TL;DR
We didn’t get locked out of our Airbnb
We made an opera video
We got traumatized at a thermal bath (again)
We spent 700 on cookies
Day Twenty Three
This day started with coffee at Cafe Madal, whose logo is “Good Coffee. Good Karma”. A statement we fully stand behind. They had a very spacious layout, definitely a place to do work.
After we walked around the Parliament building. We wanted to go inside, but the price for non EU students was more than the price for an EU adult ticket. Feeling ripped off we decided seeing the outside was more than enough.
We stopped again for some coffee at Espresso Embassy. The nice barista steered us clear of some mediocre cookies (apparently).
Then we headed to the House of Terror. Before we ended up in Budapest we had assumed it was a famous Haunted House and didn’t want to go (cringe). We don’t do so well with spooky things.
When we landed in Budapest we learned that House of Terror is a museum covering the Nazi and Soviet occupation of Hungary. This museum focused more on the 40s and 50s, specifically how these groups gained power. They showed propaganda videos that had been used during the time. With our past track record of visiting museums about soviet control, we decided to go.
Some facts:
1) The Nazi and Communist parties had larger followings (300,000+ members) than in other countries we had been to.
2) The last Hungarian prisoner-of-war, András Toma, returned home from Russia in 2000.
3) Every single bridge in Budapest was destroyed during WWII.
4) Punishments for the same crime varied by class. Being in the middle was good. Extremely poor peasants, and the extremely wealthy were harshly penalized.
5) Soviets focused their attacks on the kulak (no direct translation in Hungarian). Villages most eminent and successful farmers were put on these lists.
6) Between 1948 and 1953 the Soviets tripled the farmers obligations.
7) Through the forced introduction of the Soviet agriculture methods, Hungarian farmers had to produce cotton and rice, even though these were not indigenous to Hungary.
We also found it interesting that there was an entire room with pictures and names of the Victimizers-the people who forced Soviet rules onto Hungarian people. In Latvia, we learned that the Latvian government would not release the names of Victimizers in Latvia, for fear of acts of vengeance.
We left the museum, with the idea that we were going to go to the Museum of Applied Arts, near the Heroes Memorial. While we did get there eventually, we got side tracked by more coffee (this is number three for this day if you are counting).
Enter the Goat herder, we will talk more about it in our coffee blog. Either way Alura got some bomb lemonade and Hannah got a really good prosciutto and cheddar sandwich.
With our stomachs sated we continued on to the Museum of Applied Arts. The museum had exhibits focusing on Hungarian Designers over the last ten years. Hannah was extremely excited to see the exhibits due to the fact that Hannah has a major in Design (she took some classes at her liberal arts school). Alura was also excited.
Each room in the museum focused on a different aspect of design:
- Around ourselves- furniture + jewelry
- Around Each other- public spaces
- After Gutenberg- discusses use of printing press 🙂
- In Motion- design in film
- Around our work- product packaging
- Around our souls- art restoration + religious iconography
- Respect for heritage- design around the past
- Masters- those who deserve praise for being masters of their craft
- Seeking the future- designing for future spaces and technology
Overall it was a pretty intense exhibit. We would recommend- it is around until July.
After the museum, we decided to walk back to our favorite outdoor garden, for some food. We got Langos Burgers. We wanted to be healthy, we really did. Instead we found ourselves eating deliciously yummy pork patties with fried dough buns. Can we blame ourselves?
Feeling nauseous (even though it was tasty) we decided to head to Cafe Vain for some Hugo’s and Ice cream. We got the Vain ice cream cup which included vanilla and chocolate ice cream with whipped cream, caramel and chocolate liquor. We messed up. There was so much liquor that we practically drank about a cup of baileys. It was a fun time getting home- thankfully it was a straight shot.
We successfully returned to our humble abode. We watched some John Mulaney- the one thing you can’t replace. We finished the night reading our respective books.
Day Twenty Four
We woke up early determined to thermal bath right. Early for us is 8 am, we know that’s not really early in the real world. For this day we decided to go to the Kiraly thermal baths, which were about a 50 minute walk away.
We decided to break the walk into two by stopping first for breakfast at London Coffee Society. Hannah got toast and sunny side up eggs (FYI fried eggs mean sunny side here). Alura got the avocado toast with Jamon Serrano. Our lattes were not up to par, and the avocado toast was plain but filling. It took forever to pay, as we have come to expect here, but even more so. It was painful.
We continued our walk over to the Buda side to get our bath on. This time we were prepared, mentally and physically. We brought towels and flip flops with us. We were there by 10 am to ensure time for a massage. However, this not being a touristy bath, language proved to be a little difficult. After a fruitless exchange between Alura and the ticket man, we proceeded to change and lock up our stuff. What was this man trying to tell us? The world may never know.
There were only four pools in this bath, but it still felt less crowded overall. We realized why children under 14 are not allowed in, because they wouldn’t be able to stand in the pools. The water came up to Alura’s chin when standing (she’s 5′ 3″). After about 2 hours we got our massages. Not bad when the total cost of baths and massage was about $26.
We emerged radiating and fresh. The only problem was we couldn’t grab anything. Our fingers were covered in lotion and objects slipped from our fingers. We walked back over to the Pest side, where we discovered our Budapest love.
At The Little Melbourne Coffee and Brew Bar, we were welcomed with smiles from a friendly cashier/barista. One guy, in the back was hunched down over a sack of coffee weighing it, so it would be the perfect amount for our lattes. He didn’t look up. We asked to get two yogurt cups and two lattes, where in the man running the counter had to leave the store and check to make sure they had the food we wanted. It was at this moment that the man hunched over looked up at us.
The coffee also was the best we have had. It reminded Hannah of the coffee from Prufrock in London (10/10 would recommend).
We decided to eat outside, where the sun beat down on our lotion-ed bodies. We slid across the black table, a little bit in pain as we got roasted (again) in the sun.
We finished our lovely meal and decided to bring in our plates leaving oily prints on the table. That being said, we were lucky enough to hand over to the galaxy eyed man (poor guy). He looked both of us in the eyes and “said see you soon”.
We leave tomorrow.
The rest of the day we spent bouncing around.
We went to get postcards sent. We got Alura a nice jumper at a vintage store. We thought it was thrift shopping but things were still over twenty dollars- which for Budapest seems pretty expensive.
We returned to the house where Alura packed and Hannah filled out her memento book, which is now stuffed to the gills. So much so, in fact, the binding of the book is tearing itself apart.
With less than twenty four hours in the city that we both agreed we could live in, we had about 6300 HUFs cash left ($1 USD= 270 HUF). This left for a tightly planned dinner. We went to this place Konyah. There we split a soup and some risotto so the bill came out to be exactly 5500. This left us about 700 HUF in coins to spend on dessert. With thirty minutes until closing we ran to a grocery store and bought too many cookies.
Tomorrow we leave early for our next destination.
Kösz,
Hannah & Alura
MechE Travels 