Budapest: Day 1

This weekend after a spur of the moment decision three girls from my program and I visited Budapest, Hungary and had the time of our lives!  I'm splitting this up into 3 posts so as to not overwhelm you and also so I don't completely lose my train of thought.

Thursday, February 14: A Shell Shocking Experience

We arrived in Budapest around noon and took a terrifying cab ride from the airport to our hostel.  The cab driver drove like a maniac! He was passing cars with cars coming at us from the other direction and going very fast.  We were all a little stressed out over this!  As we pulled up to our hostel, Retox Party Hostel (highly recommended by a friend of a girl on the trip), I was a little...okay, very apprehensive.  All I could think was "what the hell did I get myself into?!".  It was a little run down on the outside and only advertised for the Retox bar.  After check-in I felt a little better.  The employees are all native English speakers and were incredibly friendly.  The funny thing about most (or all) of the employees are that they were tourists who came to Budapest for a few nights and ended up staying for months.  Literally all the stories I heard from them started out "well I came here for 3 nights, but I've been here for 3 months".  They were all very fun and relaxed, but still helpful! 

Hungarian Pizza

When we decided we were famished and needed food we quickly realized that the language barrier in Hungary is very real.  We walked passed many restaurants, but couldn't read the menu so we had to keep searching.  We finally found a place that had an English menu and I ordered "Hungarian style" pizza.  It had onions, mushrooms, salami and hot peppers.  It was delicious, but I didn't realize I was getting a pizza meant for more than one person! 






After we ate, we headed over to the Terror House on the main street in Pest.  The Terror House is the

former headquarters for the secret police of both the Nazi and Communist governments.  Today, it is a museum that exhibits the fascist and communist regimes in 20th century Hungary and is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or killed in the building.  The museum is very well done and very powerful.  There are artifacts, pictures and videos from the era that reveal things about Hungary I've never learned about.  The most moving part of the experience was entering the basement where the horrors of the regimes were carried out.  The elevator ride to the basement is very slow so that you can watch an interview with a man who was in

Terror House

charge of cleaning up the gallows after executions.  He explained the process from beginning to end, and it was exactly how you would expect it to be.  As a person who doesn't like elevators to begin with, this 3 minute ride got to be a bit much and toward the end I started having trouble breathing.  In the basement (more like a dungeon) there are many stone cells, some the size of a small room others smaller than a closet.  The smallest ones used as psychological torture.  In the larger cells pictures hung on the walls of the victims imprisoned in them.  There were men and women, old and young.  The feeling that came over me when I was in that basement was something I've never felt before and is hard to describe.  I could feel the heaviness and horror.  I felt sick to my stomach and shaky.  The energy from the time of these regimes could absolutely still be felt.  As you exit the building small pictures of the victimizers covered the walls, which countered the larger pictures of the victims covering 4 stories in the main room.  I'm very glad I went to this museum because there is such a deep history that doesn't get told in the States.

After the museum we were all feeling very gloomy so we decided to wander down the main avenue to Heroes Square.  We ended up stumbling upon a ceremony, one which we still have no idea what is was for.  There was a group of Hungarian soldiers lined up next to a red carpet in front of a tomb for an unknown soldier.  All of a sudden a squad car and 2 black BMWs pull up and a man in traditional Indian (I think?) dress got out.  He walked behind two soldiers carrying a wreath, the wreath was placed on the tomb and then it was over.  We were very confused, but again the language barrier prevented us from finding out what had just happened!  Heroes Square at night is very gorgeous and is a quick site to see.

Heroes Square

Heroes Square

Heroes Square

That night our hostel had an all-you-can-drink event at the bar where the two sister hostels come and everyone can hang out.  We hadn't explored the bar area of the hostel yet, but were very shocked at some of the decorations...there was a stripper pole.  Odd, to say the least.  But it was a very fun night!

Hostel Bar