Hello Everyone!
We are on the bus headed to Szeged, Hungary as we speak!
We have 24 people on the bus, thankfully its air conditioned! We have roughly 110km to go, in our 6 speed bus, Grant is fascinated by that more than me :)
Yesterday was a blast! We went on a bike tour for 4 hours and we saw EVERYTHING! We have lots of great stories from all the fun places, our tour guide was really into funny stories and loved us laughing at all of them!
The first thing we did on our bike tour was go down the main street in Budapest Andrassy street. On the path there were 3 different promenade each one getting bigger as we went further and further out. The first one was the octagon which had 8 sides ;) The second one had the 4 most famous Hungarians (keeping with Hungarian tradition 3 warriors and 1 poet) The final promenade was the hero's square. There was a huge statue of the ark angel Gabriel, and the 8 best Hungarian leaders.
From there we went to the bath's where we were able to get a glass of fresh spring water. We then drove by the amusement park with the soviet era amusement park rides. Then the zoo which had natural animal habitats...the only problem was they were what the humans lived in where the animals were from.
The next part of our tour took us to the "house of terror" which was a museum of soviet era humanitarian crimes during soviet reign in the country. It was ironically enough located in the ex home of the KGB. Outside they had a monument for the iron curtain which was ironically an iron chain curtain that they hung. It was a very moving sight.
The last place on the Pest side of the was the only remaining Soviet monument (all the rest were torn down), and it was from 1945 when the soviets freed Hungary from the Nazi's in WWII. They have a fence up around it 24, 7 because they hate the Communist rule so much. Right across the street we saw the Parliament building which is the largest Parliament building on the continent. It was breath taking. It was on the Danu and absolutely mammoth. It was built for the world expo in Hungary in 1896.
The Buda side of the river was a shorter trip. We saw the 2 most prominent statues there. The first one was Lady Liberty, and was on top of the hill where they used to sit the soviet cannons so that they could shoot anywhere in the city.
The second was of St Gellert who was Killed by the Hungarians for trying to convert them to Christianity. They put him in a barrel and put nails on all the sides and rolled him down the hill. One of the miracles he performed was spilling blood on to a rock where he died and it was unable to be cleaned.
Once we finished up with the bike tour we headed to a great lunch at a restaurant called "M". It was recommended by our hostel director and it was a cute little place in the gardens of this huge building! We eat under the trees and had falafel balls, Hungarian Chicken Noodle soup and a delicious authentic chicken paprika dish with homemade gnocci. Such a great place and super cheap :)
We decided to head on home since it was a long walk and we actually ended up walking through the former Jewish ghetto, with many kosher restaurant and orthodox Jews walking around everywhere, and since it was Saturday we looked out of place since everyone was dressed for synagogue!
Once we hit the hostel we relaxed a little, had some down time and headed out for dinner around 5pm. We walked to a cute square that was surrounded with restaurant and we ended up at a place called Menza recommended by the hostel director. It was great, but it felt like it was Hungarian food trying to be American food! Grant had a beer and I tried their traditional white wine, it was so sweet it tasted like apple juice...not a huge fan but I had to try it! (Mrs. Harris thought you would find it shocking I even had wine!)
Following dinner I was craving a ice cream so we walked down this little alley and what did I find....a store called "SUGAR"!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So of course I walked around the whole thing they even had cupcakes and maybe little desserts but i had to have a chocolate ice cream. I asked for sprinkles as a topping they started speaking Hungarian on me and some random girl comes over and i ask again for sprinkles no such luck. While I was paying they came over and said is this what you wanted and offered me chocolate syrup, it was good but obviously not rainbow sprinkles :)
We stopped at fun places on the way home and looked at a local Hungarian grocery store, it was pretty typical with the classic sections for all different foods, including a Mexican section :)
We crashed for the night and woke up this morning, headed out for some breakfast/lunch after having some Activia we found at the local food mart, you have to keep everything flowing :) We went to another place known for restaurants and decided upon the place with the most people. I got an iced coffee it was fantastic, with a scoop of ice cream, whipped cream and coffee! Right up my ally. We got some decent food, not my favorite meal but it was quick and fun!
We headed on back to the hostel, checked out, collected our bags and headed to Arnie's (another team mate) hotel. There were 10 teammates who met up there, we got on a bus, and drove about 20 minutes and ended up at a Shell station, random I know! We sat there for 20 minutes, had a Hungarian woman come onto the bus she told us we were waiting for 13 more people. We ended up picking up all the Blundetto's, Rich, Franzi and Jimmy!
We are now about 40km from Szeged, and super excited to get there, see the hotel and enjoy some down time with everyone!
Miss you all and love you all,
Brittany and Grant
Brittany and Grant
P.S. We both are writing these e-mails, and I'm sure you can tell who wrote which parts! :)
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