Travel Tuesday - Hungary

Welcome to the first Travel Tuesday post! As some of you know I spent the last two weeks in Eastern Europe so I figure I'll do one post focusing on each of the countries that I went to. Then I'll add in some more about other places I've traveled as well. I do love to spend my money seeing the world. (: Today will be all about Hungary! So let's get to it shall we?
Getting there was a bit of a pain to say the least. I'll make a long story short and say that I flew out at 6am and arrived in Budapest at 9am the following day thanks to the time zone difference. My 6am flight with Delta was almost missed even though I was at the airport at 4am due to them only having two employees working the baggage drop line. It was an hour waiting in that line and after I got through the long line at security I was the last one to board at my gate and the plane took off. Fun times.

Let's get on to Budapest shall we! I was functioning off of two hours of sleep and had been awake for more than 24 hours and the day had just begun! I took the time to get to my hostel and get my luggage situated before going out to explore the city. I stopped at a little cafe to get some food of course since I was starving. They use the Hungarian Forint as their form of currency. So $1 in the US is $288 Forints so talk about some fun shopping and trying to figure out prices. They aren't on the Euro because their economy isn't that great so the switch over would leave many people poor. The city streets are spiraling and it's easy to get lost. Think of a spiderweb of streets that twist and turn everywhere but I managed. Here's some photos:

Crossed the bridge and took this shot. I loved the view of Parliament.

Heroes Square. They were setting up for a big performance so I couldn't go into the middle of it.

Climbed up a long and winding path but this was the view. It was gorgeous!

What better way to frame the city and the Parliament building?

Matthias Church was beautiful both inside and out.

I did my best to take this Panorama of the city at night so ignore the bit of uneven-ness seeing as I was on a boat.

Here it was before the sun went down. (:

The city was gorgeous and there was so much to see and do. There was a whole shopping square where people had set up tents and were selling books. There were thousands of books I swear and I would have bought one except I don't read Hungarian. The locals don't call it Budapest, rather BudapeSHt so don't forget to add the "shh" sound in there before the end. The city is rich with so much history but I don't want to bore you with it all. 

The best thing that happened while there is the Eurocup! Hungary played against Austria and they won! The streets were crazy. Everyone came out of their homes wearing the jersey and with the flags to wave around. The fans were cheering so I learned some Hungarian (mostly chants for the team) and within 30 minutes you couldn't go anywhere without seeing a mob of fans. The police had to come to try and control the situation but there were some major streets closed down due to the fans. Getting to the boat for my river cruise became a crazy but enjoyable situation. 

Their parliament building is still being used to this day so on the tour there were some areas that were closed off. They had a changing of the guards in front for show and there was plenty of gold used on the walls and ceilings inside. The funny thing was that outside of the main room where all the discussions were held there were weird gold plates with circular cuts in them by the windows. Want to know what those were for? They were cigar holders! You couldn't have your cigar in the main room so you would leave it outside in the cigar holder. Talk about a smoking addiction.

I wish I would have had more time to spend in Budapest but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I of course made sure to pick up a Hungarian football jersey due to their win. They won because I was there of course! (:

Must see list:

• Matthias Church
• Parliament Building
• Heroes Square
• River Cruise of Danube River (to see all the buildings!)
• Any Museums (they are all wonderful!)

Have any of you been to Budapest or are you planning to visit? Let me know in the comments because I'd love to know what you did or are planning to do. I know I want to go back.