Budapest-Introduction.

Growing up in Ukraine, I have heard a lot about Hungary, and not only because Ukraine borders Hungary. In fact, my dad was stationed right at the border, in Beregovo, for a couple of years when I was little.  He somehow mastered Hungarian language (which is a very difficult one to learn) and always brought lots of paprika and delicious grapes home to Lviv when he would come visit.
Hungary was also one of the very few countries that my mom got to visit BEFORE Soviet Union broke up. It was a big deal that she got to see a place WEST of Ukraine. It was such a big deal that all her stories about how beautiful and wonderful Budapest is stuck with me for forever. I always wanted to see for myself why it held such a special place in her heart. So I booked us a trip to Budapest to go during kids’ spring break.

We flew Ryanair again, no problems, easy check-in, security. Life is easy when you have no extra luggage and have only one carry on item to pack. That is reason we always stay in apartments where I can do our laundry half way through the trip.

Learning from our experience of airport transfer in Barcelona, I decided that this time we’ll try to reserve a driver who would take us from the airport to the apartment (about 20-30 min drive) and then back to the airport on the day we depart. There is no better place in Europe to do that than in Budapest as the price was very reasonable. We felt so much more comfortable having our driver meet us right at the airport and take us to our place. As we were driving through some non-touristy parts from the airport, I could not believe how much it looked as if we were in Ukraine.

I need to give you a super quick rundown of Hungarian history (if it is even possible). The people who settled in Hungary in the 9th century were called the Magyars. The Magyars are descendants from the Finno-Ugric people who were also the ancestors of the Finns and the Estonians. That is why their language is very different from the Slavic languages in the area. Sometime in the 10th century, prince Geza, who was the ruler at the time, invited German missionaries to come to Hungary and preach Christianity. Prince Geza did get baptized but continued to worship pagan gods. His son, Stephen, was the first true Christian ruler who unified the Magyars of modern-day Hungary into one people instead of having a whole bunch of tribes. King Stephen was a very respected ruler, thus many monuments in the city are dedicated to him. He was pronounced a Saint some fifty years after his death.

I must skip several centuries, of course. Between 1500-1800 Hungary was under a vicious rule of the Turks and following by the Hapsburg Empire (Austria). In the middle of the 19th century, Hungary became a constitutional monarchy but that did not last very long. By the end of the century, Hungary and Austria were united into Austro-Hungarian Empire, a powerful, blooming empire that ruled over a vast chunk of Eastern Europe (including my city of Lviv). Everything was fabulous until, of course the WWI and WWII. Since Hungary was on the German side during WWII, it was heavily bombed by the allied forces. It was a complex situation when after a while, it wanted to get out of the war in 1943, instead it was occupied by the Nazis in early 1944 (that is when millions of Jews were deported to concentration camps). So of course, when in 1945, Russians came marching into Budapest they were seen as the liberators at the time. Unfortunately, they stayed there for fifty years, along with the Communist regime. Although Hungary was communist for half a century, it still was not as “Soviet” as the fifteen republics of the USSR. People from the Soviet Union would go to Hungary to see the most “Western European” life they were allowed to see. It was very prestigious to be stationed in Budapest as part of the Soviet military forces because you could get access to so much more than in “regular” Soviet republics. Of course, right before USSR officially fell apart, Hungary declared its intend to become a capitalist country. Through many economic and social struggles, it managed to join NATO in 1999 and then the EU in 2004. They do not use Euros though, their currency is still Hungarian Forint.

So that’s Hungary’s history in a nutshell, of course, with a lot of details omitted.

Where was I before my history lesson? Oh yes, we got to our apartment—a two bedrooms place in the middle of the city, but not too close to the main road. It was rather basic, but exactly what we needed. The building was very tall, but only had five stories. The ceilings were twice as high as our British house ceilings. Checking in process this time was quite different from our check-in in Barcelona. If in Spain, we were given a set of keys without a word of English, here we got a full hour overview of what is what in the apartment and in the surrounding areas. The guy showed us a few places on the map where we should go (but that was unnecessary of course, since I had the whole trip planned already). He did give us some good suggestions for food. So that’s exactly what we decided to go find right away—FOOD!

Budapest is a very walkable city, and very easy to navigate (if you have a map). By the way, free app for Budapest maps is extremely accurate for finding stores and restaurants. Anyway, the first night, we walked to the recommended casual restaurant, which turned out to be the meal that everything else was compared to. It was soo good!

I had turkey and mushrooms with mashed potatoes.

 

Mark had fish and rice. Although the waitress said the fish is boneless, somehow it was full of bones. Lost in translation.

Oh, and dessert! We ordered two desserts although we were full. We just wanted to try them because they sounded so interesting. Yummy crepes with chocolate sauce and whip cream. I had to take this picture fast before it was devoured by Robert and the kids.

We came out of the restaurant after eight o’clock, it was already dark. The lights in Budapest make the city look brilliant, accentuating all the beautiful bridges. This is Katya and I near Margaret’s Bridge. We are still on the Pest side.

Arghh, I just cannot do it. I can’t keep writing and cramming all of those information into one post at the fear that everyone will just fall asleep. I will take a break here and get some laundry done. So come back soon for the story about the rest of our stay in Budapest.