Paprika, pàlinka, and pashminas…33 hours in Budapest!

Note: The proper way to say Budapest involves putting a –shhhhh before a little t at the end. The ending shouldn’t sound like the end of best.

I love getting more stamps in my passport and exploring unfamiliar cities. I’m a lover of travel so it is no surprise that I love Budapest. Budapest brought plenty of unfamiliar to explore that we will get to; however first let’s talk about what I was right at home with: the layout of the city. Budapest is cut in half by the Danube River running north to south. On the east side is Pest, the business, cultural, and social side of Budapest. Hilly, residential, and relaxing Buda is found on the west side and due to the plant-life is beautifully described as “the lungs of Budapest”. In so many ways this layout is Iowa City. Just add two million people and multiple centuries of history for the similarities to continue.

Looking over to Pest from Castle Hill in Buda

Looking at Gellert Hill on the Buda side

Having a layout that I understood was helpful because I was somewhat sleep-deprived. We left Cluj at 2:15 in the morning, slept on the train and arrived in Budapest at 8 am. Our hostel had some water damage, but they were very helpful in finding us a new place to stay. We ended up two floors above the hostel we were supposed to be in, a block from the “Champs Elysees” of Budapest, Andràssy Street. By 9:30 I was drinking a Starbuck’s and heading out for a day of exploration.

Hostel in Budapest

 Now once again, we begin “The Official Kaitlin Flannery Tour of Budapest” this time with the “P”s: paprika, pàlinka and pashminas. Before this summer paprika was the seasoning used to top deviled eggs and strangely Salt and Pepper’s child in Blue’s Clues, now I’ve learned it’s a large ingredient in both Hungarian and Romanian food, and has a lot more favor here. I picked some up from Vàsàrcsarnok, the Market Hall, and look forward to trying to make mushroom and paprika stew when I get home. Something I’m not sad to say we don’t have at home is pàlinka. This is a Hungarian brandy made from different fruits, most commonly plums, that can have an alcohol content of over 80%. We started our Saturday night pub crawl off with shots of pàlinka. Below you can see my thoughts on the taste. About an hour and a half later when we had shots of Unicum, I would have welcomed a few shots of pàlinka. Unicum is an herb based liqueur that is supposed to help with digestion. I was told to expect a taste similar to Jager but the description I just found in my Lonely Planet book fits much better, “tastes like the medicine doctors give you to induce vomiting – but it’s popular”. I had to chase the Unicum with Kahlua to get rid of the taste. Finally to the last and my favorite P, pashminas. Pashminas are sold everywhere in Budapest like in the grand bazaars of Istanbul, reflecting one of the many Turkish influences. The Turks occupied Hungary for almost 150 years in 16^th and 17^th centuries and left a lot of culture behind, other prominent influences are baths and tea houses.   

Market Hall

Paprika

Shot of palinka

Smiling before the Unicum unaware of how terrible is

Now aware

My favorite part of the trip was Sunday morning. We went on a hike up Gellért Hill to see the Szabadság szobor (Hungary’s Statue of Liberty) that was built after WWII as a tribute to the Soviet soldiers who liberated the city. After the fall of communism the Soviet references were removed from around the statue and the city was left with the simple statue of a woman extending a palm leaf. After the hike we relaxed in the “healing waters” of the Gellért Baths. The water in the baths come from thermal springs and though I don’t know how healing they are for others, the relaxation helped settle my stomach from the pálinka on Saturday.  

Made it to the top

Gellert Baths

Of course it wouldn’t be one of my posts if I didn’t include food. I didn’t partake in much traditional Hungarian food because it’s largely meat but I found a traditional dessert I love as well as some great non-traditional meals. My favorite is a toss-up between marlenka, a layered honey cake I enjoyed at a tea house and a white chocolate blackberry drink I had at a chocolate bar. Take a look at these pictures and try to not get hungry.

Marlenka

I've found heaven and it looks like a chocolate bar

The last thing I have to mention are the street lights in Hungary. I easily over-look details and my roommate Lindsay had to point the street lights out to me so this may happens in other countries. The light goes red, yellow, green instead of red, green, yellow. The yellow tells you are about to go instead of about to stop. Thought it was very silly and led to cars slamming on brakes when the unexpected red came.

At five on Sunday night, we got back on the train to go home to Romania. After only 33 hours in Budapest, I was sad to say good-bye but pleased with all I saw.