Beautiful Budapest

So far Budapest has been AMAZING! The first day we arrived (at around 8:30 in the morning after a loud 10 hour train ride), the whole group was not able to appreciate Budapest beauty because we were all so exhausted! After a good night’s rest, we had a fantastic day of sightseeing yesterday! We went over to Buda Castle and Castle Hill. We rode up to the top of the hill in a siklo funicular, aka a tram that went practically straight up. The views of the city were unbelievable. When we were waiting outside of the Matthias church, we all saw a ginormous bird. This bird looked like it could fly over my head, pick me up, and carry me off over the city of Budapest. This was not a strong but small bird like Faux the Phoenix, it was a huge bird capable of carrying a heavy load. We all wanted a picture, but it was 1800 Forint to take a picture with the bird and his historically dressed owner. Woah! But, that translates to about 8 or 9 US dollars. No one was willing to cough up the money. After we explored through the church we went to lunch, which was delicious. We had chicken noodle soup, turkey with rice and two strudels for dessert. Yummm. Next we went to Margret’s Island which was probably one of my favorite parts of the day. We rode around on two person bicycles all day and were playing bumper cars as everyone raced to be the head of the pack. Anything you do with honors kids naturally turns into a competition, so there were a few minor crashes along the way. As we walked back to the hotel I FINALY got the Cotton Candy I had been wanting since Warsaw. I jokingly told the vendor I wanted a really big one, and boy oh boy big is what I got! The amount of Cotton candy I got was about 3 times the size of my head and cost roughly $1.75, what a steal. In the evening we went to an orchestra/folk dance performance and then on a dinner cruise. Food was much needed considering we didn’t get on the boat until about 10:30pm after the show.

Today we had a lot of free time which was nice. We meet at the market around 11 and a chef taught us how to make a traditional Hungarian stew and crapes. I personally would have added a different filling and top sauce to the crapes, but none the less I can’t wait to go home and make them. Then we explored around the main central market, got a few souvenirs, and the hiked to the top of the liberty statue. The views were even better than yesterday. We even did a little bit of archery at the top… No need to discuss how close I got to the bulls eye let alone the paper haha! After lots of walking we finally arrived to what we had all been looking forward to, ROSE SHAPED ICE CREAM! It is so pretty you almost don’t want to eat it, but it tastes amazing. Now we are getting ready for dinner and the disco tech tonight!