A dream come true

As many of you know, I was supposed to study abroad in Budapest last January. I would have taken a math class with one of my favorite professors and about twenty other St. Olaf students. However, the trip got canceled just nineteen days before our departure due to COVID. Since then, Budapest has been at the top of my bucket list. Thankfully, budget airlines and low-commitment classes make it easy to explore more of Europe while I’m here in Scotland.

Last week, my dream of visiting Budapest came true! I took a solo trip to Budapest for a total of six days, and it was one of the best experiences I have ever had. I also lucked out with the timing of my trip because there ended up being strikes at the University of Aberdeen, and most of the classes I would have missed got canceled anyway!

As you can probably tell, my trip is over now. I meant to write posts each day that I was there… I guess that shows just how busy I was!

I am SO excited to share everything about my trip with you all! There’s a lot to share, so let’s start with my first couple of days in Budapest.

Traveling to Budapest

I left Aberdeen on Tuesday morning and caught a train to the Edinburgh airport. I arrived at the airport several hours before my flight, so I spent some time working on an essay (the one about kelpies!). I definitely could have left Aberdeen later in the day, but I didn’t want to start off my trip by being rushed and stressed out at the airport.

My Ryanair flight left at about 5:30pm and arrived in Budapest at 9:30pm. This was my first time flying with Ryanair, and it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined! I actually had a great experience. My flight was on time, the plane was spacious, and I wasn’t charged any additional fees. Woohoo!

Even though many people fly with Ryanair, I think I was subconsciously a bit worried about flying with an airline that has flights as low as $10. I am constantly seeing Tik Toks about how bad Ryanair takeoffs and landings are, and about a week before my trip I had a dream that my Ryanair flight was landing by nose-diving onto a ship in the middle of the ocean. Both of my flights went perfectly well, though!

Once I arrived in Budapest, I took a bus from the airport to the city center. I was able to purchase my bus ticket on the BudapestGo app and then just had to scan a QR code on the bus to validate the ticket. So easy! All of the transportation in Budapest works this way, which is very convenient. The other option is to buy a paper ticket and validate it on the bus using an orange box. However, the validation step is a lot less obvious via this method. A lot of people don’t know that you have to validate your tickets even after purchasing them and end up having to pay huge fines. I actually witnessed this happening to several people on the bus later on in the week. I felt so bad for them! I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t read about it online.

It took about thirty minutes to get downtown from the airport. I was so excited to see what Budapest was like, so I looked out the window the entire time. The first thing I saw was…. McDonald’s!!!! 😂 Nice.

From the city center, it was only a ten minute walk to my hostel. I was able to use Google Maps to find my way there because my SIM card is AWESOME and has worked in every country I’ve been to. It somehow just connects my phone to the local data provider, giving me lots of high-speed data.

When I was checking into my hostel, the reception desk worker looked at my passport and said, “it’s almost your birthday… HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!”. What a warm welcome to receive on my first night in Budapest! It made me smile.

I was delighted to find that my hostel was just as nice as all the reviews had said it was. My 8-person room had curtains around each bed, which gave everyone a bit of personal space. Each bed also had its own charging outlets and lamps, and the pillows and duvet were thick and fluffy. I also lucked out by getting the bottom bunk!

By the time I was checked in and unpacked, it was 11pm. I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so I was hungry (in Hungary 😉). Thankfully, there was a pizza place open just next door to the hostel! I ate a couple slices of vegetable pizza and went to bed. I couldn’t wait to go to sleep just so I could wake up the next day and explore!

Exploring the city

I woke up early Wednesday morning and started the day by eating a delicious breakfast at a popular restaurant nearby called “Cirkusz”. I made a good choice by going right when they opened because the place sure filled up fast! The waffles I ordered were incredible. They were covered in chocolate and topped with fresh fruit of all kinds.

After breakfast, I went on a guided walking tour which lasted about two hours. I learned that the Danube river divides Budapest into two halves, Buda and Pest, which were once separate cities. For being so close together, the cities sure are different. Buda is quite hilly, while Pest is rather flat. While places such as Buda Castle and Fisherman’s Bastion are located in Buda, most of the action seems to take place in Pest. My tour guide said that people living in Budapest like to go for walks through the hills of Buda because it’s so peaceful.

Budapest is also known for its spa culture, which is due to the fact that there are natural hot springs in the city. There are several thermal baths located throughout the city, and locals use them on a regular basis. My tour guide mentioned that the most popular baths are Szenchenyi, Gellért, Rudas, and Lukács.

