New Year's Eve in Budapest

Update: Christmas break is over and we are back to school and it's now occurring to us that this is our last semester in Hungary...so strange. Looking back to our orientation period in Budapest other teachers came in to speak to us and would say things like, "oh, we've made such wonderful friends here" and blah, blah, blah. I can remember thinking, "Yeah, that's nice, but really? I'm sure we'll meet people we like, but great friends? C'mon." Well, we are happy to say that it is the truth. Meliss and I spent Christmas break dining with friends from her school and mine -- and talking about how much we are going to miss these people with whom we have become great friends. It has really been an amazing experience all around. 

On New Year's Eve this year, we went to Andy and Rita's, had a traditional Hungarian feast (again), ate something akin to ham 'n beans (which is supposed to bring good fortune in the new year), and had a terrific time (well, Melissa only had one bite...cause she knew it was beans after the first bite, so she might find some loose change or something this year -- I ate the whole bowl, so watch out!).

In about 3 weeks (late January), Meliss and I are heading to England for a job fair. Lots of schools (and lots of teachers) from around the world will all descend upon a hotel in the middle of London and try to match up. We are hopeful that we will find a job for next year -- and have no idea where that might take us...and really don't care!

On to the blog...

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Part of the reason we didn't travel over Christmas last year was because we had plans to meet Dan and Melissa, our friends from the US, in Budapest for New Year's Eve. The other reason is that we are stupid and thought Europe shut down for Christmas. We were also moving from Sarkad to Gyula during break and had to get things squared away in our new, spider infested flat. After a lot of cleaning (A LOT), we felt comfortable enough to sleep in the new flat the night before heading to Budapest. Comfortable or not, we were going to sleep there anyway because the train station is a 5 minute walk from the Gyula flat (as opposed to a 25 minute bus ride and 20 minute walk with luggage from Sarkad).

On the train, Meliss and I talked about how we kind of wished we were meeting them somewhere else because we had spent quite a bit of time in Budapest already. But, as we neared Budapest, we were reminded about some unfinished business we had to take care of (damn serving tray lady).

By unfinished business we don't mean the Simpson ad, we mean the Serving Tray Lady that
 had mocked us lo these many months!

So, that was our goal for the weekend -- and as soon as we walked out of the train station we were both really happy to be back in Budapest. Granted, we are a bit biased about Budapest. I imagine if we had landed in Warsaw first and spent a week there, it would be our favorite. But, make no mistake, Budapest is a beautiful, fun, and relatively cheap city (you could do much worse than stopping in Budapest on any upcoming Euro trip you might be planning).

We were also really excited to get Dan and Melissa's take on it, since they are expert world travelers but had never been to Budapest. We were also really excited to meet up with our first American visitors for a long weekend!

We stayed here -- kind of in between the Danube and the train station. And if you think a guy wasn't peeing by our doorway when we went to check-in, well, then you'd be wrong. But, overall the place was nice enough.

Another interesting thing is that a lot of these buildings are open on the inside.
This is the inner courtyard of our hotel. Reminds us of New Orleans.

We settled in and waited for Dan and his Melissa's jet-lagged asses to arrive. We left a note for them to meet us at a restaurant up the road and headed off to re-acquaint ourselves with Budapest. All we really wanted to do, the thing we were most excited about, was to have Dan and Melissa try palinka. When they finally arrived, we ordered beers and shots and could barely contain ourselves at the thought of the first of our friends to try this magical, horrible Hungarian elixir. This was gonna be awesome -- they were gonna hate it -- we couldn't wait! 

And...they liked it. 

Quite anti-climactic. It was, to be fair, the smoothest palinka my Meliss and I had ever had too, so what gives?! Either way, it started off a great evening that included, to my recollection, Dan's Melissa climbing most of the statues in Budapest.

Dan's Melissa and...

My Melissa both accosting some poor statue in Budapest.
There were more -- NSFW.

We walked along until we were hungry and thirsty and settled in for dinner and a few drinks...

Dinner with Dan and Meliss

As excited as we were to hang out with "American" speaking friends, Meliss and I were worried about one thing. Generally speaking, we don't like traveling with other people, be they friends or family. It always feels like you should be doing "this" together or doing "that" together or just being together all the time cause you're on vacation and...ugh, it's so exhausting. Turns out, Dan and Melissa felt the same way and it was awesome!

Basically, we all just spent the day roaming around the city, doing our own thing, playing facebook tag anytime we found a place that had wi-fi, and just meeting up for dinner and drinks in the evening. Best vacation couple ever and can't wait to meet up with them down the road somewhere else in the world. 

