Alright, this was a monster of a post that honestly blocked up any inspiration I felt towards writing since January. But enough is enough, it's time to get back to updating this, so here we go: Christmas with my parents in Budapest! It was mostly the best of times, really, except for when we missed a tour of the Parliament because we got the time wrong. That was pretty sad. Otherwise, we ate well, we did a lot, we walked all over, and we still had time to watch 2-4 episodes of Elementary at night and be in bed by midnight. Winter break, old people style, huzzah!
So my parents arrived on Christmas Eve, and we met at the apartment we rented off Air BnB. Highly recommend it if you ever decide you want a place to stay. It was beautiful, the host's neighbors were extremely helpful when we locked ourselves out on Christmas day, it was comfortable, good times.
Small but extremely high-ceilinged kitchen.
Closeup of that beautiful collection in the window, the desiccated remains of the collective alcohol-related adventures over the duration of my parents' visit. Pretty reasonable for my family, I'd say.
"My" room, with the doors closed, kind of looked like it might be hiding some sort of smoke-filled, backroom gambling den. Perhaps in the back of a train station, at the turn of the last century. In Bohemia? My imagination is running away with this. Somebody please stop me.
Anyway, inside is what I will always fondly remember as the "Robertatorium". Roberta is the owner of our apartment and although some might argue otherwise, I will never be convinced that these paintings are not all of her.
My parents' bedroom. 100% less Roberta paintings; 100% less excitement.
A very bohemian yet comfortable living room.
Okay, enough about the damn apartment. So like I said, my parents and I literally rolled up on this apartment at the same exact time. We were blessed with mostly good timing of this nature throughout their visit. I had asked my colleagues beforehand if there would be any restaurants would be open on Christmas Eve and was told no; none. I was also told the Christmas market would be closed. Neither of these allegations proved true. So my parents and I, after they did a little recovering from jetlag, wandered off in Pest looking for a place to eat. Although we considered several tempting kebab houses, we ended up at the Christmas market and had ourselves a pretty decadent, delicious Hungarian (?) feat. Here is my father with his weasel-sized hot dog. Also seen: my mother and my skull-sized pork stew in bread bowl and all of our hot wine. Hot wine would become another running theme in this visit. ALL THE HOT WINE.
(Some of these photos may also be from other visits to the Christmas market.)
Christmas day was perhaps my favorite day of the trip. First we went to the Hungarian State Opera House and saw a really beautiful performance of The Nutcracker. Which, hokey or cliche as it might be, was beautiful and surprisingly entertaining. It turns out that ballet is a lot more enjoyable at 26 than it was at 11, I'll chalk that up to the basket of life experiences in the intervening years that have taught me the TRUE meaning of boredom. Watching a classic ballet performed by professionals does not fall in with these.
My mom, enjoying/documenting the piquant mix of humanity's darkness and architectural beauty that is Nyugati train station.
My parents being adorable, ugh.
Ceiling of the main entrance, outside.
Ceiling of the entrance, inside.
The inside of this theater is so seriously ornate and over the top that it's hard not to just sit there and feel like a plebe. It makes taking pictures of the place, like the most obvious tourist in the world, not even that embarrassing. It's not like I was ever going to appear at home in this kind of place anyway.
The royal box. My mom and I tried to sneak in there after the show to take a look, but we got shut down on that idea, FAST.
Next we walked up Andrassy to take a look at Heroes' Square.
(To the right.)
(Front and center.)
Vajdahunyad Castle, which we didn't set out to explore but wandered into anyway. It's right behind Heroes' Square, at the entrance to the Budapest City Park. It's a pretty interesting place, since it was made for the to celebrate 1000 years of Hungarian history starting from 896, and displays a bunch of different styles from Hungary's history: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Romanesque. Also seen: the biggest skating rink in Europe! Which was closed, not that I am an ice-skating super fan.
I love me an ornately columned hallway.
Finally, we ended the night with a dinner cruise that was delicious and gave us some really nice views of the city. It was never something I would have done on my own or with my own money so I was beyond happy to go along with this, and it was especially perfect as a nice Christmas dinner that we did 0 work in procuring.
Parliament, in passing.
And Szechenyi Bridge/Buda Castle!
The next day, Boxing Day, a real thing that is observed here, I took my parents up to give them a tour of my digs.
That's my school!
I honestly do not remember what we did on the 27th. Chilled? I'm pretty sure we slept late. Walked around a bit? Anyway, that night we went to listen to Handel's Messiah in St. Stephen's Cathedral which was not at ALL as boring as I thought it was going to be, since the church was beautiful.
Christmas market in front of the church.
In the courtyard, Saint Stephen watches.
Inside Matthias proved far less disappointing.
The 29th was a museum day, when we visited The House of Terror and the Museum of Applied Arts. They're the only two museums I've been to in Budapest but they're both great, for different reasons. The Terror House has a lot of great information and is laid out really interesting, in the actual building where many enemies of state were "disappeared". It reminded me of the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. or now that I've visited it, vaguely of the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. The Museum of Applied Arts is a nice contrast and a much less emotionally taxing place to visit. It's also in a beautiful Art Nouveau building that I am now mildly obsessed with. You can also only take photos inside of one of those museums. Guess which?
One detail that I thought was pretty interesting about the architecture of the building is that apparently the main hall and this series of balconies in each story was modeled after El Alhambra. You can see the influence.
The next day we went to the Great Market. Meats! Paprika in every imaginable package, size, and caliber of hotness/sweetness! Palinka! Hand sewn things, everywhere! It was pretty touristy, but still fun to wander around in for an hour, picking up souvenirs.
Afterwards we crossed the bridge and ogled at the Gellert Hotel for a bit, taking a pretzel and mulled wine break, before going into the Gellert Hill cave church, which is really interesting.
(the hotel)
Afterwards we climbed up to see the Hungarian Liberty Statue and the Citadella. The views were incredible and it was surprisingly busy for the day before New Year's Eve.
Sadly, on the last day, New Year's Eve, we had plans to go visit the Parliament but they didn't work out. So we walked around instead and saw some interesting antique/second hand shops, including one that had these traditional looking dresses. I wanted all of them.
So close, and yet so far.
This post is a beast that has completely hindered my ability to do anything in this damn blog for long enough! I'm sure there are probably errors in this but I'm posting it as is, and that's that. Whew. I kind of thought I'd never get this far.
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