Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Halloween in Budapest! What a great day! In the morning, Jenna and I decided to head off together and meet up with the other girls later. We both were looking to get things at the Moldova Mall, so we headed there first. I wanted to find a coat because I’d seen a lot of really cute ones when we’d been there the other day and we both needed to find bathing suits because neither of us had brought ours to Budapest and we wanted to go to the baths. So first we wandered around looking for a coat and though I found some that looked nice, they were all way too expensive. There was another part of the mall that I’d never been to, so we decided to go try over there. On the way we found a dip ‘n dots shop, which made us way happy. I loved the mall! That sounds weird, but it was so fun and so nice and I’d been starved of that kind of thing in Romania. I felt at one point like I would be happy just spending my entire vacation right there in that mall. That may sounds funny, and yeah, I’d probably change my mind after a little while, but no judging til you’ve been to Romania! Well, next we looked for a bathing suit. We found one shop with some, but we didn’t like any of the ones that were the right size. The only other thing was, well, a lingerie store, so we were like, “well, hmm, might as well try it!” They actually had a lot of really cute stuff that wasn’t really lingerie, like different tank tops and underwear that we reasoned we could turn into a makeshift swimming suit. So we went to town! We laughed so hard at the fact that we were in this lingerie store trying stuff on and we were so excited to tell everyone about it. The greatest thing about the whole thing was that Jenna actually did buy lingerie. Like, she bought a “swimsuit,” but she actually found some lingerie she liked and bought that too! Well, after the mall, we wanted to go shopping, so we took the metro and tried to find the “Great Market Hall.” We didn’t know exactly where it was, but we knew the metro stop, so we got to the metro stop and there ended up being like 10 different exits you could take. We had no clue, so we just took one and it took us to the middle of this huge intersection. We couldn’t see any street signs, so we had to find someone and ask them. We couldn’t get to it from where we were, so we had to go back down and guess at a different exit. We were still on the wrong side of the street, but that was good enough, so we walked down that way. The building itself was just goooorgeous with all these beautiful mosaics all over it. And across the street, where we were standing was this pretty little park and these cute apartment buildings that reminded me of Paris. To make it just that much prettier, the Danube was right there. The street we had to cross to get to the Great Market Hall connected to a beautiful blue bridge. The whole scene was just breathtaking. The inside of the building was just about as pretty as the outside, however, we had a moment of concern because all we could see was food! I mean, food is great, but we wanted to get traditional Hungarian souvenirs, not food. Fortunately Jenna noticed there was more upstairs and that’s where our souvenirs ended up being. There were a lot of good souvenirs, but it was a little disappointing, because not only did all the booths have about the same stuff as all the other booths, but many of the souvenirs were the exact same ones we saw at the Sfanta Parasceva festival! Never have I felt like more of a tourist. Also, I hate salespeople. When they come and talk to me and try to pressure me, I almost always just walk away because it bothers me so much. And my biggest pet peeve is when they keep showing you things and you’re just thinking, “um, thanks but I really can look through these myself, I’m a big girl.” When we were nearing the end of the time we had left, I was looking at something and had just asked the lady how much they were, when one of the guys that works there was like, “for you, free.” Then he proceeded to tell me I was beautiful and basically propose to me. We get this a lot. But at least this guy wasn’t as bad as most of them and he was like a sicko and was actually kind of funny, so we talked to him for a few minutes, then ran off to go find Margaret Island and meet the others. We left early to give ourselves extra time because we didn’t exactly know where it was. It turned out to be a loooot harder than we thought it would be. First, we asked this really nice pretty young lady, who spoke perfect English and she told us to get on this tram that she was taking across the Danube and then once we got across she told us to take this other tram for a while and then take this bus and then walk. Well, as we were taking these trams and busses, we were overwhelmed with how beautiful Budapest is. How can I explain the feeling of standing up on a crowded tram, pressed up against the window, staring wide eyed out across the Danube onto Buda and Pest. We switched trams right on the other side of the bridge and took that tram along the river until the line completely ended. It ended directly across from the beautiful Budapest Parliament Building, which reminded me of the Florentine Duomo. There we waited from a bus and in the meantime, took pictures. At one point, I was taking a picture of Jenna and this biker zoomed by and said “sorry!” We were so impressed that not only was he nice enough to say sorry, but he had the foresight to see that we were taking pictures and in that split second was also able to determine that we were probably English speakers and was able to quickly switch languages and say “sorry.” Seriously, the Budapestians are just that cool. Anyway, so we got on the bus, but we weren’t sure how far to take it, so we just took it to just