Budapest, Hungary

So Sarah and I went to Budapest and it was pretty amazing! We got there on Friday night and pretty much headed straight to Szechenyi Baths. Budapest is known for it's thermal hot springs so what better way to enjoy the city than by bathing in the warm water with a bunch of strangers! The baths were enormous! There were three outside pools and a ton of inside pools as well as a few saunas and I think some steam rooms. Inside there were pools of all different temperatures and sizes. It was so cool because the baths are in this old building that looks like a big palace or old government building of some kind. It seemed as though we were bathing in an elaborately decorated cathedral or something like that. There were columns with figures on them and the ceilings were cool looking. It was pretty sweet. We of course tried every single bath. We even tried a sauna that had colored lights in it. Every few minutes the light would change to a different color of the rainbow. I'm not sure what the lights had to do with anything, but it was enjoyable. Most of the baths were around 36 degrees celcius. But there was one 20 degree bath and one 40 degree bath. As soon as I climbed in the 20 degree bath I was out and into the 40 degree bath. Much better. There was a 38 degree bath outside that was the best. We stayed in there a majority of the time because the air was fresh, the night sky was pretty, and it was oh so warm in the bath with the chilly weather on our faces. We need to get some baths like that in the states.

The next morning we went shopping at this cool market that Sarah knew about. Then we headed up the touristy shopping street and ended in a square where we joined a free tour. Woohoo! Our guide was really cool! His name was Adam and he was born and raised in Hungary. His English was very good and he was extremely informative and into the tour. He was pretty hilarious in an cute awkward sort of way. He showed us a ton of stuff and we walked all over the Pest side and the Buda side of the city. I'm not just making that up, by the way. One side of the river is Buda and one side is Pest and they decided to join them together to make one big capitol city: Budapest. Apparently they tried Pestbuda for awhile, but it was a no go. Anyway, Buda is the hilly side and it was really beautiful and there is a cool fortress and castle that we climbed up to. It gives an awesome view of the Pest side, which is more city like but has the Parliament Building and a few other cool things. I learned way too much and saw too many things to type them all, but one thing I thought was really interesting were Adam's thoughts about communism. For some reason, I just expect everyone to have horrible stories and terrible things to say about communism, but Adam said some different things. He said things are harder for the Hungarian people now then they were then. He said that it was terrible that they didn't have any choices, but people lived better then. His example was: which is better, having only one choice for laundry soap in the store that you have to buy but being able to afford it, or having twenty different choices for laundry soap, but not being able to afford to buy any of them. An interesting perspective.

But, anyway, Budapest was lots of fun. I really enjoyed the city, the baths, and the tour. At 5:00 I bid Sarah good bye and hopped on the night train to Bucharest, Romania. Off to more adventures.