Budapest: The Second Day (cont.)

The square was kind of nice but, it wasn't too much to see. We then made our way to the park to find the Hungarian castle, which was supposed to be spectacular. We walked through the park, and finally arrived at the castle. When we entered, we soon realized it had been changed into a Museum of Hungarian Agriculture. Booorrrriinnngggg. Strike three. Game over. We were done. We went to the park and laid down to figure out what to do next. We were all sick of everything, so we decided to hang out for an hour. When we finally realized there was nothing we wanted to do, we decided to go back to the hostel and find internet. I finally finished posting my blogs for the second camp but since there were no outlets in the Burger King we used for internet, I only had 30 minutes to do everything. Afterwards, I just used my phone to browse facebook and talk on Skype. When it was finally time to go to dinner, we went back and showered to get ready for the evening.

My friend Alexandra, who I had met for lunch one day in Prague, was in Budapest only one month previously and I she recommended on facebook that I visit a restaurant in Budapest for dinner. The group and I headed down to the city center, which was only a 15 minute walk away, and found the restaurant. The girls weren't hungry, so it ended up being me and Harrison enjoying the Hungarian meal together at the restaurant that looked over the Danube River. While we were eating, we joked that we were on the perfect "date." The sun was setting, they brought a candle to light our table, and a little band came and played live music, a mix of classical music and traditional Hungarian music. It was great. Harrison got the Calf Foot specialty, which weirded me out but made me laugh. The waiter asked twice if Harrison was sure he wanted to buy it, and just like in Mexico, they brought out the foot, battered and fried but hoof still attached. Harrison made me try it, and I shouldn't have looked at my food before I put it in my mouth because although it tasted good, I couldn't help but notice the few pieces of hair still in the fatty skin that once surrounded the bone. Delicious…

After dinner, we went down to the dock to meet the girls for the river cruise. The one hour cruise was great. It included a free beverage as well as an audio tour guide cassette to tell us what sights we were seeing as we cruised the Danube. The sun continued to set and the lights of Budapest began to light up the river. It was great for pictures and relaxing as the temperature finally cooled off and allowed us to breathe some fresh air. When the cruise was over, we decided to go to Gördör Club and Terrace, located in the heart of Budapest. This is the spot where locals and tourists alike can go for a great evening. Young people stand, sit and lay down along the benches, on the grass, and around the fountains in Erzsébet Square. There are so many people, you have to be careful how you navigate around the groups of people and on this particular summer Saturday night, Gördör was packed to maximum capacity. The eight of us had a great night, meeting some new people and just enjoying our last night off before heading back to Velké Meziřiči for the second camp. We had a blast.

Budapest: The Second Day

The second day in Budapest was just as exciting as the first. We decided to stay on the Pest side of Budapest. Once again, on the way to the metro, we passed by the central market and looked at all the goods, just for fun. We then headed to Hungarian Parliament, where we took pictures. Remember how I was talking about the bridges of Budapest and how many of them were rebuilt after WWII? Well, many things in Budapest were subject to international architecture competitions, including the Parliament. The Parliament building was built after the 100^th anniversary of the uniting of Buda and Pest as the Hungarian capital. There were hundreds of designs submitted from all over Europe, by some of the most famous architects of the time. The winning design was by an English architect who built the Hungarian parliament based off the British parliament, except the one in Budapest has one dome more and one clock tower less than the counterpart in London. Having been to London, the similarities between the Hungarian and British parliament are striking, both are located on the river, both have spires and windows and are massive buildings. The Hungarian parliament is particularly beautiful, mostly because of its beautiful maroon dome soaring hundreds of feet into the air. It's quite magnificent. Surrounding the parliament are other beautiful buildings, those of the 2^nd and 3^rd place winners in the competition for parliament. These are now government buildings that house offices and such.

After parliament, we went to St. Stephens Basilica, the largest church in Budapest. This is a beautiful church with a 96 m dome. It is even more majestic because it is quite new, built in the late 19^th century and finished in 1905. Inside is beautiful marble and gold leafed ceilings and lights. There are turquoise inlaid panels and of course statues and frescos decorating the walls. It was beautiful. We made our way to the Hungarian Opera House afterwards, only to find out if we could buy cheap tickets to see a show. It turns out that it was closed since it was not opera season and it was only for tours and having already toured the opera house in Vienna, we decided not to tour the one in Budapest.

