Sunday we got up bright and early and headed back to Budapest to see the Christmas markets. Though my parents were there for the “spring” market – or Easter market maybe, it’s a more fun atmosphere for the Christmas markets. Unfortunately, it’s a lot of the same things that they sell there – not particularly “christmasy” but still interesting to look at. We ate some different Hungarian foods – a large cabbage roll with saurkraut (or the Hungarian equivalent whatever that is) and we had a large sausage and some sort of potato pancake. They still haven’t had a real lángos which I’ll have to make once I’m home – but they liked the food anyway. We also had dessert (before lunch) at the fancy Gerbaud hotel bakery. Based on a recommendation by István the artist, we tried “diplomat” pudding wich wasn’t all that great, but it was an angel food type cake with fruit in it and a tapioca like sauce on it. My mom had a delicious tiramisu and we also tried a sampler set of cakes. I am a firm believer in the idea that traveling = lots of treat breaks. This was one of the better ones as it was beautiful surroundings, and it was warmer than outside!
My dad's long underwear peeking out of beneath his jeans. He was prepared for the chilly weather!!!
After the main Christmas market, we headed down the pedestrian shopping way to another part of town. It was nice to poke around at the different shops, and to take my parents to a different part of Budapest. I still feel like I’ve shorted Budapest a bit since they haven’t spent much time there. It’s truly a beautiful city, but some of the character of the city stems from the fact that they have beautiful old buildings throughout the whole area. However, as a result of lack of money, they haven’t been able to keep them up as well as other major European cities. I still think that Budapest has a very special character to it, and I’m glad that I was placed close to it – but thankful I don’t live in the city.
After shopping I took them to see the synagogue in the old Jewish Quarter of Budapest. I forget the number, but I believe it’s upwards of 600,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in WWII, so there is quite a big memorial to them. The synagogue is also the second largest in the world, the largest in Europe. The only one bigger than the Budapest one is in New York City. It’s a beautiful building, and touring it is on my list of things left to do before I leave- though this list is still dangerously long with the amount of time I have left.
We got back on a train to head home, and I went to throw away a Kleenex I had. As I opened the trash, I noted the Milka chocolate bar wrapper in the garbage. I stopped because we had a Milka on our way to Budapest, I wondered what other kind of chocolate someone was eating. It was a strawberry wrapper, which was odd since we also ate a strawberry one on the way in. Then I noticed the tangerine peels that were also in the garbage, and I thought that was weird because we also ate tangerines on our way there. Then, I noticed the three train tickets that were in there – one ways from Budapest to Tata… We had chosen the exact same set of four seats to sit in on our way back from Budapest. I don’t know how it worked out, but we were on the exact same train in the same seats – my first thought was why hasn’t anyone cleaned the garbage out- but then I thought of the rare odds that we’d have chosen the same seats. Weird.
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1 comment:
I LOVE seeing pictures of your parents! What fun adventure:)
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