Buffet, Baths and Buda Castle

This morning Shaun and his fiance's sister Helga were our tourguides for a few of the major sites in Budapest. We hopped on the Metro and headed over to the Buda Castle first. It is less what I think of as a castle, and more of a complex encompassing a few city blocks on top of one of the highest points in the city: Castle Hill. First we went to the Matthias church inside, so named for one of the favorite kings of Hungary, who got married there. (twice) The inside was unfortunately mostly covered in massive sheets of plastic for renovations and restoration, so we didn't get to see much of it. Right outside the church is Fisherman's Bastion, which has a lovely view of Pest and the Danube from high up on Castle Hill. After all that "strenuous" sight seeing, we took a break for a little ice cream, then headed back to the metro to continue our sight seeing across the Danube.

Gavin and I on Fisherman's Bastion with the Hungarian Parliament building in the background.

All of us in front of the statue of St. Istavan, the first Christian Hungarian king, in front of Fisherman's Bastion.

The view of Pest across the Danube as viewed from Fisherman's Bastion.

The Chain Bridge: the first bridge to join Buda and Pest.

Helga is lovely and a very nice tour guide, but she speaks very little English. Shaun told us he would translate for us, as he has learned a bit of Hungarian in his time with Agi. Here is how most of his translations went:

Olive: "Shaun, ask Helga if we need to bring our own towels to the Baths today."

Shaun to Helga, very slowly and gesturing in the shape of a rectangle: "TOWEL?"

Sometimes he would helpfully tell us what Helga said right after she had told us something IN ENGLISH. :)

I don't think he is cut out for the whole translation thing. :)

Tyler, Olive, Ian (and a little farther right) our lovely tour guide Helga and Shaun, looking tourity at Fisherman's Bastion. :)

After Buda Castle, we headed over to Pest for lunch at one of Helga's favorite resturants, which turned out to be an all-you-can-eat buffet! I though those were a purely American phenomenon! We got to sample a lot of Hungarian food, including thier pickled peppers and sauerkraut, paprika-smothered meatballs and chili pepper chicken. The food was decent, but the desserts were all rubbery custard-like things and rather disappointing.

After lunch we started working our way over to the highlight of our afternoon - a trip to the Szechenyi Baths. On the way, we stopped at Hero's Square to look at the monuments there, and then to City Park (Pest's version of Central Park) to check out Vajadhunyad Castle, which was a replica of a real castle built in Romania.

The Baths were beautiful! Outside were three large pools of different temperatures: the cold pool was only for doing laps, the warm pool had a central section with a current that pushed you around in a circle, and the hot pool had a nice fountain jetting out water at the perfect height for a neck and shoulder massage. :) Inside were about 8-10 more pools of different temperatures, from FREEZING cold to nice and warm. The water in every pool at the Szechenyi is from a hot spring below the city, and cold water is mixed in to get the different temperatures of pools. There were also a couple saunas, and I wanted to try out both. I walked into one, and there was nobody inside and it was cold. I saw a button on the wall with a word in Hungarian, and I assumed this was the button to turn on the sauna since I saw no other means (and no signs in English, despite that this is a touristy spot). I pushed it, and a few seconds later a guy walked in and spouted off something in Hungarian to me while pointing at the button. I assumed he wanted me to push it again for some reason, so I went to do that and he GRABBED MY HAND really hard and yelled "MEANS HELP DOCTOR" (probably the only English he knows) and more stuff in Hungarian that I couldn't understand and gave me the vilest look of "Die, tourist b!$ch!" he could possibly muster. I have rarely been on the receiving end of a look of such pure despising, and though the story is funny and I will look back laughing someday, it really hurt me to be despised for such a small mistake. But I think his reaction to me (and my surprising emotional reaction to it - I do have a sensitive nature. :) ) went way deeper than just a dumb tourist pressing a button; I think this guy really hated something I represent, whether it is Americans, tourists, women.... I will never know.

I heard at least three other languages besides Hungarian being spoken in these touristy baths, so they should post signs in other languages, or at least a pictogram, if they don't want idiots like me to push the emergency call button! :)

The Szechenyi Baths at twilight.

After the Baths, we went back to the hotel and had a drink in the lovely outdoor terrace. Feeling fruity I ordered a piña colada. I think this hotel needs to do a little more research on their drink menu, as when it arrived it seemed to have the correct ingredients, but it was missing a key part of a piña colada: it wasn't blended. It was delivered with full size ice cubes - a piña colada "on the rocks," as it were. :)

Before I continue with the travel story, I need to sidetrack a bit and tell another story from Shaun and Agi's past. Evidently Hungarians despise gypsies, and the gypsies living in Hungary are evidently a large part of the crime problem. Hungary is a country of very few colors: the "natives" are all white except the dark skinned gypsies. This leads them to believe all dark skinned people must be gypsies including Gavin's Indian family. When Agi's mother showed her a picture of Shaun when they first started dating, she was very upset and said something like "Don't expect me to go picking up your gypsy children from school!" Evidently Hungarians can be "a bit" racist toward dark skinned people. This became a huge joke with our family, and we was tease Agi about it frequently ("Tell your mom to hide the silver, all the gypsies are incoming to visit Hungary!"), and Agi's mom now loves Shaun and was very welcoming to us all when we had dinner at her house the first night in Hungary.

I believe tonight we got to be on he receiving end of more Hungarian racism towards darker skinned people - it was a vibe that both I and Olive got, so I tend to think my instinct was right.

We went in search of a resturant for dinner (there aren't that many restaurants on the Buda side of the river), and the one Gavin had picked from Rick Steve's was closed, so we walked across the street to another. As soon as our group of 6 walked in, one of the waiters glared straight into our eyes and shook his head. We continued standing there and another waiter approached us and said the restaurant is full, though there was one empty table outside and the inside looked nearly empty. I asked him about the empty table and he said it was reserved, (at almost 10pm on a Thursday, really?) then I asked him about sitting indoors and he said "Indoors is not air conditioned, and you don't want to sit there." He obviously didn't want our patronage, so we left.

The next place we stopped was almost empty except a few people sitting outside, but one waitress came rushing out from the back of the restaurant making rude shooing motions with her hands. I tried to question her, so she went to the back and got someone who spoke English and he said they were closing and couldn't seat us.

The next place we stopped I (the only fair skinned person in our group) made sure to walk in first and ask if they had seating, and when they said yes I brought all the "gypsies" in and it was too late for the restaurant to change their minds. :) This restaurant treated us well, though it was higher priced with rather small, fancily presented plates. (but very tasty! I had a really nice homemade tagliatelle pasta.)

After our late dinner, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.