Budapest Blog!!! (3 Day Trip!)

     The past weekend, I went to Budapest with my brother Levi, my Mom and Oma. We left Friday night, and spent the weekend and most of Monday in Budapest. It was really fun! Friday night, I got home, and I finished packing, and we had to eat nachos really quick, and be out of the house by 5:30 PM in order to get to the Airport to catch our flight at 7:55 PM. 

     The flight to Budapest was only 3 hours long, so I downloaded 2 episodes of 'Riverdale' on Netflix to watch on the Airplane ride. Once we landed in Budapest, we took a cab to our house. Our house was part of a big complex of houses, and it was on a street that was very loud at night, because people would go out to party each night. It was not that loud, but you could hear it. When we got to our house, we went in and found our door to our house. 

     The house had a main kitchen, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. They were all pretty close together, and it was not a big house, but it was enough space and it was really nice! Me and Levi slept in a room together that had a bed that was elevated above the ground. It had a metal ladder to get to it, and it was very comfortable up there, and there was surprisingly a lot of space. 

Where Levi is is where Me and Levi slept each night. 

This is the bottom part of me and Levis room. 

This is the kitchen and dining room. 

Bathroom.

      The first day, we woke up early Saturday morning. We woke up around 8:30 AM so we could get a good start to our day. We walked around and found a place to eat. It was really cool inside, and it had a lot of records on the walls, that had been turned into clocks. We got some pastries and coffee, then we left. 

They had really cool sun-glasses at the cafe. 

This was on the wall of the cafe.

After that, we went to get tickets to the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. We got 48 hour tickets, and we rode around until we found someplace to get off. We went over a bridge, and we got to see the river. 

The first place we got off was at St. Stephens Basilica. It was a basilica and it looked very pretty on the inside. There was a huge dome on it, and there were some candles on the inside also. 

  

Right before we went into St. Stephens Basilica, Levi spotted a sign that pointed to a Cat Cafe. He had heard about Cat Cafes before, how it is just a cafe but there are a ton of cats walking around, and sleeping. He really wanted to go and see it, and I wanted to go also, so we went to the Cat Cafe. We went inside and ordered some drinks, and we got to see all of the cats sleeping, and all the toys that they had to play on. The seating sometimes was just on cushions, and there were a ton of beds and pillows for the cats. It was very pet friendly. It was very interesting to visit, and Levi really enjoyed it. 

After visiting the Cat Cafe, we walked over to the Parliament, to see if we could get tickets to go inside. We got there, and it was very large, and it was very cool looking on the outside. We tried to get tickets, but they were all sold out for that day, so we had to leave. 

For dinner Saturday night, we found this place close to our house down an alley street. It was tucked away, kind of hidden but once we walked fully inside, it was clearly a restaurant. We got seated way in the back of the restaurant where there were only a couple of tables, and the walls were very colorful.

L

 I got a burger with french fries. It came on a wooden pallet, with some tomato sauce in a line. Levi got a skewer of meat with some french fries. 

My burger was very delicious, and very filling also. The whole meal was amazing, and after that, we went back to our house for the night. Me and Levi slept above in our bed elevated above the ground. 

The next morning was Sunday, and we went to find another place to eat for breakfast. We saw a place yesterday that we wanted to try that was close to our house, so we went there for breakfast. It was a very cute place for breakfast, it had a ton of art, and was very trendy. They had things like eggs, omelettes, yogurt, muffins and smoothies also. 

I got some scrambled eggs, a blueberry muffin, and a strawberry smoothie. Levi got the same thing as I did, and Oma got am omelette.

 

After we ate breakfast, we went to the castle. We had to take a funicular up to the castle. It is basically a 45 degree angle, and there is this mini train that takes you up this steep plane.

This is us in the funicular. 

  We walked around the castle, and there were walkways along the castle wall which was really cool. It was very big. After walking around the castle briefly, we went to walk over to the Labyrinth. It is basically a ton of caves underground and it is like a maze because there are so many underground caves. It was very dark, but we got some tickets to walk around underground. 

There were some creepy manikins in cages in the maze, and some parts of the maze were pitch black. It was pretty scary. 

After that, My Mom and Oma went over to the Opera House while Levi and I went to visit the Hospital in the Rock. The Hospital in the Rock was a hospital built underground connecting a ton of underground caves already there. It was a hospital used mainly during World War II, and also in the Budapest revolution in 1956. It is fully underground so there are ventilation systems and water pipes that have to bring air and water into the hospital. They told us about a time that for 2 weeks, they had no water because the Germans accidentally broke the pipe that supplied all of the water to the Hospital. It was very bad in those 2 weeks. I was not allowed to take pictures, but this is a hallway underground in the hospital. 

After we saw the Hospital in the Rock, Me and Levi walked over to the Opera House to meet Oma and Mama. We got a tour of the Opera House, and also got a mini performance. We got to see the huge Opera Hall, and learned how the huge chandelier had to be lowered by 10 men each time they wanted to change a light bulb. They said that they lower it twice a year and each time, replace all of the light bulbs. They said it takes 1 hour to get it down and 2 to get it back up in the air.  

This is the chandelier that they lower twice annually. 

We got a mini performance from an Opera Singer. She was very good! After the Opera House Tour, we went to the Thermal Baths in Budapest. It is this huge amazing building that has some thermal baths that are heated from the earth, and have a ton of minerals in them. The warmest one was 38 degrees Celsius, which is about 100 Fahrenheit. 

There was a huge outside thermal bath, and there was a twister pool in the middle. Inside though, there were smaller thermal baths, that is where the hottest one was that we went in. They were very nice, but smelled kind of weird from all of the minerals. 

Next to the Thermal Baths, there was a lot of tents and stations set up where people were selling food. I shared some beef with Levi, and for dessert we got some Donuts. Oma tried a new thing that they eat for dessert in Budapest called a chimney cake. It is basically a breaded dough, that they put on these rollers, and cook them under fire, then when they turn brown enough, then they take it off and put sugar and a flavor on it. It was not as good as I thought it would taste. 

This is how Chimney Cakes are made.

What Me and Levi had for dinner. 

The final thing we did Sunday, was visit the Budapest Synagogue. I had to wear a Kippah, which is a small white hat. I had to wear it when I entered the Synagogue. 

Monday, we got to sleep in a bit. We went back to the Parliament to visit it and walk inside. We got tickets online, but we had tickets in Russian, but my mom did not really care the language, we just wanted to see what the inside of the Parliament looked like. It was very golden inside, and very beautiful. 

After visiting the Parliament, we went to a nearby Italian place to eat. I got a huge pizza, and it was really good! It was pretty cold and windy but luckily they had blankets for us to cover up in. I got a salami pizza, which just looks like pepperoni but it was amazing, and Levi got a margarita

 pizza. 

We got to the Airport and got our plane back to Dublin Monday night. Budapest was a really awesome trip and I was glad that I got to go visit it with my Family.