Budapest!!

Last weekend…slightly delayed.

Only by God’s hand and Mary’s intercession did we make it through this trip without any substantial stress. Our trip was planned to a t. I use lower case because We didn’t actually go all the way to the capital T. We would meet in the Francis House lobby at 4:21 Friday morning to walk out the door to the bus stop to begin out journey. At 3:30, I suddenly woke up to none other than the fire alarm! As Greg put it “I’d rather burn!” So we all trouped outside in the cold morning in our pajamas (well, most of us) and met with the rest of the tired campus. It was there that Greg and I saw Laura and Annie all bundled up. Soon after we were able to grab Allie from the crowd and girls were able to relay to us a story of their night’s activities. Annie and Laura proceeded to tell us their night’s story. It turns out they hadn’t slept. At all. At midnight, Laura noticed on our ‘perfected’ printed official itinerary that in our careful booking process, we had booked two different hostels, for the same night, on Saturday. So they had stayed up all night, canceled our reservations at both hostels, and made two new arrangements, one with a hostel and the other with a hotel (the hostel was only open for one night). It turns out that we should have read the travel book under Budapest and we would have found recommended places to stay (one or both of the original places were under the  ‘not-recommended’ section). But thanks so Laura and Annie, and their late night Skype-ing with their parents, we had two great places to stay.

When we got on the road, we didn’t have any train tickets, which was fine since there were no overnights. So we bought them as we went, each stop, a new ticket. No big issues, we even bought our return tickets from Budapest to our first stop in Austria so we could get the Austria card discount (about 45% off). Once we got on the long train, we found our spot…in the cargo section. The train had originated in Zurich (Switzerland) and was full of sleeper cars, complete with sleeping people taking up lots of seats. So after a few stops we found our way to the correct train car with a few open seats where some of us could sleep, while the others kept watch over the belongings. It was a pleasant trip. I finished a Sherlock Holmes story. And I learned how to tell apart all the Euro coins without looking at them. And I listened to music. It was a very entertaining ride.

Once we got to Budapest, it was a whole new place. No longer in a German speaking country, where we could at least say Thank you, or hello, but in Hungry (they speak Hungarian, much rougher than German). We got onto the metro without too much problem. Greg’s travel book was very useful! It had a detailed map with the metro stops and all sorts of information we needed to know. At the main junction station, we needed to buy another ticket since out original ticket didn’t cover our full trip (I think we bought the wrong one to begin with) so we found the nearest machine and used our credit cards (no local cash yet). Annie got get ticket fine so I inserted my card, chose the right ticket, entered my pin, and nothing happened. No ticket came out. No card came out. So we proceeded to look for someone to help. Allie and Greg went to go find the people at the ticket desk, to no avail. It is strange the places that help comes from. Well, maybe not strange, more like God-inspired. Laura’s ingenious idea was trying to explain to a maintenance worker who had walked by. He understood between the talking and motions to the machine what was going on so he got the trusty wheels of the station in motion. Over the next 45 minutes about seven people were there working on the problem. Unfortunately non of them spoke English. Thankfully there is a universal language of pencil and paper pictures, hand and body language, and facial expressions. About two hours after my card originally disappeared into the abyss, I got it back. Praise the Lord!!!

Well, we made it to the hostel finally, and what a hostel it was! If you look at the pictures, you can see what I mean, but the best way to describe it is a tree house indoors. They were very creative in how they made it. Great stuff.

Originally we had made very few tentative plans on what to see and do in the city. We didn’t really want to have set in stone what we were going to do, which was great because we were all pretty exhausted. We just explored the Pest side of Budapest and took lots and lots of pictures. We checked out a few churches with some very unique architecture and decoration styles.

Budapest is famous for its Turkish baths. We had planned to go there but time just didn’t work out. If you know anything about European culture, you know that they are very different from that in America. This is particularly true in the area water recreation. More specifically the French are known for their lack of prudery. This is apparently true for most of Europe, although they at least separate genders. This clearly would not have been a problem since we would have been going to one of the baths on a mixed day on which bathing suits are mandatory. Not something one normally thinks about in America I guess.

Unfortunately for the Hungarians, the economy is under super inflation right now. Hungary is in the European Union but does not use the Euro (the widely used and strong European currency). To give you an idea of the Hungarian Forint’s strength, one US dollar is worth 200 Forints. There are no cents in Forints, and when there is a number in the ones place for money, it is rounded. A 1 or 2 goes down to 0, a three or 4 goes up to 5, 6 or 7 goes down to 5, 8 or 9 go up to 10. In my wallet I have a 1000 Forint note. It’s barely worth $5. That gives you an idea of how much things there cost. Most of the time they convert over fairly and reasonably but it was very difficult to determine if something was a reasonable deal or not since the exchange rate wasn’t even close. At least with the Euro it is close to 1 ($1 = €0.74).

The first Mass we attended on Friday was at St Stephens on the Pest side of the city. It was a beautiful church (as usual) with a very Eastern design but not necessarily an Eastern look. The strange thing was that when it was close to Mass time, the ushers took down the rope that sectioned off the front section of pews in the church so that people could go up and sit for Mass. When we started to make our way up, the usher came up to us and told us we could not be up there, and promptly pointed to the sign “Tourist Stop” that was positioned right at the entrance to the main section of pews. Greg tried to reason with him that we were here for Mass, not only as tourists but he wouldn’t have any of it. There were pews in the back that we were allowed to be in. I’m still not convinced that he understood that we knew what was going on and that we wanted to attend Mass. it was alright though, we were not stopped from going up for communion, although we were the only ones out of the tourist section that went up.

