Budapest: Day 2

Friday, February 15:
 
We were all pretty tired from the night before, so Friday was a pretty chill day.  We started out by continuing our world tour of McDonald's.  I never eat McDonald's at home, but for some reason I crave it in Europe.  And most McDonald's here have different menus than at home so why not!  The Budapest McDonald's had curly fries, mozzarella sticks, gyro wraps and specialized Hungarian burgers that I could not read the name of (language barrier strikes again!). 

Liberty Bridge-Buda in the background

After breakfast we decided to check out the Great Hall Market.  We bought tickets for the tram to get us there and were not very pleased to find out that they don't even check for tickets on the tram!  Anyway, we were dropped off in front of the Market and Liberty Bridge.  There are lots of bridges connecting Buda and Pest, I can only remember two of them.  The market was huge! There were produce and meat stands, jewelery and souvenir stands and food stands everywhere.  There were also a lot of stands with doilies, traditional dress and the dolls that have a gazillion dolls inside.  It reminded me of something my mom and grandma would go crazy for (but you guys don't need anymore doilies!!).  One stand specialized in a type of pastry called a 'lango'.  Traditionally it looks like a pizza with meats and cheeses on top, but we shared one that had vanilla pudding and hazelnut spread on it.  I wish I would have gotten one for myself!  It was so delicious.  I bought a Hungarian beer mug as a gift and a ring for myself.  Everything is very cheap in Hungry, its a nice change from the high expenses in London.

Great Hall Market

Langos

On the way home we stumbled upon a special market that was only set up for the weekend, so we walked through that.  It was a lot of Hungarian food-fried things, meat, cheese, pretzels and hot wine.  The Hungarians really love their fried food!

Paprika Chicken with buttered noodles

For dinner we went to a really cute little restaurant called Cantine.  There were, of course, lots of things on the menu that I didn't recognize but I decided to try the goulash soup, paprika chicken with buttered noodles and for dessert chocolate cake.  (Lots of restaurants in Europe do a 3-course meal deal-can't say no to that!)  The goulash was sooo good!  There was some kind of red meat in it with potatoes, carrots and other veggies.  The paprika chicken was amazing.  I had never had paprika anything so I was kind of nervous but was pleasantly surprised.  The buttered noodles were nothing like you would see in the states.  They were almost like little dumplings, but weirder.  I really enjoyed this meal and it was fun to try traditional Hungarian food!

Friday night our hostel organized a boat ride down the Danube River with a bottle of cheap champagne to go along with it (...okay, it was a booze cruise).  The boat was 3 stories! Top deck was not enclosed but provided a great view, the middle was enclosed but had an outside deck and the bottom was a sit-down area that no one used.  Since it was at night the city was all lit up and absolutely stunning!  We saw parliament and the royal palace illuminated as well as 7 bridges!  We had a blast on the boat, it was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Parliament

On the cruise- reppin' Wisconsin!