Speaking of, Meliss and I had not lost focus on our main task for this trip to Budapest and sought out the Damn Serving Tray Lady the next afternoon. Now, this was a big thing for us because one of the things we had not done while in Budapest for orientation was figure out the mass transit system. This was important because we were not going to walk up that hill AGAIN to find that damn lady, nor were we going to pay for the tour bus that takes people up to her (both of which were huge misfires for us previously--see earlier blogs). 

We ventured off to buy tickets for the bus to take us up to her...then ventured further to find the bus. I can't really explain how impressed we were with ourselves for doing this. It sounds stupid but this was a BIG deal for us (it was only 5 months of living in Hungary at this point...and only our second trip to Budapest). We did make it though -- and it was cold as all get out -- but, without a doubt, it was the crowning achievement of our first year abroad. 

This is the bus we took to the Lady.Yeah, we took a picture of it. By the way, it was daylight when we started this particular adventure. And yes, it was a short bus! ha

But, man was it worth it!

Liberty Statue (it's a palm leaf, not a damn serving tray) in Budapest with torch guy in front.
Commemorated to celebrate the Soviet Liberation of Hungary.
Re-commemorated in 1989.

From the other side...

And from the front...that's me at the base.

And up close. I know nobody else cares but it was really important to us!

We made it!

It's difficult to explain, but finding our way up to her made us both feel like, "ok, we can do this."
We were very excited!

On our previous trip, we did get to see the view from the top of this hill that looks out over Budapest...but not at night.

You can make out St. Stephen's Basilica on the far right and Parliament way down the middle.

And Meliss in front of Budapest at night

Afterwards, we had dinner with Dan and the other Melissa. 

Honestly, this may not have been from that particular evening, but you get the point

Dan got Chicken Paprikesh -- a Hungarian favorite
He also got a gin and tonic, which came in 3 parts -- shot of gin, glass of ice, bottle of tonic. He claims "the best gin and tonic ever."

The next day, we got up and walked Dan and Melissa down to St. Stephen's Square where there was a smaller Christmas Market thing happening.

St. Stephen's Square Christmas Market

This was some kind of fake ice stuff -- not that it wasn't cold enough for real ice.

We left Dan and Melissa at this point to do their own thing (again, awesome!) and Meliss and I went in search of Budapest's Holocaust Shoe Memorial. Somewhere along the banks of the Danube are a bunch of empty shoes lined up on the banks of the river illustrating the massacre of many Jewish people at the hands of the Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian Nazi's) in 1944. We didn't find it on this day but we did on a later trip and it is both a very simple and moving tribute (upcoming blog).

Instead, we found ourselves next to the Parliament building on the Pest side. I think the pictures are better from the Buda side but, either way, it's one impressive building.

Absolutely no way to get this whole building in one picture from this side of the Danube

Meliss and I in front of Budapest Parliament

Plus, in true Hungarian fashion, as we walked along the river we found ourselves taking pictures of this magnificent building, dodging traffic, and trying not to fall in the river itself.

We had to stay outside the guardrail but that's not much room.
And if you backed up just a step or two more to get a better picture of the Parliament, then...

You get a ten foot drop to the rocks below -- and no, there are no railings keeping you safe...
or signs warning you not to be an idiot.

We met up for dinner again and the next day grabbed lunch together before heading over one of the bridges to the Buda side. Dan and Melissa were going to check out the Liberty Statue (aforementioned Damn Serving Tray Lady -- pretty sure they just jogged up the hill -- show-offs) and Fishermen's Bastion. 

We're no longer mad at you Damn Serving Tray Lady...er, I mean Liberty Statue

After a few pics we split up and Meliss and I headed off to Memento Park. It was a place we wanted to see on our first trip but avoided because we would have had to take a tram and bus to get there. Not this time baby!

A short tram and a long bus ride later (and I don't know why this just went all center-aligned and I can't fix it, so just deal with it!), we found ourselves on the outskirts of Budapest in a park featuring a lot of the statues that had formerly held prominent places in the city during the Communist Era. Instead of destroying the statues, the Hungarians just moved them to this out in the middle of nowhere field. It felt like a weird, haunting, statue graveyard of sorts.

Stalin's boots greeted us opposite the entrance...that must've been a massive statue!
Yes, that's me.

Opposite from the boots -- the entrance to the park

Marx and Engels welcome you

And Lenin too!

Once inside, it really was just a path (muddy the day we went) that wound around and thru a bunch of old statues. We didn't know what a lot of them were representing but a good number of them were super-impressive all the same (in a creepy, Big Brother kind of way).

This is the most famous of the statues and he is freaking gigantic.

