I left my heart in Pest...

I want a shirt that says "I heart Budapest"
I wonder if they make those?
So, I went to Budapest on Fri.
I only stayed there a day, as previously explained for reasons of saving time and money.
And let me just say that even before going there, I really wanted to stay longer. I wish I could have seen more, I wish I could have seen the city at night, I wish I could have eaten Goulash. But I loved every minute that I was there. Loved it. It was a wonderful city.
Ok, so we got there, and first impressions were that the train station was awesome. Then we wandered out to the city.
I love the city. I think that one of the good things about these countries being hidden under communism is that there are so many surprises when you go to them. I knew nothing about Budapest, and I was floored by it. It's beautiful, and big, and kinda rivals Vienna for huge streets filled with tons of gorgeous buildings. But the buildings are not kept up like in Vienna. They are dirty, graffiti filled, some are falling apart. But that's part of it's charm. That you get to see buildings in their real condition. I don't know how to explain it if you've never been to Easten Europe, but on one hand it's a little sad, but on the other, it gives it such a differnt flavor than all the spotless prestine Western Europe cities. You just love it, dirt and all.
We wandered about and took the scenic route to the City Park. We wanted to go to the circus, but decided to save that for later if we had time, because the park is huge and we had other places to go. Looking for the Cicus was out. So we took in the outside of the castle, laughed at the huge line, and left for Heroes' Square.
Heroes' Square. I love it!! I don't know what it is that appealed to me, I mean, it's basically a huge empty square with a monument to Hungary's founders and Heroes in the middle. But something about it just clicked with me. The way it was set up was just great. I wanted to roller skate around it, or have a picnic in the middle. And I wish I could have been ther at sunset, because I think the monument would have been amazing with the sunlight hitting it. There was just something so wonderful about the beautiful setup of the monument, and the way people were meeting there, and talking, and playing. All sorts of people, business people, kids, tourists. Michelle, like more normal people, was not as impressed as I and finally dragged me away. So we started down Andrassy Avenue, which is the ritziest street in town. The houses on this street were incredible! I mean, huge, and OLD, and BIG. It was crazy.
Eventually, we got to a crazy intersection. They are trying to kill off pedestrians in Budapest. Every intersection was a huge 5 or 6 way stop between 5 or 6 HUGE 3 lane roads, and there are only crosswalks, not lights, and you have to take these weird, maze-like routes to get to the street you want. Often you have to go to the middle, and then backtrack, and then go over. And you're lucky if you don't get hit, because the people in cars there are born without the gene that makes them try to brake when they see a person. In other words, they don't seem to care at all about pedestrians. Most streets where you're just crossing one street you have to go underground. They don't have crosswalks. It's so weird! Anyway, so we wander around a little bit and look at stores and buildings, and make our way slowly to Margaret Island. We get there, and intend on going to the Japenese Gardens, but by the time we get there we are so tired and hungry. It's been hours since either of us has eaten, and we have been walking for quite some time. And the gardens are way on the other side of the Island. We manage to walk halfway across the Island (and look at some of the other things along the way) before we decide it's not worth it and we want food. After getting back onto the main road, which is actually a bridge, we cross over to the Buda side, and try to catch a Strassenbahn to the Szechenyi Chain Bridge. But we apparently read the map wrong, and get lost in this quite charming little neighborhood in Buda. We find the correct Strassenbahn back, and go back to a street whos name escapes me now. Anyway, the name is not important. What is important is what we find there. We were looking for Goulash, which we didn't find, but we did find a restaurant selling Baklava for 50 cents. Now would be a good time to mention how cheap Budapest is. Budapest is CHEAP. Really cheap. If you can remember back to when I went to Prague, their currency used the "no cents" system, so everything was in 100s, and the conversion rate was 30 k to $1. Hungary uses the same "no cents" system, but the conversion rate is 208 to $1. So I just assumed they would hack up the prices to follow, and everything would be in the 1,000s and give me a headache. No! Everything is priced as if the conversion rate is 30, but it's not. Which means, super cheap!! Back to the Baklava. I got chocolate, Michelle got regular, and it was...words cannot describe it. It was by far the best Baklava I've ever had. It was one of the best things I've ever tasted in my life. We could not believe how good it was. It was worth the trip to Budapest for the Baklava. I could leave happy right then. It was good. And that's the understatement of the year.
After the Baklava, we didn't feel like eating anything else for a little bit so we continued on to the House of Terror. I know it sounds like a bad haunted house, but it's actually a really awesome museum. It's a museum about Fascism and Communism reigns in Hungary, and also a memorial to the Hungarians who died because of those two regimes. It was a really powerful museum. Obviously, there was a lot of stuff I couldn't read, but the museum did a great job trying to incorporate videos, lighting, and sound into the rooms, so that you weren't just looking at display cases and reading plaques. Instead you were in either mock-ups of real places, like offices of Nazi officials, or you were in surreal worlds that sometimes even went as far as blacklights and crazy music. Some of the rooms worked better than others, but all of them were good. One of my favorites was a room with four video screens in it, each playing a different video of Hitler, or Nazi troups, or something along those lines. Then they played this modern, heavy rock to it. It was terrifying. The images fit the music perfectly. Just the use of modern sound made these images no longer seem like something in the past, it made them seem as if they could and were happening now. Another room had a map of what I think is the Soviet Union, and on it were upside down cones representing labor camps. I never even knew these camps existed, and in each one of the cones were personal objects from someone who was forced to go there. Little kid's toys, soldier's hats...it was really sad. They had replicas in the basement of the cells people actually stayed in in that building. The stairways were filled with Communist statues, and one time we took an elevator ride and there was a video screen with an older man talking about the hangings that used to happen in Budapest. It was really really sad to watch. Overall, the entire museum did a really good job of trying to get its point across, even if it was a depressing point.
After the museum, we walked around some more, we saw the chain bridge, which would be beautiful at night, we saw St. Stephan's Bascillica, lots of beautiful buildings. We window shopped. I never did find any good souvenirs or presents for people, which was sad because they would have been so cheap. I also never got Goulash, although Michelle found some after I left. Even so, the rest of the day was really great, and then it was on to Venice for me.