Budapest and, finally, back home!

This will be my last post in this blog, as I am now back home in the USA after having traveled for ten weeks. I spent three days in Budapest this week to close out my journey with one last city before returning to Vienna for one night and flying home. This trip went much better than I had expected, especially never having traveled continuously for longer than a week on my own before. In all, I visited 22 cities in eight countries over the course of ten weeks and completed a 5 credit course. I am very lucky to have been able to go on such a journey and probably will never be able to do anything quite as extensive as it for a long time. I am exhausted now and glad to be back in the US, where the water and bathrooms are free and the milk lasts longer than four days. I hope to be able to visit Europe again one day, but for now it is back to reality...

Thanks for reading!

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Budapest:

It was well worth the trip to spend more time in another city which had been behind the Iron Curtain. Budapest is about the same size as Vienna by population and much larger than Bratislava. They do not use the Euro, however. This made the experience more interesting because when I got there I had to withdraw 20 000 Forints; the exchange rate was 290 Forints to 1 Euro.

Is it going clockwise or counterclockwise? That depends on which type of clock you are referencing. The second major difference I ran into in Budapest: the clocks keep time in the opposite direction relative to ours. This analog clock was in the hostel; luckily I did not have to rely on these.

I spent the morning of my first full day in the city walking around the northeast side of Budapest with two Brits I met at the hostel.

They actually have one piece of the Berlin Wall here. Of course, it holds quite a lot of meaning for the Hungarians as well; all countries who were under Soviet occupation saw similar injustices.

And next to the piece of the Berlin Wall it took me a minute to realize what I was looking at: the Iron Curtain. Only symbolically, of course, unlike the actual section of the Berlin Wall. How interesting...

Up close on one side, the significance of the Iron Curtain captured in English.

Cold War memorials aside, we made our way to Heroes' Square.

Did I mention it was really hot that day?

After Heroes' Square we made our way towards a castle...

Vajdahunyad Castle

This frightening fellow sat inside the castle courtyard

Anonymus Etterem

A short swinging break for Sean, Sophie, and myself. I'm pretty sure we were being judged by the locals.

That afternoon we made our way south to the city center for what my friends might call a 'proper' walking tour of Budapest.

A view of part of the Buda side of the city, from the Pest side looking across the Danube.

Our tour guide told us that this little statue was the first to be built after the fall of the USSR whose purpose was not to represent power or violence like that of Soviet statues.

Like many European cities, people put love locks on fencing. However, in Budapest one doesn't see these on the bridges themselves. This little structure is about a five minute walk from the Danube, giving the lovers time to reconsider their commitment before throwing the key in the river.

St. Stephans Basilica

We eventually made our way up to the top of the Buda side of the city at the Buda Castle, where there was a great panoramic view of the Pest side.

Matthias Church

From the west side of the river we got another view of Parliament.

On my last day in Budapest our group hit up another walking tour. This one was devoted to detailing the history of Soviet communism in Hungary. It was especially informative because one of the guides had lived in Budapest while it was under Russian control until the USSR fell when he was 14 years old.

First, we happened upon a Michael Jackson shrine...

A building from the communist era. There are many of these buildings throughout the city because much of Budapest was destroyed during WWII and the Soviets were there to help 'rebuild'. According to our guides, there are still loads of these buildings around the country; about 30% of people in Budapest still live in them.

Another ugly example of communist architecture. These buildings are absolutely horrible, lacking any decent degree of ventilation, air conditioning, insulation, or privacy. Apparently the technology for the buildings used by the Soviets was sold to them by the Danes, who had developed it as only temporary housing to be used while rebuilding.

An entrance to a bunker built by city officials in secret. It is supposed to be something like 15 stories deep.

No, not music television. The M stands for Magyar, which means Hungarian. The building was used as a stock exchange at one point.

Nearing the end of the walking tour, we arrived at the Soviet's WWII memorial. For protection against the Hungarians it has a fence, demanded by the Russians using a threat of oil embargo. The US embassy is right next door to this memorial as well.

Only a couple years ago the US erected a statue of Ronald Reagan in the center of Budapest, where he faces the aforementioned Soviet memorial. I almost apologized that our government built our own memorial in their city, but the guide said that the Hungarians don't mind.

This bridge is dripping with symbolism. In the middle, a statue of a former Hungarian president who had been tortured and killed by the Soviets stands facing away from the USSR memorial and towards parliament. People are supposed to cross the slippery, uneven bridge in that direction to symbolize moving away from corrupt communism and towards democracy. The Hungarians are getting there, but it will take many more generations.

We were shown buildings which still have bullet holes from the failed Hungarian uprising of 1958.

Finally, our toured finished up at a ruin bar. Basically, old buildings which were used as offices, groceries, or anything normal have been converted successfully into trendy bars. Inside this one there was a rather odd room whose significance I do not understand; see the pictures below.

I really enjoyed my visit to Budapest and was pleasantly surprised by all that it had to offer. As is the case with most European cities, it is packed with history and culture. In my experience, the people are good and the city is moving forward. There is still much progress to be made, but I am sure it is strides ahead of most of Eastern Europe. That is about all I have to share about Budapest off the top of my head; it was definitely worth the visit!