We Need to Spend All Our Forints

Welcome back to our first (and only) full day in Budapest. Since we will only spend a total of 36 hours in Hungary, "we need to spend all our Forints" quickly became the phrase of the day. $1 Us = about 200 Forints, so a 5000 F bill (about $25 US) seems a lot more daunting than it really is. It took all day, but we finally managed to spend our last bill right before heading back to the ship.
We all adjust to a new time zone differently. Some of us choose to sleep it off. For some reason, I do not. I woke up around 5am to find that the sun had already started to rise, and when I finally got out of bed at 6, it was high in the sky. I hit up the fitness room for a little run before breakfast, and at 9am, we had a bus tour of the city. Our driver, Atilla, and guide, Erika, took us back and forth the Danube, showing us the usual impressive touristy things. We drove up Andrassy Utca, which Erika compared to the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Although there were many beautiful buildings, my favorite were St. Stephen's Basilica, the Hungarian State Opera House, and the Franz Liszt Memorial House/old Academy of Music, which Liszt founded. Apparently Liszt lived for many years in an apartment above the Academy. It is now a museum housing all of his belongings and eight of his favorite pianos. I'll have to add that to the things-to-do for next time (yes, I am a piano nerd, thank you).
Andrassy Avenue brought us to Hero's Square, which celebrates 14 great kings and 7 Hungarian tribal leaders. Behind the Square is the City Park which houses a zoo, amusement park, a thermal bath house, and a skating rink, just to name a few.
As we left the Pest side and crossed to the Buda side, we drove past the 2nd largest Jewish Synagogue in the world. There are only 100,000 Jews in Hungary now (approx. 1% of the population) as compared to the nearly 9% before WWII. A golden weeping willow with over 600,000 leaves, each engraved with the name of a Holocaust victim, serves as a memorial.
For a long time, Budapest consisted of two cities, Buda (the hilly Western bank) and Pest (the flat Eastern bank). Now they are one, but their differences are many.
The old important looking building set high on the hill next to our ship happens to be Buda Castle. Some other impressive offerings include the Fisherman's Bastion, and Matthias Church, both of which we walked through. If you check out the wiki link to the Bastion, you'll see the panoramic view of Pest. Papa and I took turns posing with Parliament in the background, and headed back to the bus.
After a nice lunch on the boat, we caught the ferry and headed across the river, back to Pest. A 10 minute walk took us to Vaci Utca, the pedestrian street with lots of vendors, shops, and cafes. Finally, we made our way to the big attraction, the Great Market Hall, which put any other Farmer's Market to some serious shame. I bought five apricots for 63 Forints (about 30 cents) and we snacked on those while exploring all three floors. We headed back up Vaci Utca, and found our way to yet another big square. I was a little perplexed to hear a strange version of Shakira's "Whenever Wherever." Turns out, five Danish guys had nothing better to do, so they strapped all their empty beer bottles togther, got some t-shirts, and arranged a few pop songs to play in the streets. We later saw them, bottles and all, on the ferry heading back. The two of us made seven total passengers...
After the Danish bottlers, we found Cafe Gerbaud, which is apparently pretty famous. Papa and I both ordered "Gerbaud's Cup." To say the least, this was no vegan treat, but yes, I ate it anyway (well, most of it). To any fellow vegans who might be reading this: I do not recommend diving into Gerbaud's Cup without working up to it; all that ice cream didn't lay too well on the stomach. But, when in Hungary, do as the Hungarians do. It was pretty tasty.
I recently received my first paycheck from my summer job. When I found out that $100 of that $561 went to taxes, I wasn't too happy; now I don't feel as bad. Erika told us that the government keeps 54% for taxes (30% alone for Social Security). Yikes. The government must be doing something with that other 26%, though, because the streets and buildings are all very clean. Even the Great Market Hall's bathroom was cleaner than my bathroom at home (no offence, Mom).
Finally, dear reader, I'll stop rambling. Thanks for coming this far (I will say this post was much longer than I imagined it would be). Papa's hungry, so I'd better get dressed for dinner.