past this bridge that we thought went to Margaret Island and then walked back to the bridge and got to Margaret Island. By this time, we were like 20 minutes late J. The island was gorgeous. First we found the 3 person bicycle things because that’s where we were supposed to meet everyone. They look like the shape of a golf cart. There’s 3 seats going horizontal like a car, not vertical like a bike. The two side spots have pedals and the middle person doesn’t. Then there’s a basket along the front for purses and such with just a chain holding everything in. No one was still there, so Jenna and I rented one for a half an hour, just so we could find them. After about 15 minutes we found them all and by that time everyone wanted to go home except for Marina, Shannon and I, which I thought was craaaazy. It was only like 3:30! So, the rest of the girls took all the bikes back except ours and we explored the island together. It was sooo much fun. The island is gorgeous and the epitome of fall in all its splendor. There were gorgeous trees everywhere overlaying all the paths and lots of joggers and bicyclists, which was so refreshing to see – Romanians don’t exercise. As we were biking along we heard this music seemingly coming from this gazebo. It was like, nymph music (you know, flutes and such) and it seemed so enchanting so we decided to go over and check it out. By the time we got our bike in there, though, it had stopped, so we just took pictures at the gazebo. Then, we biked some more and found a mini waterfall and then a little Japanese garden. At the garden we took all kinds of silly pictures – in fact we took silly pictures the whole rest of the night. After that we biked back to the bike place via this gorgeous tree lined path that was beyond words. By the time we turned the bikes in (around 4:30) it was almost totally dark. Before it turned dark we found this fountain surrounded by mounds and mounds of dead leaves and had a leaf fight. Then, we walked over and found a jogging path along the river and look out at the city. After a while we turned back toward the rest of the island. And as we were crossing through to get to a real path we found this random old abandoned house. It was all boarded up and old fashioned looking and just randomly there all by itself and really creepy. Shannon said it reminded her of a poem, which she then proceeded to recite for us. It was called “The Listeners” and was waaaaay creepy. Perfect for Halloween. While she was telling the poem we were walking along this tree lined path. By this time it was totally dark and we couldn’t see very far ahead of us, especially because of the trees. There were no people and we could hear things rustling in the trees and stuff. We were walking arm in arm and just kept telling ghost stories. Shannon was all into it, Marina was all paranoid and scared and I was just content and loving it. As we walked along the path was ran across the ruins and scampered around and played and tried to scare each other, with the Halloween moon overhead. Then, we found Shannon lying on her back on the concrete of one of the abandoned rooms, looking up at the stars (none of the rooms had roofs anymore). She was “savoring the moment” as she calls it and we decided to join her too. So we all lay down side by side arm in arm and looked at the starts. At one point, we all screamed, because I kid you not, a bat flew over us. How cool is that? We’re lying on our backs, looking up at the stars in this old abandoned ruin on this island in Budapest, on Halloween and a bat just happens to fly overhead. I love my life. Well, we took that as our sign to continue on and we headed for the island’s hotel where we were going to try to use the Turkish baths. I was really hungry though, so before we went in I tried to find somewhere to eat. They had a restaurant, but it wasn’t going to open for another few minutes, so I just got a croissant from the bar instead. Unfortunately the baths were too expensive and the massages were all booked. I was SO bummed. I had been looking forward to it more than anything the last few days and had been thinking about it non stop all day. I felt I just needed something utterly relaxing like that. Plus, I’ve always wanted to get a massage and I thought I finally was going to! So, when we found out we couldn’t go I was devastated. The girls tried to cheer me up, but it was no use. You know when the thing you’d really been wanting to do doesn’t work out and you just have the wind all knocked out of your sails? That was me. I wanted to be happy because it’d been such a good day and I didn’t want to ruin it, but I just couldn’t quite get myself to cheer up. The girls pointed out that at least now we could go to the restaurant and I said ok, but I wasn’t really feeling it. They said it would be fun because it was all fancy, but I just wasn’t excited. We walked over to it and then started rethinking it. I really wanted to come up with something that would make me happy, so finally I came up with a plan! I was going to take them to the Gellert hotel, a really nice hotel that I’d seen earlier at the place where we switched trams right after crossing the river. We were going to have dessert there (as I figured they’d have a very nice restaurant), but I wasn’t going to tell them where they were going and was just going to let it be a surprise. So, first we took the bus to the bridge at the end of Margaret island, and when we got off we were exposed to one of the most spectacular views that I’ve ever seen in my life. We’re standing there on this bridge in the middle of the Danube in the dark of night and there were just lights everywhere, from one bank to another. Amongst the lights were several recognizable landmarks, including the parliament building, the citadel, Budapest castle and all the other bridges among them. