Subtitle -- "Hol van a BOOM"
So, this day was the reason we came to Hungary early. We were gonna be here for a year, so we might as well get here a few days early and see the Festival of St. Stephen. It's a good thing we came early too -- since we walked halfway to Austria before we found it.
St. Stephen's Day in Budapest is Hungary's national day. This patron saint of Hungary is celebrated with fireworks on the Danube. St. Stephen expanded control over the Carpathian Basin, spread Christianity in the region, and most importantly, chose the Roman Catholic Church over the Byzantine Emperor as a friend around 1000 AD. Also, this day is associated with the first new bread from their July crop (still hard and all European).
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| Happy St. Stephens' Day? |
Look, we (as of Day 2 in Budapest) knew about 8 words of Hungarian -- and very few phrases. It was, in reality, a lot of pointing and grunting, hand gestures, and talking really slow and really loud. I know it's cliché -- but it really does naturally happen. After my mishap in the bar, we also began starting every single conversation with some form of, "English?"
But one of the phrases we did know was, "Hol van a." It means "where is the." First -- it's really easy to say and second -- well, "where is the bathroom" is a pretty essential phrase wherever you may roam.
So, "hol van a WC (pronounced VC -- because they {and by "they" I mean ALL Hungarians, I am not stereotyping -- it's true} transpose the W and V sounds in their words. They all sound like the one guy from Star Trek) means "where is the water closet." And yes, water closets may need their own separate post.
Or you could say, "hol van a toilette." Or, "hol van a morsdö." But for the former you have to sound all frenchy and for the latter you have to try to make the umlaut (¨) sound, which we haven't mastered yet.
In any event, we had our hot dog, walked along the Danube, crossed the bridges, sat and "people watched" in the shade, and waited for evening. All in all, we felt the whole scene was not that much different than the VP/Fair St. Louis over the 4th of July weekend -- maybe less humid...and more bikes (more on bikes later, too -- sheesh).
Before evening fell, we did see the Parliament building...but it was too crowded for a good picture, so these are from the next day (yes, we walked again.)
Ok, so another idiot moment (among many) -- we started the day like 3 bridges back, up and down a hill, and everything was so neat that we saw this building and thought it must be the Parliament.
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| Big...on the Danube...Must be Parliament -- It wasn't. |
We had seen pictures of the Parliament, we had seen video of the Parliament, yet all we could remember as of Day 2 in Budapest was that it was A) big and B) right on the Danube.
I can not describe how massive the real Parliament building is. Hopefully, these pics do it justice. It seemed we walked for a mile just to get in front of it and you could see it (and that damn serving tray lady) from everywhere!
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| Look kids, Parliament! |
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| Ugh!!!!! lady w/ serving tray!!! |
So, we saw that.
By then, it was evening and we started to think we should find a spot to watch the fireworks. We found an open table at a cafe near the white bridge. With some time to waste, we tried to start a conversation w/ the waiter. It went about as well as could be expected.
Me: English?
Him: Shrug -- international symbol for "little bit"
Me: Two Soproni (with the euro two -- which is thumb and index finger)
Him: hmm -- ok
When he brought the beers, we wanted to ask where a good spot to watch the fireworks would be. So, we sat, and drank, and came up with:
Me: "Hol van a BOOM!" -- replete with hand and arm gestures.
Him: "Ah, (a bunch of gobbledy-gook)."
But, he got it. Come to find out, we were right where we needed to be...the fireworks took place between the damned serving tray lady and the parliament--spanning 3 bridges. We could see two of the bridges from where we were so we decided that was good enough and made our way to the waterfront.
But first, Meliss had to go to the bathroom -- there happened to be a public restroom right next to the cafe. But you had to walk down the stairs (like a subway) and pay 100 forints (50 cents) to use it.
Meliss walked down...Meliss came back up. Wrong side. She did get to wash her hands, but had to go down the other side to go to the bathroom. Lessons learned.
The fireworks were great -- they were kind of synched to our left and right -- it was like watching a fireworks tennis match -- left, right, left, right. I know everybody has seen fireworks before but Melissa's mom was born on the 4th of July (not Tom Cruise) and my mom loves fireworks -- so deal with it, these are for them!
To be honest though, VP Fair's fireworks are better...and all things being equal, lying under the arch watching them is just as cool as watching them over the Danube (I guess nobody does BOOM like the US of A). But, for this night, we were happy to experience it!
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| Crest on the Liberty Bridge on the way home |
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| View into downtown Budapest at night |
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| Just watched fireworks on the Danube!!!! |
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