"We too played on the great European stage, and ours was not the smallest role." - Sandor Pet

Budapest slowly climbed John's favorite European city list as our long weekend wore on. It started just above Paris by default (which is at the bottom), so it had some work to do.

We checked into our hotel, and we immediately fell in love with the square and church we look over from our room. We went to our traditional Hungarian dinner that night and both ordered the Hungarian special which was goulash, goose leg, and a fruit strudel for dessert. I didn't know I liked goose leg that much, and John didn't know he liked fruit strudel that much. It was soooo good.

Our view. Slightly different than Issaquah.

The next morning we woke up to rain. Like Seattle rain where you look like an idiot for using your umbrella (and you're not really sure which way to point it), but it's really misty and my hair gets all frizzy. So we took a walk. We wandered through the shopping streets and up to the main part of downtown by the river. Budapest is divided into two sides, Buda and Pest. Creative. The sides are divided by the Danube river in between. And there are beautiful buildings on both sides. It's a really beautiful city, and you can see all of the beautifulness from all angles. Even beautiful on a Seattle day.

 

 We decided to do the city tour where an old Hungarian lady told us about the city. We couldn't help but think that she had lived through most of the history she recounted to us.

One of my favorite moments of all of Europe so far has been the view from Gellert Hill where we could see the entire city for miles and miles. Kind of like the Space Needle but with less skyscrapers and volcanos and more Eastern Europe and spired buildings.

We then went up to Buda castle and Mathias Church which sit on top of the hill over the river on the Buda side. This is where several Hungarian kings were crowned and married. Kind of like Orcas Island but with less trees and fire alarms and more kings and coronations. 

The Parliament building

AND THEN we found Heaven. Heaven is in Budapest. In the form of a Mexican restaurant called The Iguana. We ordered mojitos, margaritas (yes, plural of both of those), guacamole, and jalapeno poppers. It was not Hungarian, and I don't care. It was so delicious. If not immersing yourself in the culture is wrong, I don't want to be right. I'd rather eat my poppers.

To even it out, however, John had a Hungarian beer that night. We also found slippers in our hotel room. We may or may not have brought them home. The slippers and Mexican restaurant brought Budapest right below Munich for John. Hard to overcome very very large glassess of beer.


The next day it was freezing cold but sunny, which is close enough to walking weather for us. We did a big loop around the city stopping at the Holocaust shoe memorial. The memorial is for those who died during WWII when the Nazis had the Jews line up on the Danube, take off their shoes, and then shot them into the river. The Russians liberated Hungary during WWII, but then they forgot to leave until 1990 when the communist regime was overthrown.

Then, since it's better to enjoy the cold on a boat, we took a boat tour down the river.

And we went back to heaven that night for more guac. We got seated upstairs by ourselves, which didn't seem too weird until everyone else was seated downstairs. Every single person. The entire time we ate dinner. So we had our own waitress who brought us fajitas and daiquiris, further confirming it actually was heaven.

Did you know Ronald Reagan was a Seahawks fan?

If Budapest is beautiful during the day, it's stunning at night. And it's John's new favorite city, even ranking above London and Barcelona. At least that's what he said after the Iguana margaritas.