Budapest

My Budapest trip had a Brazilian flavor to it because my CS host was Brazilian. He introduced me to a lot of his friends (I had no idea so many Brazilians lived in Budapest) and I even got to hang out with the vice consulate of Brazil in Hungary! There’s also a really good Brazilian restaurant in Budapest that we ate at and I got to try typical Brazilian food and caipirinha (like a Brazilian mojito) so that was cool. Budapest itself is really cool- hills surrounding the river, and there are some gorgeous views from the top of the hills. The main attractions are the St. Stephen’s Basilica (which I got to go into Easter Sunday which was kinda cool), the synagogue, the Liberty statue, the castle district, the parks, the Parliament, the bridges, and of course the baths! We spent almost an entire day just lounging around in one of the bath houses from the thermal springs. There are so many different baths- some hot (+40C), some cold (+20C), some with sulfur water, some with mint water, some indoors, some outside, some with massaging jets, saunas, etc. There’s even a lap pool I swam in for a bit before relaxing in all the others. Besides the main attractions there were also some incredible street musicians, including one playing “drums” on water glasses! Budapest also has some really cool bars. They have old items, stuff you would think is trash, random animal statues/figures, etc decorating the bars. It gives them a really chill atmosphere which was cool. If I had to change one thing about the trip I would have spent a day and a half less in Budapest and gone to Vienna for a day instead. The 2 cities are only 3hrs apart but I didn’t realize this till I was already in Budapest. Oh well, Budapest was still fun.

Word to the Wise: make sure to count the 0s at the end of the Hungarian Forints. There are around 250euros to the forint so things can get confusing when paying for a meal in the thousands. Take your time and think about it so you don’t withdrawal 100,000 forints instead of 10,000.