Best of Pest (or rather Besht of Pesht)

March 23, 2010

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.  Genesis 11:7 

It’s like a bad dream:  you find yourself alone in a strange place, surrounded by people who don’t know or understand you; everything is unfamiliar and nothing makes sense; and when you hear people around you talk, it’s so completely foreign that they might as well be speaking Hungarian or something.   Yes, in fact it is EXACTLY like that…

As we exited the Keleti train station, we were greeted by a few friendly and familiar sights that reminded us of home: namely, signs for McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC.  That’s where friendly and familiar both started and ended.  We finally managed to get a city map from the tourist information office (where no one seemed to know the words “city map.”  My bad; I didn’t know “város térkép” either… but you kind of figure that of all places, the tourist information office might have an English-speaker on staff…) and headed with growing trepidation towards the public transportation system ticket booth to buy a “family ticket.”  I’d done my research online, and I knew how much to pay (2100 forints) and how long it was valid (48 hours).  The worker in the booth must not sell many of them, because it took a full five minutes (complete with rounds of both Charades and Pictionary) to communicate what it was that I wanted.  But finally she pulled out the small square that had “family ticket” printed in English on the front and we were good to go. 

After taking the underground metro in the right direction (yay!), we found the stop Blaha Lujza tér, and went in search of our hotel which turned out to be very conveniently located near the metro stop (which we only discovered after walking a rather lengthy circuitous route).  Relieved, we checked in and went to our room, only to discover that we couldn’t figure out how to open the door with the skeleton key (turns out you had to pull the door towards you and then push)  Once we were safely inside our room, I must honestly confess that I had a Plan B moment.  I’m not sure if it was the key or if it was the hotel employee commending my bravery in coming to Budapest alone with three young children, but I seriously considered staying in that hotel room until it was time to go back to Vienna the next day.  Thankfully, we chose to leave the harbor…

Buda and Pest are sister cities that are divided by the Danube River.  The Buda side has “Castle Hill” and is hilly and residential, while the Pest side is more flat and industrial, and is considered the “heart” of Budapest.  Since we were staying on the Pest side, we decided to start there and head to City Park and Heroes’ Square (after a quick stop at McDonald’s, where the kids were happy to recognize the words “Happy Meal” and I was happy to recognize the word “Mastercard.”)  

We loved visiting the mock medieval Vajdahunyad Castle (built in 1896, in imitation of the Transylvania Castle of Vajdahunyad), the famous thermal spring Széchenyi baths (sadly, no time for a therapeutic soak, but we did get to use the restrooms…), and walking around Heroes’ Square (twice).  

We brazenly stayed out past dark and explored the few shops open late on the shopping and pedestrian street Váci utca, after which we dined at the “For Sale Pub” and enjoyed baskets of peanuts (shells went on the floor), authentic and delicious Hungarian goulash (Cade ate three bowls), bread, and dessert crepes.  The kids were so happy with their day and their dinner that I heard no tired complaints as we made our way back to our hotel well past their curfew… excited to move on to Buda after a good night’s sleep under our comfy fluffy duvets.