Hungary - Budapest
Original Post: Archived, 2018
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” - Ernest Hemingway
Our final weekend of our semester-long study abroad trip had finally arrived, and of course we had decided to spend it wallowing with all of our friends - in Budapest, Hungary.
Our flight from Dublin to Budapest arrived at midnight on Friday, and we took a taxi to our AirBNB for $6 per person, got snacks from the local Spar convenience store, and went back to the AirBNB to go to bed.
The next morning, after sleeping in, we left our AirBNB around noon and walked the 10 minutes to the city center, where we attempted to have breakfast at the highly recommended London Coffee Society - however, it was very small and packed with people, so we continued to walk on and found a local restaurant called Kalap Budapest. The food - a ham and cheese omelet with ‘bakery’ (toast) and salad - hit the spot, although it did take over an hour for it to come out to us, so we ordered two coffees each while waiting.
After brunch, we walked through stores and ran into a Christmas market filled with Christmas ornaments and souvenirs of mugs, magnets, bells and more; hot wine and food booths. We then walked in and out of shops on Fashion Street, to the Chain Bridge over the Danube River, and back to our hotel.
For dinner, we went to Spoon, a unique dining experience of a restaurant located on a boat on the Danube River. We enjoyed every moment of the dinner from our wine to our meals - until we received our bill. Unfortunately, we were not yet accustomed to figuring out how to convert Hungarian prices to U.S. prices and we were very off the mark when ordering compared to what we saw on our check at the end of the dinner.
To close out the evening, we went to a historic bar crawl that began at Wombat’s City Hostel and ended at 5AM.
The following day - Sunday - we grabbed a quick meal at the local McDonald’s for breakfast at noon before taxing a taxi to the Széchenyi thermal bath in Budapest, where it cost 18 Euros to go for the whole day. After about two hours, two main baths outside and eight inside a bit smelly and seemingly full of bacteria, we took a taxi back to our AirBNB to take much needed showers.
We walked back to the city center and Christmas markets, stopping at a food booth to get fried dough with garlic butter cream and shredded cheese on top for a snack before heading to Trófea Grill for an all-you-can-eat buffet - and there truly was it all.
Sushi, veal, venison, Mac and cheese, grilled vegetables, potatoes, mashed potatoes, soup, salad, a made-to-order grill… wine, champagne, beer, non-alcoholic drinks.
After our food coma from that evening, we awoke the next morning and packed up our bags to check out of our AirBNB by 11AM. Looking for breakfast, we made an attempt to eat at the local and trendy Budapest Bagel, but we sadly discovered they did not accept U.S. credit or debit cards for payment.
We grabbed a bagel at another - less trendy - breakfast place down the street and spent our final hours in Budapest walking through Christmas markets and stepping into the beautiful Saint Stephen’s Basilica in the heart of the city before taxing a taxi to the airport.
We headed back to Ireland to celebrate the end of our successful semester abroad - full of traveling, learning and bonding. Ready to take on life’s next adventure.