After this, it was already too hot to be walking around and we were already tired. The salesman at the horse show recommended we go on a 1 hour boat tour on the Danube to see many of the main attractions of Budapest. I led the group down to the docks to purchase tickets for this cruise and we then made our way to Pest center. We first stopped at a Hungarian Orthodox Church to look inside, but it was only open 4 PM until 8 PM. We then decided to kill time until lunch and went to find the Jewish museum attached to the beautiful Dohány Street Synagogue. Of course, we forgot it was Saturday and the Jewish museum is always closed on Saturday. Wonderful. After striking out twice with sight-seeing, we took it as a sign that we need to get out of the heat and eat lunch. Lunch was spent at various places to accommodate the different palates and budgets of our group. I was hungry and wanted to get some Hungarian food. The heat was so unbearable and of course all the restaurants had only outdoor seating. We decided to eat a special lunch menu from a restaurant, that had three courses for a fixed price of €12 or something. It was delicious food, with a soup, goulash, and chocolate dessert. After the great lunch, we moved on to go see Heroes' Square, which is the best square in Budapest. It is at the entrance to City Park, and it has a huge column in the center dedicated to the Millennium anniversary of Budapest. On top of the column is a statue of the Angel Gabriel (that's you Dad!) holding the Hungarian Holy Crown.

Budapest: Day 1

The first day in Budapest we woke up a little later because we were so tired. Today was our day to relax. We woke up around 9 AM and got ready for a day at the Hungarian bath. Hungarian baths originated from the Turkish, when they occupied Hungary during the largest expansion of the Ottoman Empire. Ana double-checked the quality of this bath with the Brazilian woman on the bus and she confirmed it would be fun and fun it was. It was near the end of the second subway line, but it was worth all $15 we paid. On our way to the subway, we passed by a large building that we had passed by the night before. We decided to walk through and found out it was a giant market. It was only after getting our guidebooks that we discovered we lived 5 minutes walking to the central market of Budapest. Here they sold Hungarian sausages, cheeses, meats, delicacies and liquor. It was a great building, with the air of old Hungary and with paprika drying from the ceiling (Hungarian paprika is famous!). It was really cool.

When we arrived at the bath and walked inside I was so happy to see it was a wonderland of water. First and foremost was the building itself. It was beautiful and looked like a palace. It was yellow, with white columns, statues, intricate carvings and the such. We just hung out all morning and afternoon in the sun. The pools were amazing. Inside, are about 25-30 pools. Mineral waters, different temperatures, saunas and everything we could ever dream of. The best part was, it was mostly adults, and not too many little children running around splashing. In fact, we were the little kids compared to all the older people there. There were three outdoor pools, one warm pool, the other cold and a perfect temperature one. The perfect one was obviously the most crowded, first because it was a great temperature, and second because it had bubbles coming from the floor in random places, and an "inner pool" with benches and real Jacuzzi jets. The best part was around this inner pool. The "inner pool" or Jacuzzi was a circle, but around the circle was another circle. So think of it as a bullseye, with the center being a Jacuzzi and the first ring and then the rest of the pool around it. The first ring was actually a stream pool that turned on every 5 minutes or so, when the Jacuzzi turned off. The stream pool created a clockwise current to flow through the first ring and it pushed everyone along the first ring. We had the most fun in this stream pool because we would all hold on to each other, pick our feet off the ground, and "ride the waves" around and around the Jacuzzi. We were clearly a source of entertainment being young, internationals and loud. We weren't the only young people there, and sometimes some other groups of kids would join us. At one point, I had a little boy clinging onto my arm riding with us until his older brother took him away. It reminded me of Finding Nemo, when Squirt was riding the EAC.

We spent the entire afternoon at the bath, taking a nap, getting tan (except for Jolin and Ekta who don't like to be tan), cooling off in the pool, relaxing and everything. Totally perfect. But all good things come to an end, and we decided not to waste our entire day at the pool, so we packed up and decided to head to Buda to go to the castle on top of the hill overlooking the Danube River and Pest. When we got off the subway, we found a McDonalds (our favorite place) and KFC (our second favorite) ate and made our way to the castle. Arriving at the castle was a nice little walk, but it ended with a bunch of stairs. After ascending the stairs and entering the castle walls, we found ourselves in almost a little city. There were streets, buildings, hotels, restaurants, and other things. Unfortunately, St. Matthias Church, Budapest's most beautiful and famous Catholic church, had closed an hour before we arrived. It was built in the 14^th century, in a neo-Gothic style and is probably remarkable inside. Bummer. Maybe next time.

