Who said we were hungry in Hungary?

"...in this theatre, and she is still said to have the sweetest voice in the land. Sadly, the theatre was demolished to make room for the new metro station."
-- Hop-on Hop-off Bus Audio Tour

Robbie

Our trip to the great land north of Croatia began with a delayed train, however because of its tardiness we made friends with a Hungarian woman who works for Baumaxx shops all over Europe. Interesting chick! And her English was quite good too. Despite talking to her for several hours and her shouting us coffee at a stopover, we never got her name. We gave her the address to this blog, so if you read this, thank you!

We arrived later that Wednesday night with no idea of what to expect of the city. It was huge. We caught the underground from Deli Pu to Keleti. Our hotel was literally 50m from the train station, so convenient as this was the station we would use to go to Warszawa. Golden Park Hotel, we salute you. We picked up maps and bus tour info, like good little tourists. A short walk around showed us the local Arab quarter and just how dark and almost menacing the city is at night.

As part of the terrific Hop on Hop off tour tickets we got to go on a ferry tour of the Margaret Island in the Duna river. We arrived early and got some seats before the entire boat filled. By that stage in the afternoon we were ready for some hard napping and we took the opportunity and monotonous English and German translations and used them to rest after a hard day of sightseeing. I have to say that the Parliament building was by far one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen. Pictures do not do it justice, I would highly recommend seeing it for real.

Me with Da Big Parli' Crib.

To be or not to be? That is the qsvestion.

One of our more interesting encounters we had on our last day in Budapest was with a group of dancing and singing Hare Krishna worshippers. I won't go into the complex and deep lyrics because the analysis would overwhelm the most practiced analytical mind... Needless to say, it went something like this:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Hare Hare Krishna
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
(With an arrangement of vocals, drums, various hand percussion instruments and an accordion.)

I'll let you make up your mind as to it's meaning. As we were so taken by the various songs, we were conned into making a 'donation' for a CD. I will cherish it. It even had the lyrics included, thank you oh keen worshippers! I will surely live a sublime life.

 

Hare Krishna. Please bring me peace through your song and worship. Blessings to one and all.

 Drinking team Budapest.

The bus tours were more than fantastic and stimulating. The English voice left us wanting more. If we partook in riding an open top bus, we could even borrow dedicated hats. Now that's comprehensive service. Also, we will never forget the architectural styles of the city - Neogothic, Moorish, Oriental...and so on.

Nice hat, Brucie. Do they make them for men?

This city is definitely my kinda place. Especially this strip joint we found. In fact, whilst on directions to a main club and bar street we recieved from a helpful wait staff, one guy asked, "Hey, want to have a good time?" Brucie said sure thing. He said, "Okay, come to my club right here!" Sadly, it was a strip club and exactly not what we were looking for. I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

CARPE DIEM, MOFOS.

After lunch at the citadella we decided to walk down the hill and across the bridge. Like the unsuspecting tourists we were, we stumbled upon the statue of the bishop Gelert and pigeons chilling oh so close to the hand rail. The walk across the suspension bridge was impressive. Not considering width, the Narrows has nothing on the bridges connecting Buda and Pest.

Sweetastic view from the statue of the bishop who dared to convert the Hungarian pagans all those centuries ago. Sadly, he was put in a bareel of snakes and rolled off the hill into the river.

Unfortunately, the only thing lacking with our visit to such a big touristy city was the lack of a guide. Oh and NOT forgetting that people don't go out on a Thursday night because they have jobs and such.

All in all a good two nights spent in a spectacular city! It was very much worth the while.

Be ready for us SZ-TOWN. Get ready. Greddy.
Bready. Ouch.

Brucie

BOOM. Such a short time and we've found ourselves in Hungary. We began expecting some entertainment as soon as we saw this badass from the train at one of the stations. What a cool guy!

Don't wanna mess with this badass mofo!

We arrived at our hotel very safely, and deposited our belongings in a small room fit for Kings. Then the beasts inside us stirred and we ventured out into the world in search of food. It was great, using a map we found a convenience store, bought some beer and snacks, and then arrived at the kebab shop next to our hotel. Kebabilicious.

And so the next blistering hot day began with a hop-on hop-off tour, with many entertaining quotes, like the one above. A highlight for us was perhaps the Citadella, where we visited many momuments and featured an amazing lookout. See the pics below!

Man punching a three headed dragon whilst naked. Totally relevant to this story. (Top of Citadella)

This is all the money we had left at one point...the equivalent of about AU$0.82...

No Sven, this is not the Titanic.

Lunch involved a two course meal, with an entree of mozzarella discs with tomatoes, and a mains of a mozarella, sweet gorgonzola, mushrooms and ham pizza. See the problem here? Lots of cheese. We may or may not have had problems after this, and we unhappily renamed what we had at the restaurant the "Gorgon-stopper pizza", if you know what I mean... 

The Citadella also plays host to an amazing wax museum housed in an underground bunker, which detailed the Austro-Hungarian and Nazi influence throughout the Second World War. We were greeted with an amazing array of sometimes freakishly alive looking wax models. It was a sobering experience with all of the documented photographs (some quite graphic) with witness accounts and Nazi relics supplementing the tour. It was pretty cool to see the entire bunker fitted out with artefacts museum style!

Whoa, this one looked really life-like...look at those blue eyes!

Both expressions are priceless. ;)

At any rate, next stop, Warszawa, to start meeting up with my side of the family!