we got to budapest in the rain which was too bad but we went down and walked around the market and had some lunch, we were staying on the pest side just a couple of blogs from the main tourist drag... the pest side definitely had more going on than the buda side so i was glad that we stayed there. we walked down the tourist drag and found pest's easter market which was fun, we also stopped at at h&m, one of our books told us that the schezenyi (totally butchered that spelling) baths were a must see... after cobbeling some pretty ghetto bathing suits together we walked through pest's easter market where one of the major dishes being sold was rooster balls - ICK... we had coffee at gerbeaud caffe mia and alexis had some drink with a ton of caramel in it that they were talking about for the rest of the week.
we found a cheap pizza joint for dinner and went back to the hotel. the next morning we headed out to the baths... this is when the real fun starts. there was a huge line for the baths so we waited for a little more than a half hour, during which we got to watch this video that told us all about the electronic bracelet system that they use that lets you in and out of the baths and unlocks your locker... so i purchased our tickets and after some delay we went to go into the baths... well then the shit hit the fan, apparently their entire system completely crashed in between them running my credit card and us walking over to the turnstile with our bracelets. no one could get in or OUT of the baths, no one could open lockers, EVERYONE was freaking out. this lead to old fat naked local men screaming that they just wanted to get out, but employees couldn't let them, we couldn't be let in but because the system was down they also couldn't give us our money back - it was hysterical.
obviously we didn't want to waste our entire day in pest sitting at the baths waiting until they got their system back up so after about 45 min we left, taking our bracelets with us and telling them we would be back in an hour or so to get our money back. as we walked out the door a man came up to us and was like please don't steal our bracelets - it was insane. we walked over to a little fake castle and saw some statues and came back upon our return they refused to give us our money back... even though they were the same people who had said they would give us our money back an hour earlier... but they had a huge sign that said "Get refunded for time not used" so i pointed to it and said that we hadn't used any time therefore we should get a FULL refund... finally it worked and we were on our way.
we took the train down to the terror house which was a great museum and definitely a must see for anyone in budapest. it goes through both the nazi and communist occupation of hungary in a very cool very modern art inspired way. definitely my favorite museum of the trip. then we went to lunch at a fabulous restaurant we all had the lunch special which was incredibly cheap and wonderful (menza) afterward we walked down toward the basilica and walked around inside and then sat and enjoyed some warmth on the steps then headed over to the great synagogue which is the second largest in the world, we walked back over to the basilica area where we found a really cute old wine bar that only served hungarian wines, we initially just ordered a bottle for the four of us but then they offered us a six wine tasting so we left quite tipsy :) then we had what i think was the best meal of the trip in a little restaurant behind the synagogue, i can't remember the name and am too lazy to look it up right now but i had the most amazing pear and gorgonzola risotto YUM.
the next day we got up and went over to buda, we took the tram up the hill to the castle area... we walked through the underground caves... honestly skip these they were bad and gave us cave hair. we then walked over to the matthias church which was beautiful and took some pictures of pest from up on the hill. we walked to the palace and looked around and mistakenly went into the city museum which was also bad... i would not recommend going into either of the museums in the palace they both look not so great. so we decided to go back to pest and take a tour of the parliament we knew that they last tour started at 4 so we got there around 1 to buy tickets... but they were already sold out! so we took some pictures found a sandwich place for lunch and then walked back to the basilica area to sit out in the sun and eat some yummy rose shaped ice cream cones we had seen the previous day.
that night we went to the ballet at the hungarian state opera. we saw anna karenina and although we basically had no idea what was going on the entire time it was great and very pretty and the theater itself was very beautiful too! we went out and got dinner and beer and headed back to our hotel for the night
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