We came across a local snack in Budapest called langos, which are basically a sort of fried dough in the shape of a pizza (think Indian Fry Bread), and can be topped with a wide variety of things. We can never resist trying local snacks and were excited to give it a shot. We had the typical version, sprinkled with grated cheese (politely declining the offer to add sour cream) but we also saw ones that had practically a full salad on top that I would’ve liked to try if I’d had more time. Along with it we got what I correctly assumed was raspberry lemonade. However it was THICK with berries, and also had a generous helping of mint mixed in. Not as sweet as we are used to, but still very interesting.

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Budapest, I was surprised to learn, used to be two different cities: Buda to the west of the Danube, and Pest to the east. They were united into a single city, Budapest, in 1873. Anyway, history lesson over. So after flying into Budapest airport (on the Buda side), we boarded a bus to an outlying train station, took the underground train underneath the Danube into the heart of the city (Pest), then transferred to a different line, which we then took back underneath the river (back to Buda). When we came up out of the station our view was across the river, where the sight of the huge Parliament building literally took my breath away. Welcome to Budapest!

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After we arrived we wanted to get some money out in the local currency. We did some quick conversions in our head and went to the ATM. We almost selected the default choice, but the numbers didn’t seem to make sense. I paused to do the conversion again, and realized that “normal” amount it was offering us was over $1000USD! We weren’t going to need that much for three days. We changed the amount with a laugh. But I can’t imagine why it is automatically set so high…

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Our first day in Budapest it was supposed to rain all afternoon, so we got up early and, true to form, ignored the taxis and walked and walked and walked, umbrellas in pocket. We walked from our airbnb rental along the Danube to a church in a cave, and then up the hill to the Liberty Statue monument. Then down that hill and up the next hill to get to the castle, which was setting up for a wine festival and had a huge fountain depicting hunters that David found strangely compelling. Then across and down the hill and along the river in the opposite direction to a bridge to an island where we sat and watched a big fountain blow water into the air in time to Simon & Garfunkle’s “Cecilia” being played from loudspeakers while we ate our langos. We saw ruins and red squirrels and flowers and statues and birds and public art and graffiti art and churches and the cutest little pug who was having a time trying to decipher whether the intentions of a plastic cup blowing around in the wind were for good or for evil. Later I google mapped our route and we had walked 15 miles that day alone. P.S. It didn’t rain at all.

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While walking along the Danube, we came across a rather remarkable memorial. Rather than the typical statue, along the edge of the walkway were shoes of various shapes, sizes and designs. Dress shoes, heels, boots. The shoe memorial had been created in honor of the people who had been shot and dumped into the river during the WWII occupation by the Nazis. After a full day of looking at full size (and larger than full size) statues across the city, I have to say the shoes were very effective at conveying their message. We paused.

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Walking down from the Budapest castle, we passed a homeless man sitting on a street bench. His beard was long, his clothes were filthy, and he was having himself a proper drink out of a champagne flute.

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There was a sign on the subway listing allowable and prohibited behavior while riding. No eating or loud music, normal sized suitcases are ok, that kind of thing. Also included on the allowable list was “one bundle of saplings”. For the record, I did not see anyone carrying any bundles of saplings, though after that I was definitely on the lookout.

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Does anyone have any idea what this is? It looked to us like a package of flour (sugar maybe?), but the name gives me the giggles. So many mysteries in a grocery store! There just isn’t enough time to figure out them all.

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In America, when you go to the grocery store for produce, you just pick up what you want and go to the cashier. The produce often has a little sticker on it with a code so the register can weigh the item and charge you appropriately. In Europe it works a little different. You pick your produce, but the scale is right there in the produce department. You weigh your items yourself, and a little price sticker prints up for the person at the register to then scan. You don’t want to be the person that carries your bananas up to the register only to have them irritably explain to you, in Hungarian, that you need to go back and weigh it yourself first. Luckily we had encountered such a thing before so were prepared.

I only wish I was hungrier when I travel, because I often find things I’d love to try, but sometimes just run out of room in my belly. In Budapest I glanced at their selection of hummus. Instead of the garlic or pepper flavors I was used to, they had “curry” and “wasabi” and “eggplant”.

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As we had seen in Italy, often times when you see a statue, you have no way of knowing the real story behind it. So we started making up our own. My personal favorite was this one atop the castle, which to me looks like Prince Charming, only instead of Cinderella’s shoe he is holding her severed head. A much gorier version of the story apparently.

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We stopped by a large cathedral. In one room, they had the preserved hand of, well, I don’t exactly know. A saint, I assume. It was all dressed up and decorated, in a fabulously ornate glass box. If you put money in the box a special light would turn on so you could take pictures, otherwise it was mostly in the dark. They had some full bodies on display in Milan, but somehow just having a hand is even creepier. I was already having high-level church fatigue, but at least the hand made this one interesting.

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*DISCLAIMER* I often have no idea what I am talking about. When I’m sharing the things I saw or did or heard, please do not assume that I have done much (or any) research about those things. Sometimes when I relate stories it is less about listing true facts about the thing and more about sharing my own experience of the thing. Which may or may not have been related to the facts. Unless of course someone (or Wikipedia) told me the facts and A) I found the facts interesting enough to remember and B) they weren’t just lying for the sake of the story. (Hint: tour guides can lie, and Wikipedia can be wrong.) I won’t knowingly lie about stuff (probably) but I’m not fact-checking everything I say either.

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All photographs by Robb Hillman and David McMullin