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I tried finding the outdoor market today, but I ended up walking to the wrong bridge, so instead I walked back to the Deak Square area and took the metro to the House of Terror. What a chilling place. Budapest has such an amazing history. It was such an advanced and prestigious city before the wars and communism. I rode the metro back out to Hero’s Square and City Park. The metro line that goes out to the park is the oldest metro line in Europe (according to the Hungarians). At City Park I took a picture of the Anonymous Statue, and if you touch the pen, then you will supposedly have good luck in your writing. There’s also a statue of George Washington in the park, because apparently way back before the war, some Hungarian immigrants really liked us.
I’ve been told by a few Hungarians that as a people they’re more blasé about government and working and have a more depressed attitude about the future of themselves and their country. That seems kind of bleak, but ok, I’ll believe them. Now the odd part about this, is that the couples in Budapest are by no means blasé. I have never seen so many people making out in public before! And it’s not just kissing! Call me a puritan, but you don’t see this in the US, or anywhere I’ve traveled so far! These people just can’t keep their hands off each other!
After what seemed like a day full of walking, I had dinner at an Italian place near the river and got a gelato for $1. So far, Budapest is way cheaper than I thought it was going to be. Later, I ended up going on a DIY pubcrawl with the guys from my hostel. We went to a lot of places that Olga had recommended. First, we headed across the river, (across “no man’s land”, otherwise known as bridges, but in Budapest, there is the Buda police and the Pest police, so apparently it’s in dispute who has to govern the bridges, which makes walking across a little more amusing). We ended up at some kind of outdoor dance party. It was outrageously fun to just watch the locals dance, circa 1991. Oh, and I got kissed on the shoulder by some Hungarian guy, who then promptly disappeared. Very random. After we had our fill of early 90’s techno and jock jams we headed back over to Pest to the Corvinteto Department Store. It’s up about 4 flights of stairs, the kind of stairs that you second guess about walking up, but has a chill and less crowded rooftop bar that was really fun (and thankfully, there weren’t any shoulder-kissers there).