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was perfect and I want to find a good panoramic picture online of it sometime. So, we walked to the end of the bridge, where we caught a bus and then a tram, back exactly the way Jenna and I had come and we arrived right in front of the Gellert hotel and I pointed to it and said “that’s where we’re going to have dessert.” It was such a fun moment and they were so incredulous and Shannon was just like, “you first.” I love being adventurous and just doing something like that because, well, I can! I mean, most people are bound by all these rules in their head that say that just because people don’t uuuusually do something, that means you can’t do it. That has never existed for me. I mean, no, I won’t do anything, there are plenty of things I choose not to do, but never if the only reason is just that…well…no one usually does! That’s a bad reason in my book. So, we walk in and the doorman looks us up and down and asks “can I help you?” in a tone that suggests that he has assumed that we are lost. I reply with “yes you can, do you have a restaurant?” He points upstairs and so we continue on. It’s all pretty deserted and we walk up to the maitre dei and have a very similar conversation – “can I help you?” “yes, I’d loooove to have some food.” “right this way.” He was very nice and you could tell just by his face that he thought it was all very amusing and that there would be no hard in humoring us. Several gypsy musicians walked by during our interchange and tipped their hats to us. The maiter dei called over a waiter, who walked us elegantly to our seats and lit our candle, all of it very proper. The restaurant was amaaazing. It reminded me of the dining room in the titanic. It was almost entirely empty, with the only other group being two women at one table chatting. Marina was looking hilarious doing her best to look proper, Shannon was just quietly appalled and looking at me like, “oh my gosh and can’t believe you got us in here!” and I was just grinning from ear to ear. We were all trying hard to keep our elbows off the table. Well, we decided on one dessert each and ordered. The desserts were actually not too expensive! More like ordering a dessert at Denny’s, because the currency conversion was in our favor. We waited a while and basically just talked about how frickin amazing it all was and then they brought us our dishes…wow. They were the kind of desserts where you just cringe to take the first bite because they’re so pretty and you’re ruining it! Mine had these three sections. They met at the middle and fanned out into 3 spokes. The first spoke had some cottage cheese mixture in it, the second had apple, and the third cranberry. In the middle there were some very thin slices of apple in a sort of a fan construction and then in between the 3 spokes was this amazingly good creamy sauce with cinnamon sprinkled on top. I don’t remember any of the other details, but sufficeth to say it took all my will power and propriety not to just whip out my camera, tourist style, and snap a photo. Here’s the hotel’s website: http://www.danubiushotels.com/en/budapest-hotels/danubius-hotel-gellert-budapest . Anyway, so while we were eating our dessert the gypsy walk walks by with their instruments, sets up and begins to serenade us. It was awesome! And, to top it all off, the second song they played was none other than the song that the hotel restaurant’s band plays in “Somewhere in Time” when he gets kicked out of the hotel restaurant for not being properly dressed! It was classic! We were like, yeah, thanks guys, we know. Anyway, as we were paying the bill and speaking with the maitre dei, we said something like, “thanks for humoring us!” And he was like, “you know you can always pay for the meal by helping in the kitchen!” It was sooo funny – I liked that guy. So, the entire time we were in the restaurant we were trying our best to respect the atmosphere (despite the fact that our backpacks and clothing had already offended the heck out of it), so we hadn’t laughed at all. You better believe that as we were walking down the stairs to leave and down the hall to leave we were about to burst and as soon as we got outside, we just walked a little and turned around and stared up at the big imposing building and laughed our heads off! Good moment. Well, I figured a good properly juxtaposing activity for directly after that would be going to Burger King (after all, we really were hungry and had only had dessert), so I directly them on another tram and we crossed the bridge and ate at the Burger King directly across from the Great Market Hall. It was perfect. As soon as we walked inside Shannon looked at the menu and exclaimed “they have chili cheeeeese nuggets!?!” in an amazingly improper voice and Marina and I looked at her and laughed and were like, “and we’re back in the real world!” So, we ate and used Mcdonald’s internet (yes, it’s true) and then hopped on the subway for Moskva Ter, utterly happy. We caught the bus and I got a little bummed because Shannon and I had both been thinking of how we wanted to tell everyone about the day and we couldn’t both tell it the way we wanted and keep the other one satisfied and it was dumb, but I wasn’t mad at all or anything, it just kind of killed the mood (you would’ve had to have been there). So, on the walk to the apartment from the bus stop, Shannon was trying to cheer me up and she saw this big mound of leaves, perfect for jumping in. At first I was hesitant, but I warmed up to it and after no time, we were all trying out all our different dives into the leaves. We also ended up having a picture fest (for your amusement) and had a great time doing it. Thus, we still ended the night completely content!