Castle Hill and more BudaBuda

Sunday. Day Three. Half Tourist/Half 'jess, you are living here for a bit, you need to get yourself sorted' day.

To Begin:

Another thing that I have noticed when traveling alone is that it is very easy to become lazy. By lazy I mean, you have no one to hold you accountable to what you say you are going to do (like the need to get up early when you are trying to get over jet lag...which I am failing at at the moment). To remedy this situation, I decided on Saturday night that I would go to church on Sunday morning! It was perfect because I wanted to see some of the old churches in action (with organs a blazing), and church is always early-er on it the day. So, that is what I did. I decided that I wanted to visit Matthias Church. In order to get there, I would have to get up early, and really navigate the transit system over several 'transfers' (a double whammy!). There were a few hiccups along the way (including a 'getting off one stop early, exiting the metro realizing that I was not in the right place, and then getting back on' situation, and slight panic when I thought that kijárat was the name of a stop, and mistaken kijárat for a stop, then wondered why every stop was called kijárat, and then thinking I was not on the right metro line (I soon found out that kijárat meant 'exit', not the name of the stop, crisis was therefore averted......). Really, its hard living in a country being completely language deficient.

I got to the hill in good time, well actually a little early. As a result, I was able to take some pictures of the great view! (this is where JMN took me on the first day, but I didn't have my camera in action!). You can see from the photo, across the Danube is the parliament buildings. You could pretty much see the whole Pest skyline. It was pretty cool! Down those steps in the area where there are lots of little cafes and it is also pretty residential. My work is a short distance from there too. I was glad that I was there early because there wasn't anyone there but an old man. The left picture is the courtyard, the right is a photo I took from just beyond those arches. Look! It's me! I am working on the one-women pose! (you can see the parliament in the background!). The photo of the statue spire thing is right in front of the church. The gold was glimmering from the top!Note the rain cloud: Yes, I got stuck in it, No, I didn't have an umbrella, Yes, I annoyed a souvenir shop owner by taking cover in their shop, No, I didn't buy anything.

The Matthias church is on Castle Hill, in Buda (it is actually called "Church of Our Lady", but apparently everyone calls it Matthias Church. This church was founded by King Bela IV (about 800 years ago), and has been destroyed and rebuilt several times during its live (unfortunately, the church sits atop castle hill, which seemed to be a popular place to fight in WWI, and was occupied by the Ottomans,who used it as a Mosque, for a while too). It was also the place where Franz Josef's coronation in 1867 (the same year Canada became a country!). The flags down the centre blog represent the districts of Hungary at the time, and were brought the the church by each districts representatives at the Coronation. The designs on the walls and posts inside the church represent different historical moments in Hungary (including the Ottoman occupation in Buda, alters and statues of great kings of Hungary like King Istvan (who I think was the one who converted the Magyars to Christianity), and the wall painting paying homage to St. Francis of Assis. This church has alot of history!

After mass, I was hanging around the court yard, and I heard a mom telling her daughter that this church was actually build before there were people living in America. (I wanted to correct them in saying that, yes, well there were people, just not Europeans), but the point was to iterate the oldness of the church. It was sort of funny to see the girls face trying to organize this in her mind. A church? Older than my country? A bit perplexing for a young American!