For dinner we went back to the hostel, hoping for a good suggestion for some authentic Hungarian cuisine. We are pretty sure that the lady at the reception desk thought we were looking for Budapest night life because she sent us to this bar/restaurant down a darkish street. Thankfully it was all full so we didn’t have to stay, we ended up finding this Italian sort of restaurant that had slightly overpriced food, but it was decent. The wine was good at least.

After a great nights sleep in the hostel we woke up and checked out of the hostel and marched out the door to locate the hotel we would be staying in for night two. When we got there they told us that we could check in at noon so we decided to browse around until then. Right down the street, hanging from the wall was a sign with a big fish on it (the Jesus kind) and on it were two English words. Good News. So, being Fishers, Greg and I naturally wanted to pop our heads in. It was a quaint little Christian bookstore with strangely Catholic influences (a few magnets of a chalice and host above). Most everything was in Hungarian but it was very cool to browse through.

Being first thing in the morning, we found the nearest park and sat down to have breakfast on a park bench. It was great. Nutella, simmels, oranges, stale simmel sandwiches, pretzels, peanut butter, and lots of water. It was so much fun, a few too many birds for Allie’s liking but it was a great way to start the day.

When we finally were able to check into the hotel, it was very nice to have our own private rooms. Greg and I shared and then Allie, Annie and Laura shared a room. The hostel was nice, but not private. I was definitely excited about the extra comfortable bed that would be awaiting me that night.

For the rest of the day we headed over to the Buda side. We had been over there earlier the day before to see some of the churches and sights but this time we got up to Castle Hill where we could see amazing views of the city on both sides. I think between the five of us we took over one hundred pictures just on the wall around the church.

We browsed around the cobblestone streets and found a few trinket shops that were open. at one shop, Annie and Laura found hundreds of little hand painted ornaments. They were in heaven! Unfortunately Allie, Greg and myself were stuck waiting because they couldn’t make a quick purchase. Not only did the shop owner speak about a million languages but he was so knowledgeable  about tons of stuff that he just kept talking, and talking, and continued to talk forever once they did make their selection. It was fun though.

For lunch we found a restaurant with a fairly inexpensive lunch deal. About $13 for Goulash,  a Hungarian dish, and dessert. Three courses! Their Goulash was good, but they used a lot more paprika than I am used to. But it certainly reminded me of home.

Eventually we made our way up to Mathias Church where we had expected to attend the High Mass. However it appears that they did not have one scheduled, so instead we attended Hungarian Mass #2. It was great, the church was beautiful, much more of a Hungarian style to it. And the Mass had an Eastern tang to it, only explainable in that when we received the Eucharist, the host was dipped into the Precious Blood. This probably comes from the Eastern Rite, not something you see in the Western Church normally. In fact in the US it isn’t allowed (normally). Definitely different.

After Mass Greg and I were hungry (especially since we were in Hungary…haha get it?) but we didn’t really want to spend lots more money on Hungarian food, besides we were craving a good American burger, so we went to the giant Burger King that was near our hotel. To give you an even better idea of the inflation and value of the Forint, I had a double Barbeque Bacon Cheeseburger with small fries and a drink and I paid 1320 forints for it. That’s roughly €5 or $7. Annie was set with her french fries. Allie and Laura weren’t too please with the sizes of their BKool (once they figured out how to say it). Funny story about that. When they went to order it, they couldn’t figure out how to day it, thinking it was a Hungarian word. The lady at the counter informed them that the proper pronunciation was ‘bee-cool’ just like in English. Needless to say, Greg and I got our American food fix for the day.

The hotel, was awesome! The bed was so darn comfortable, I just sunk into it, after a nice warm shower. I didn’t want to get up in the morning because it was so comfortable. We did have to start off early though because our first train left at 7 am. But we had already paid for most of our trip back so that we could get the Vortailles card discount (only valid inside of Austria) so we didn’t have to worry about stopping at ticket counters and what not.

We had a significant layover in Pochlarn, so we had hoped to grab a bite to eat but since it was Sunday, and it was a small town, nothing was open. We did however get to go to another church that was open in town, then we hopped back onto another train to Sheibbs (the closest train station). On the train who do we find? A couple of Franciscan students who were on their way back from Venice. It was so great to connect with them and catch up on our first weekend of travel, compare stories, share experiences, and relax together on the train. Once we connected to the bus and made it back to Gaming, we hiked back to the Kartause and were safe at home.

Being Gaming, the small town that it is, and being a Sunday, nothing was open, except the Kebab stand about a fifteen minutes walk down the road. When I first heard about the Kebab stand I was thinking that they had Kabobs, you know, like meat and veggies on a skewer. Nope. A Döner kebab is that which normally resembles a burger or sorts with the meat being shaved off of meat that has been rotating on a spit for cooking (look on Wikipedia). The first time I had it and learned it was lamb, I just had to go with it. It was delicious!!!

Well that is all I have about the Budapest trip. Now I have to catch up with Salzburg and Munich from the weekend before last and this weekend!!!

Consider this post, edited for fairness.

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