Budapest: Night 1

Getting on the bus to Budapest was a great reward after such long tiring days in Vienna. It turns out that the woman sitting behind us was speaking Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese none-the-less, so Ana made friends with the woman and began to talk with her. She was indeed Brazilian, and had lived in Budapest for three years prior. She spoke very good English too and gave Ana a bunch of tips about where to go and what to see. She told us where to go to enjoy a great Hungarian bath, she told us about a special horse show going on at the castle during the weekend and she even drew us a map and told us where to buy Hungarian pastries, where to go at night, where to eat, and a short walking tour to see some of the famous sights of Budapest. She even helped us out by saying that Budapest is very different than Austria (Vienna) where you can ride the subway without buying a ticket (we never got checked), so she told us to always buy a ticket!

When we arrived in Budapest, I woke up from a pleasant and much needed nap on the bus. We got to the bus station and unfortunately our friend couldn't stay and help us find our hostel, but good thing I'm good with a map. I had printed out directions before we left camp so I knew we had to take the subway. Of course, after getting to the subway station, we didn't have Hungarian Forents, so we had to find an ATM to pull out money. Travelling with the 6 wonderful blessings, they all crowded around the map and began asking 100 questions before I could even look at the subway. Ekta, always has to know where we are and where we're going and she's the worst back-seat driver of them all, but I do have to admit she sometimes reminds me that we're about to go the wrong direction on the subway, so she helps sometimes. We finally got to the subway station and after getting out, we had a choice to catch a tram or walk. I wasn't sure how far to walk, but I had a very small map, so we decided to walk. About halfway through the walk, the girls began to become uneasy. It was 10 PM on a Thursday, no one was on the streets, and it was dark (good thing it was still 25°C out still…aka too hot for 10 PM). They were complaining and nervous and even though I insisted we were going the right way, they had to ask for directions. As they were asking for directions, I read the street sign to see we had arrived at our hostel, and I had to pull them away from some strangers to let them know we weren't lost and were in fact at the hostel.

The hostel was about as nice as a Ritz Carlton for homeless people. For $10 a night, I wasn't expecting much. We checked in, which was relatively easy, and we made our way to the rooms. It was nice to see that we had private double rooms for each of us (4 rooms total), the shared bathroom was horrendous, and the three showers had no curtains and one door to lock. This meant that if one person was showering, they locked the door and the other two showers were useless until the person came out. Of course, I didn't bring shower shoes on our trip because I packed all my clothes in my backpack and they just wouldn't fit, but I survived and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The joys of a hostel!

The hostel didn't have internet or air conditioning but when we checked in we got tickets for a free beer at some pub in central Pest. (Budapest was historically two cities, Buda and Pest, which were on opposite sides of the Danube River. The officially conjoined in the 1800s to become the capital of Hungary. We are staying on the Pest side, the more modern and less hilly side of the capital.) Rather than try and sleep in the unbearably hot rooms, we decided to venture out and find this free beer. It was like a quest for the Holy Grail. I used a better map given by the hostel and led the walk to the bar/restaurant. We arrived after a 30 minute walk, had a beer or two and decided to walk back, passing along the sites of Budapest and enjoying our first evening in Hungary.

Cooking Up Some Culture

Well, of course today was another adventure on the other side of the world.

We started the day off by meeting in Holesovice Nadrazi (Holesovice Station) and began our day's work in the park nearby. Today we came up with all the night activities for the camp. Among my favorites are:

• International Dance Night: Music from each country is played and each nation has a chance to show traditional dances. I'll be playing hip-hop and rock music (songs they already know), but I will not be preparing any dances.
• Capture the Flag: Run & Directed by me, this night game will give them a chance to paint their faces and their flag and play a crazy game of capture the flag.
• Amazing Race: A game, led by Ekta and I, which has the students do a number of tasks, with only one team winning the title of Amazing Race Champions.
• Talent Show
• Mr. & Miss MBM: A slightly modified version of Mr. Mullen or Mr. Fordham--a chance for some camp participants to show off their stuff and compete for the title of Mr. & Miss MBM

The park was the perfect place to get our creative juices flowing, and we ended up finishing early. Jenny stopped by in the afternoon to check up and see how we were progressing. She also had some gifts for us--our money for our monthly passes and some money for food. In total it was about 1350 CZK for me, which is about $65. Perfect!

