICAL PLACE. It was thoroughly amazing and well worth the 500ft to get both sour cream and cheese on it.

I would eat lángos for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could.

I'm not joking. I think I've found my spirit food.

This is Jen being super excited that we finally found something open on Margitsziget.

We then took a tram to Gellért-hegy (Gellért Hill) and hiked up the hill to view the Pest side in the sun. There's a famous hotel at the base with baths nearby but since I'm not sure why it's so famous you should talk to Robert and he'll explain.

The Hotel Gellért

The top of Gellért Hill

Apparently this is one of the last communist statues left in Budapest (the others were destroyed or moved to Memento Park)

And here is a photo of one of my new favourite chocolate bars. It's so weirdly delicious.

Corn nuts and chocolate. CORN NUTS.

I feel that I'm slowly settling into a routine at school and in the city which is refreshing (I only get yelled at in Hungarian occasionally at the grocery store) and I'm excited to explore and discover more of my new home. (Y'know I basically just mean the food right?)

P.S. I'm at the bilingual job that I interviewed for (written about in my last post)