Day 3 (con't) -- Andrássy Út and Heroes' Square

                                        

After the museum, Meliss and I strolled down Andrassy Ut.  We passed restaurants at which we could never afford to eat and hotels at which we could never afford to sleep.  We passed one statue after another and several big buildings that looked really important. 

We also passed a lot (and I mean a lot) of ice cream shops and people eating ice cream. Hungarians love their ice cream -- probably because they don't have air conditioning.  We also saw many men wearing capri pants and women wearing some type of hybrid Hammer Pants/I Dream of Jeannie things.  I'm not judging, I'm just saying. 

Where we came from...or where we're going -- I can't remember. Doesn't matter, it's a long way in either direction.

All the side streets looked awesome too!

Really big and important looking building #1
Probably a museum of some type -- oh, look -- statues!

Really big and important looking building #2
and random statue of important historical art/politic/military official

Wow -- look at this one!

This one is the Opera House...or a library...we think?

This might be St. Stephen's Basilica...then again, it might not.

The trip to Heroes' Square was 6 kilometers (roughly 14 miles) and so forgive us if we didn't traipse our way back and forth across the street every time we saw a neat building.  It sounds petty I know, but a couple of things:

1) Jaywalking laws are SERIOUS business in Budapest.  A fine of up to 300,000 forints (about $1500 -- and I am not making THAT number up). This meant that for us to cross the street we had to walk ALL the way to the next (or previous) crosswalk.  Yes, all the way.

2) All the streets looked like this and, buddy system notwithstanding, we were happy to stay in our nice safe little lane in the center of it all.  

After we absorbed all of that culture and sophistication, how could we have asked for more?  But more is what we got.  When we got to the end of that long, long road -- we ended up at Heroes' Square.

View from edge of Heroes' Square
Center Monument: Archangel Gabriel
Left/Right Monuments: Heroic Leaders of Ancient Hungary(left) and Modern Hungary (right)
Base of Monument: Arpád and the 7 Chieftains of original Hungarian tribes
Front of Monument: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Flanking the square are the Hall of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts. 

                                       Us -- fully cultured and sophisticated...also hot and tired.

Behind the square is a really nice park and stuff.  We didn't make it that far -- maybe next time.

After looking around for a bit (and I don't mean to keep referencing the Vacation movies, but it did seem like Clark at the Grand Canyon here) we headed back.  

We stopped for dinner at the Nevada Pub again and our waiter was still working. He laughed at us again.  What better time for a nice, slightly cooler than it was outside Coca-Cola Light with no ice.  Ahhhh, refreshing!

Meliss got what she thought would be chicken fingers (turned out to be something resembling chicken parts on a bed of lettuce) and I got a bowl of goulash. I couldn't resist anymore even though it, and I, were hot.  

After trying to figure out why Melissa's chicken strips were not, we thought we should take advantage of the english/hungarian menu and took a picture so we could have some idea of what different recognizable cuts of meat were if we ever ran into a non-english menu -- not that we could ever pronounce them correctly.

 Trying to get the food back to our hostel became an issue because we didn't know how to ask for a doggie bag.  We tried our translator on Melissa's Ipod, but none of the phrases worked.  During orientation, our Hungarian advisor told a story about how she tried to say "doggie-bag" in Hungarian once, but it translated to "dog poop."  We were about two minutes from going there ourselves.

Finally, the waiter picked up on what we wanted and took our food.  It was a dicey coupla minutes there as to whether the food would return or just get taken away -- but return it did.

Then, we had the waiter write down the word and a few other helpful words on the box itself. He was very happy to do it (20% still).

Elnezest Kerek-- I'm very sorry
Bocsanat -- Excuse me
Egeszegedre -- To your health

Egeszegedre (pronounced just like it's spelled, ha) is kind of like "cheers." Except, if you pronounce it wrong, instead of "to your health" it means, "to your bottom." We don't use it very often. People also say it after someone sneezes, which is not "a-choo" it's "ha-pci." Oh, and pigs go "ruf-ruf."

We use "excuse me" and "sorry" all the time, though.