Here are some other interesting facts I learned about Budapest on the walking tour:

• Hungarians originally came from Asia, and they were nomads
• The Hungarian language is not at all similar to the languages of their region
• The letter “s” in Hungarian sounds like “sh” (so “Pest” is actually pronounced “Pesht”)
• Both the Hungarian Parliament Building and St. Stephen’s Basilica are 96 meters tall to show the importance of both the government and the church in Hungary
• St. Stephen was the first king of Hungary, and he brought Christianity to the nation
• Hungarians will never clink their glasses when they make a toast because Austrians did so after killing 13 Hungarian generals
• Gellért Hill was named after St. Gellért, who died by getting thrown off the cliff

Throughout the tour, we walked all around Pest. We saw St. Stephen’s Basilica, Fashion Street, the Budapest Eye, and the Hungarian Parliament Building. Overall, I thought the tour was a great way to learn a bit about Hungarian history and become oriented with the city.

After the tour, I visited the Shoes on the Danube Memorial. The iron shoes lined up along the edge of the river are a memorial for the Jewish people who were executed and thrown into the Danube during WWII. Many of the shoes had candles or flowers in them, which made the memorial even more beautiful.

Next, I walked all the way across the bridge to Buda to explore the castle, just to realize that I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. So, I walked all the way back to the Pest side and got lunch at the Christmas market. After fueling up with grilled vegetables, potatoes, and mulled wine, I made my way back over the bridge. I walked around Buda Castle for the longest time trying to figure out how to get tickets to go inside. It turns out that the inside of the castle is actually just a museum and library, so I was looking for something that wasn’t even there!

Fisherman’s Bastion — a very popular tourist attraction — was just down the street from Buda Castle, so I decided to check it out. I never really found out what Fisherman’s Bastion is exactly, but the views from the lookout were incredible as it is directly across the river from the Hungarian Parliament Building.

After exploring Fisherman’s Bastion, I headed back across the Danube for dinner at the Christmas market. There, I tried a popular Hungarian food called “lángos”. It is fried bread with garlic sauce, sour cream, and cheese. Delicious!

A tour of Buda Castle

By the time I was done eating dinner, I was ready to go back to the hostel and rest. However, I had already booked a “History and Myths of Buda Castle” tour for 8:15pm. I knew that if I went back to the hostel, I wouldn’t make it out again. So, I pushed through and just kept walking around the city for hours until the tour started. I went back to Fisherman’s Bastion and saw the Parliament Building all lit up. It was beautiful! Oh, and I can’t believe I’ve forgotten to mention this…. it had been raining ALL DAY LONG, so everything was wet. That’s why I couldn’t sit down anywhere to wait for the tour to start.

Finally, the tour began. I was eager to learn about the history of the castle… when was it built? what was it used for? who lived there?

I still don’t know the answers to these questions because the tour ended up being two hours of scary stories! Anyone who knows me knows that I do NOT like scary stories, movies, etc. I have refused to watch scary movies my whole life because I know that I simply cannot handle gore. In hindsight, I should’ve left when I found out the tour would just be a bunch of vampire, serial killer, and Dracula stories. Instead, I thought to myself “it can’t be THAT bad”. I was so wrong.

I made it through the first couple of stories alright, but my strength did not last long. About a half hour into the tour, the guide started telling the most disturbing story I have ever heard in my entire life. I won’t explain any details, but it was a story about a serial killer called the “Blood Countess”.

As the tour guide was telling the story with each and every disturbing detail as possible, I started to feel myself getting hot. I ripped off my hat and unzipped my coat, knowing exactly what was going to happen…

I was going to faint.

The only thing that kept me from sitting or lying down to pass out was the fact that I was alone in a foreign country, surrounded by a lot of random people on a guided tour. I was afraid that if I caused a scene someone would call the ambulance, and I really did not want to end up in that kind of situation. Even though my vision was going black, I forced myself to keep walking with the group. For a split second, I couldn’t see anything but somehow managed to stay standing.

It only took me a couple of minutes to start feeling normal again, so I continued on with the tour. For the next hour and a half, I just sang songs in my head while the tour guide was telling disturbing stories to distract myself 😂.

Since I was both physically and emotionally exhausted by the end of the tour, I decided to take the bus back to the hostel. Seventeen miles of walking tired me out to the point where I changed my entire itinerary for the next day to include several hours at the thermal baths.

You can read about that experience in my next post!

Until next time,

Clara