I wish we had more to say about each of these statues, but we don't. We thought it would be interesting to know what each one meant and where it had been in Budapest but, to be honest, it was almost this quiet as we walked around this place. Not a lot of commenting other than, "wow," and "holy crap."

Meliss in a Trabant -- As we neared the end of the muddy track leading us around the park, we saw a Trabant parked near the gift shop. We love these cars! Even though they are notoriously unreliable vehicles, Hungarians still drive them -- we see at least one every day -- and they look just like we thought ex-Commie Europe would look like.

If we could have one souvenir from our trip to Hungary, this would be it! And, I think we could buy one for around $150. Now, shipping it to the US may be a tad more expensive -- but how awesome would it be to drive around in one of these things!

And lest you think the Hungarians don't have a sense of humor about all of this -- may we present the best t-shirt ever!

Afterwards, we stood on the side of the road in the freezing cold wind for a 1/2 hour waiting for the short bus to take us back to the center of Budapest. Eventually, we made it and started getting ready for our big New Year's Eve Celebration!

Ok, so New Year's Eve in Budapest...how do we explain this? Let's start with the masks, shall we? From our hotel, all the way down to the Danube (about a mile or so), the streets were lined with huts selling all kinds of wigs and hats for the big evening. That's not that different than at home -- but they were also selling (and mainly selling) masks of all different types. Now, I think this is just a Budapest thing and not necessarily a Hungarian thing since our school folks said that is not a custom in the rest of the country. Either way, when in Rome, as they say...

Meliss went with a Pocahontas look and I went with more of a Lone Ranger motif. ( Meliss doesn't like masks all that much).

Dan's Melissa tried several variations...

Dan and Fairy Melissa (Bad Ass!) -- There's one of the giant Roman Candles!!

The second strange (and awesome) part of Budapest New Year had to do with the unlimited and unmonitored use of fireworks. People (read: Gypsies) were selling gigantic roman candles all over the place as we walked down the street. We all bought one, you know, just because. As we walked up and down the streets towards the main square, people (including yours truly) were just setting these off in the middle of the road with very little care for fire and/or personal safety. It was incredible!

Eventually, we made it to Vorosmarty Square, which is the "Times Square," if you will, of Budapest.

We saw this guy along the way...

Vorosmarty Square (early in the evening)

This was also the main Christmas market, so it had a bunch of food and drink stands (and jewelry stuffs for Dan's Melissa) to poke around at for awhile.

Some of the huts

On the way to Vorosmarty Square later in the evening...the crowd is getting bigger
(and Leon is getting larger -- Airplane, anybody? No, ok.)

As we walked towards the square, a little tipsy already, we saw a bunch of people selling champagne on the side of the street and decided that, yes, we would like some of that as well. Somehow, we ended up in mad scramble for what seemed like the last two bottles of champagne in all of Budapest, but we got 'em!

So, champagne and beers in hand, we forced our way into a little hole in Vorosmarty Square (now packed) for the New Year's Celebration. The four of us stood there, drinking and taking in the scene, as  random fireworks were being set off all around us (again, nothing like this would be allowed in the US -- and in some respects, with good reason -- however, it was {and I say this in all sincerity} awesome)!

At some point, Dan's Melissa (and yes, he owns her like I do my Melissa), set off her hand-held roman candle into the crowd about 3/4 of an inch from some lady's ear -- which was at once awesome for us (albeit a pain in the ass to light, as I remember) and unnoticed by the rest of the crowd -- even the lady whose ear was 3/4 of an inch away from the launching site.

So there we stood, counting down the New Year (Tiz, Kilenc, Nyolc...) in Budapest.

And Happy New Year!

This was insane! We were in a moderately sized square with large buildings on all sides and these fireworks were going off left, right, and center at the same time -- oh, and many of them never got above the buildings. Also, there were champagne corks just flying off into the crowd. Just crazy fun -- I can remember all of us just standing, staring, and laughing as we drank our champagne.

Afterwards, we made our way to a bar down the street (I say "made our way" as if we knew where we were heading).

Happy New Year from Budapest!

Dan and "his" Melissa

Me and "my" Melissa

And, yes, we kept celebrating! Best picture ever! (She went jogging for 3 hours the next day, I think.)
And we have to say that even though Melissa shows the "pinkies out" classy drinking stance here...she really had previously defaced most of Budapest's monuments.

So that was New Year's Eve in Budapest!

Dan and Melissa enjoyed Budapest (reminded them of Paris) and we absolutely loved celebrating New Year's Eve with them. For them, on to Germany for a conference of some sort and for us back to Gyula to try to un-rid our flat of as many spiders as possible!

Best New Year's Ever...almost better than our engagement...except no shuffle board.

Next up: Rome!