After we finished, we went to the bus station to book our bus tickets for our trip in between the camps. It's official, we're going to Vienna and Budapest. Our bus tickets are as follows:

• Brno--Vienna: July 13, 2010 <15:15 departure -- 18:00 arrival>
• Vienna--Budapest: July 15, 2010 <19:00 departure -- 21:50 arrival>
• Budapest--Brno: July 18, 2010 <9:15 departure -- 14:30 arrival>

This means we have Tuesday and Wednesday night in Vienna and Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in Budapest. I'm really excited to go. Especially because we'll have had such a crazy schedule during camp, it'll be a great break to see Eastern Europe and explore places outside of Prague. I'm still working on seeing Turkey after the camp ends, but so far I've already got my first week planned out. I'm going to Berlin with Lessya and Ana because both of them have friends in Berlin right now. We'll stay there for a few days (3 max) and come back to Prague. We'll be in Prague for one night, and head to Krakow, Poland for another 3 day trip. The middle of this trip will be dedicated to seeing Auschwitz Concentration Camp.  After the trip to Poland, I'm not sure what to do. Tickets to Turkey are about $300 round trip, which is much more than I expected. We'll see what my budget allows. I'm still surprised that all three of my bus tickets to Brno-Vienna-Budapest-Brno cost less than my ridiculously priced haircut the other day. The girls nicely pointed that out to me.

After buying tickets, I had to go to Tesco with Harrison, Lessya and Aysegul to buy the last of our Global Village ingredients. I found tortillas, cheese, and some chili/salsa to put in my burritos. The beans have been cooking for 3 hours now, and of course I didn't listen to my mom when she told me to make sure they were covered with water because they'll expand and absorb the water...so halfway through cooking the beans, I checked the pot, to find almost no water and the beans about to overflow out of the pot. I did some rearranging and now the beans should be OK. They still have a few more hours to cook.

For having never really cooked that much in my life, living over here has been a real challenge for Chef Regis. I think it's funny how all of us living here at Jenny's (Lessya, Ekta, and Aysegul) have never really cooked in our lives. We're all preparing "traditional" dishes from our countries...all for the very first time. I've never made beans and its funny that we're using Czech students as guinea pigs for our experiments in the kitchen. Aysegul is making a cous cous dish, with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, and spring onions. I've tried a small plate and it is quite good. Ekta is attempting to make curry (she get's mad when I say attempting) and Lessya is going to make beef empanadas --a la Kazakh. We're all laughing at our attempts at cooking.

Speaking of cooking abilities, I was quite shocked today when we were at the grocery store and I was looking for things to cook for dinner. I knew at the apartment we didn't have much in terms of groceries, but I decided to suck it up and just make something. If anything, we had eggs, potatoes, onions, garlic, and a few other things, so I could make a concoction of sorts. While perusing the meats section, I didn't feel like beef, chicken or pork, but I did find some tasty little morsels of rabbit. So I bought it, having no idea what to do with it. When I got home, I Googled "how to cook rabbit" and found some pretty funny stuff, but there was a link on the first page led me to the answer, "Excellent rabbit seasonings include parsley, rosemary, sage, bay leaf, lemon-grass, coriander, and basil." Hrmm...I know Jenny has spices and I just found out that Ekta has a bunch of spices in her bag, so...what the heck. I cut it up in thin pieces, rubbed some spices on it, threw it in some olive oil and BAM! it was done. I boiled a few potatoes to go on the side, and the result was a delicious feast that not only surprised myself but my tastebuds as well. Here's a picture:

It was delicious. I got to even torment vegetarian Ekta, asking her to guess what "innocent" animal I was eating today. She was only slightly amused. As for tomorrow, after the Global Village and Meet & Greet, we'll be going out around Prague. This weekend there are a bunch of free concerts going on around Prague (United Islands), so we're going to try and catch a few and enjoy the night free of work. Sunday, Ana, Tete, Zhou Lin, Harrison and I plan to go to mass and then finish all the projects and work we didn't get done the past few days. Until next time, take care!