Another brief foray in Eastern Europe

Trip Start Jun 29, 2008
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Trip End Nov 27, 2008


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Flag of Hungary  ,
Monday, September 1, 2008

One of the highlights for me in visiting Budapest was catching up with people from back home.  To be fair, we have been travelling for almost 2 months now, and I do get a tendency to get a little homesick.  Also, we weren't just meeting up with anyone, but with Jon and Juli (and their incredibly cute 8 month old baby).  Jon shared the agony of the exam process with me last year, and finally the delight of making it through.  His wife, Juli, is Hungarian, making them the ideal people to introduce us to the city.  They did a fantastic job of it.  Our night of arrival, they took us to a friend's house where we were introduced to typical Hungarian beverages.  We then managed to visit the major highlights on our first full day there: Gellert Hill lookout, Castle Hill, St Stephen's Cathedral, Heroes square, and an amazing bath complex (of Turkish design).  The bath complex was used as a treatment centre, used for multiple ailments, and there were multiple baths throughout.  Unfortunately Jon could not convince Ben that we should try them out.  Cuisine is always important to me when we travel, and Jon got us to try one of the major local delicacies (chicken paprika).
 
The following day, we took a ferry ride up the Danube and visited Senztendre, a cute little artistic village.  The ferry ride was very relaxing and we had a relaxing Greek lunch at Senztendre after wandering around the cobbled streets and looking at the various crafts, including the marzipan creations.  We also returned that evening to a great restaurant across from our hotel in Budapest, called Heming Way.  I highly recommend this restaurant, which has local dishes (which we had our first night) as well as an extensive list of other dishes, all cooked incredibly well.  Just as great was their fantastic sommelier, who advised us on our wine selection each night.  Not surprisingly, our $80 bottle of Hungarian red wine we had our first night was able to gain Ben's good opinion on Hungarian wine.  He had been a doubter, as he had imbibed in a $2 glass the previous night which, not surprisingly, was not that good.
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