Then I wandered down Castle Hill, en route to the Buda Castle.Just before I got to the castle, I stumbled upon a 'buda market'. It was basically a market filled with souvenirs. I saw some 'babushka' salt and pepper shakers that I thought would look really nice to my lego man S&P shakers, but decided to wait to buy souvenirs. But I did think of a cool plan about ooutfitting my apartment. Currently I am void of many things (which I am slowly but surely starting to find out about). So I thought it might be cool to buy such things in souvenir form, and then bring them home. For example, I need an apron. Why not buy one that says 'Budapest' on it? (two birds with one stone). The same can be said for a wine stopper. They have some that have a Russian looking wooden doll on top for 500 HUF (about 2. 50 CAD), why not by it? (to tell you the truth, I haven't been able to find these things in the local shops anyway). Here are photo's of the little market, and of Russian dolls (which are in every souvenir shop! I had those as a kid!). Look closely, do you see the Obama one? Right next to the Obama one there is an Elvis one too. I have also seen one for Sarkozy, and Putin. Yay globalization! This market was not included in the Rick Steve's book, but I really think is should have been (even if it had a caution that it was a tourist place, but heck, we are tourists, we should enjoy some kitchy things!). So after the market I headed for the Buda castle, past the Hungarian Prime Minister's office (see me, in the photo!), and over to see the National Museum! Diana Krall was playing in the background! odd eh? turns out there was a wine and jazz festival going on. This meant that I couldn't get into the castle (unless I wanted to attend the festival, which would have been fun, but I wasn't up to dealing with attempting to speak to people). In the national museum, Rick Steves said that to the left of the square you could see a free 'glimpse' of what the museum has to offer (if you didn't want to go in, I do, eventually, but not today). So I went for my free glimpse. There there was a nescafe espresso machine, so I thought I would give it a try (and I wanted to press the buttons!. A cup was 100 HUF (50 cents), worth a button press in my books!. Again, my illiteracy made it difficult to figure out what button to press, so I settled on one that said cafe au lait. Really because it was that and cappuccino and espresso that I could read. (see the photo?). Anyway, after I got my coffee (turns out Cukorral means sugar), and walked along the free portion the museum. Man, I felt like a cheap skate North American...drinking a cheap, gross coffee out of a plastic cup walking up the ONE corridor that had free access in the whole Museum. haha. it was quite a moment.

Then I headed back to the castle in search for something to eat. I actually passed by a guy with the exact guidebook that I am using, and smiled at him! I almost asked him to take a picture, but then I had to remember that some people think that strangers asking for photos might be weird.....

Taking Rick's advice, I went to Betthyany Ter for lunch. It was about a 20 minute walk from Castle Hill, and would have been faster had Rick's directions been clearer. He said 'take the steps from the fisherman's bastion (those were the steps behind me in the skyline picture). On a history note these stairs are called the 'fisherman's bastion' because this is where fisherman used to sell fish (in the Middle Ages!). So back to the story, I took the steps, when I got to the bottom of the steps there were three possible ways to go. I went the wrong way the first time. I did stumble upon a cool concert hall though, then found the concert hall on the map, and then found the right direction. The lunch place was a crepe place called Nagyi Palacsintazoja or "Granny's Pancakes". There was a translated menu there (check!). but of course the menu isn't exactly clear....I decided that I wanted a a sweet crepe and a 'savory' crepe (for lunch and dessert). The menu had both Savory and Sweet crepes, and 'potato' (all coming with various toppings that you choose). I decided to go for 'potato with spinach' for lunch and a poppy and cherry pancake (this is literally what the menu said). What I got was actually Rosti Potatoes, with a odd (but good) spinach puree and melted cheese on top. I put come Paprika on it (local point for me, the paprika is hot sauce, a thick version of Tabasco)! The sweet pancake was actually a crepe, and it had a sweet poppy seed paste and what tasted essentially like cherry pie filling. It wasn't exactly haut cuisine (everything was microwaved, but it was interesting and new and at least they didn't hide the face that they microwaved everything! It actually looked like they had the times down to the second, depending on which flavor you ordered) I took a picture of my lunch, it doesn't look as good as it tasted (all for 720 HUF, which is exactly 3.47 dollars). Okay, so this was one of the cheaper places that I went to, but very good value for money! After this, I went to the Mammoth mall to look for things I needed for my apartment. I couldn't find them (nor could I read any of the signs in the mall, so it made everything more difficult). So i decided to go back to Ikea (where I knew I could get a cutting board, french press and bottle opener). On my way to the Ikea (which is at the end of the Red Metro Line), I saw a poster for Sex and the City 2 or, to be culturally correct, Szex es New York 2 . I heard that the movies here have English subtitles...I wonder if this will be one of them! Or maybe this will be at the English Theater?I think the sign says it opens on May 27th!