Budapest - Part 1

Budapest is the capital of Hungary.  It's the first post-Soviet, post-communist city i've visited (the second would be Berlin 4 days later).  Budapest is in a recession so many of the buildings are in bad shape and/or abandoned.  Its a bit like walking around a ghost town with these big grand buildings from the communist days that are now empty and showing their age.  Hungary suffered extreme city damage during the soviet takeover and just had their first elections in 1990.  Most people speak english.  They are part of the european union but use their own currency the Forint (HUF). 



we flew on the luxurious ryan air.  yes the rumors are true about how strict they are about their carry on items.  but for these prices you'll put up with it.



this train line 3 looks like its from the 1970s.



there's a lot of grime going on in Budapest but i like it.



Spiler is a cool place.  Did you know Budapest is party city?  it seems like everything is either a bar or a restaurant catering to the younger tourist crowd.  There were foreigners everywhere partying til all hours of the night.  Who knew, I didn't



Yoon doin' his thing at Morrison's


the theme of many places here is cram as much old stuff as you can onto the walls and shelves.



Sorry Yoon, she's married



The hostel that we stayed at ended up being in here and we had a whole apartment to ourselves.



lots of bizarre soviet era architecture.





Budapest is divided into two parts, Buda and Pest.  also in Hungarian they pronounce the s's as "sh" so budapest sounds like "Budapesht"  this photo is taken from the pest side looking at the buda side.  lets cross the bridge and get over there!



hungarian deserts.  nothing to write home about.  unfortunately this is true for most of the food here.  spoiled by france maybe?





around the castle.



some of the houses have these things that look like breathing vents.  cool



street signs



there is a nice older looking area around the castle.



Matthias church



crow statues on top









stencils used to restore the interior decorative paint.



it says they used soft bread to clean the inside?!!!!



love the multi colored roof tiles



what's the deal with this dude getting thrown out a window?  so i looked it up and he was a freedom fighter and a national hero that was finally put to death when he reached the legal age of 18



if julie ever goes back to budapest she can eat here.