Budapest

Q: What do you call an overbearing Hindu?
A: A Buddha pest
(terrible, I know)

You thought I was going to go with a play on Hungary didn’t you?  Can’t always go with the layup in life…

Making our way to Budapest, it was easy to see we are making our way to progressively more impoverished areas.  Compared to Port au Prince, Budapest may as well be Martha’s Vineyard, but the subtle shift from Austria and Germany is apparent.  Like Prague and Vienna, we had two nights to check out the city.  After rolling in around 5PM, we didn’t have much time to explore the city, so the whole group went out to a traditional Hungarian restaurant near city center.  Being a cheapskate, I was a bit leery of the establishment considering that it had all cloth napkins, a long wine list, and a fantastic location. Sure enough, this was one of the more expensive restaurants in Budapest…and my fantastic meal of stuffed cabbage was about $12.  One of my not so hidden talents is my ability to pack away the food and as this trip continues, I’m becoming known as one of the people who can serve as a garbage disposal (or a rubbish bin if you’re British).  The food was wonderful, and thanks to my abilities and the generosity of others had about 3 entrees. Go me.

Most noteworthy sites in Budapest are mostly in a central location, so instead of walking around for 8 hours like we did in Vienna, we merely walked for 5 (also we didn’t get lost).   The best spot in Budapest has to be at the Liberty statue which overlooks the Danube and all of downtown.  Getting up there took a bit of a climb, so that that made the view just bit better.  During our walk in Budapest, Awal and I both decided to wear our NFL jerseys (it was a Sunday after all).  We’re both suffering from a bit of football withdrawal, so we each brought one of our favorite bad jerseys. (in case you don’t know, our group of buddies from college all wear bad NFL jerseys whenever we hang out…an integral part of our “straight middle school weekends” so we’re taking straight middle school global and combating our football withdrawal at the same time) After walking all over creation, we came upon the world’s swankiest McDonald's where we spent an inordinate amount of time on the internet looking at the week 1 NFL scores.  We really didn’t have much else to do…and hey, it was nearly free.

Still, I give my apologies for the lack of pictures...still can't load a picture in less than 10 min.  Hopefully  some will show up on Facebook.

Cheers ya'll!