After way too many early mornings in a row we'd decided to sleep in and didn't get up until 9 am. It also took us about 2.5 hours to get ready, somehow. We weren't in much of a hurry though.. We had an interesting experience making coffee. The host showed us how to use the gas stove in the kitchen - it seemed simple enough, and I'd used a gas stove before. He also showed the coffee maker - one of those that you need to keep on the stove. Didn't seem complicated either. The coffee itself was strange though - it was in the form of teabag-looking things. I lit up the stove and we started making the coffee. I had to hold on to the knob of the stove the whole time because otherwise the fire went out. I guess we were doing something wrong, or didn't turn it enough or something. Anyways, the coffee was prepared and we poured it into mugs, added milk and sugar. Pinky couldn't drink any of it, because she thought it was terrible, and even went as far as to call it "the worst coffee ever". I really didn't think it was that bad... :P
There was a map in the kitchen where someone had marked useful info, and we noticed there was supposed to be a 24-h pancake house not too far away from the Moscow Square. We tried to find it but weren't successful, so we just went to the big shopping mall across the street, called Mammut. We had lunch at a McCafé - apple pie with soda. Healthy, isn't it? :)
Then we began climbing the Castle Hill. It wasn't very steep, but the air was so humid that it wasn't pleasant. We saw just about all there was to see on the Castle Hill - Matthias Church, Fisherman's Bastion, the Royal Palace/Castle. It was all very beautiful. I especially liked the Fisherman's Bastion - lovely views across the river, could see the Parliament Building and St Stephen's Basilica.
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| Climbing uphill... |
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Fisherman's Bastion (note the amount of people everywhere)
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| The Buda Castle and the Monument of Prince Eugene of Savoy |
I would've wanted to climb up the Gellert Hill, because it's the highest point in Budapest, but we exited the Castle Hill from the wrong side, so it would've been a really long walk to the foot of the hill. Besides, we had to get something to eat, and Pinky was getting cranky. All the food places we passed were very expensive. Finally, we saw some cafe that was very cheap and were too hungry to look any further (that happened way too many times :P). We both ordered savory pancakes with ham and cheese, and oven-baked potatoes with broccoli and chicken. They didn't look too appetizing, but we were really hungry so anything would've done. It was insanely hot inside the cafe and the seats outside were all taken. It was literally like being in a sauna. That was probably the worst and most unhygienic place we'd eaten. The bathroom stalls didn't have locks, and there was no toilet paper or soap, and the ceiling lamp was messed up and blinky.
We were quite close to the Margret Island now, so we just walked there. That's where the European swimming championships were taking place at the time, so we heard a lot of cheering and parts of national anthems. We found a cocktail bar and had a drink each. There were comfy bean bag chairs in the shade, and the drinks were good, so we chilled there for a while watching the swimming championships on one of the TV screens that was next to where we were sitting. The chairs were so cozy I could've easily taken a nap there. Unfortunately that wasn't an option. We continued our tour of the island, and stumbled upon a small zoo. There were deer, ponies, storks and then a wide assortment of birds. The deer were especially cute. We also saw a fountain that was accompanied by music - as in music was playing in the background and the fountain was working to its rhythm. It was fun.
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| Lovely nature of Margret Island |
Slowly but surely we left the island, bought groceries and walked back to our temporary home. Dead tired once again.
Oh, an example of how Hungarian language is crazy:
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| In every language I know it's something like "police", but in Hungarian it's "rendőrség" |
-Brain
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