Friday, May 18- Day 5:

Buda not pest please. Did you know: Buda and Pest are two different sections of the city Budapest. They are divided by the Danube river down the center of the city. Buda is the nicer upper class area with the castles and beautiful churches while Pest is a bit nastier due to the flooding of the Danube River some years ago. This caused the buildings to accumulate a black soot making them look dirty and run down.

Budapest was VERY different than Vienna. We stayed in the Pest part and hands down it was the worst hotel experience I have ever had in terms of other peoples influence. We got back to the hotel exhausted from our days events and had to deal with loud people talking and crashing noises. Apparently in Budapest people don't sleep.


At the beginning of the day we went on a tour of the House of Terror. This was a building used by the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party as a headquarters for the Nazi party. I loved being able to listen to recordings of eye witness accounts of the events that took place during the holocaust. The building had an emotional feel to it that was very heavy. One part of the tour took us down to the basement of the building where the prisoners were kept, tortured, interrogated, and murdered. So far that was the most emotional part of this trip.

After this we went of a  "Hop on hop off bus tour." This was interesting because we were given headphones to listen to information about the city as we toured around on the bus. After this we ate at a little café in the city and I tried Hungarian lepeny. This was basically a cross between a ham grilled chees

e, quesadilla, and panini. It was delish. After this we started off walking in the direction of the river with no destination. This was our free time before our night river boat cruise tour.

We ended up at a castle at the top of a hill in the Buda side of town. The view was amazing from the top. We could see the parliament on the river bank and lots of the town from a high vantage point. We found a cute little restaurant for dinner at the top of the hill and I ate traditional Hungarian goulash in a bread bowl and ice cream iced coffee. The goulash would be similar to a beef stew or a vegetable soup. It was also very delish.

After our dinner, we ran thirty minutes through the town of Buda to catch our boat tour. And yes, we ran. The boat tour was very beautiful. We traveled up and down the Danube looking at all of the historical buildings lit up at night. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the large Ferris Wheel overlooking Pest. The view was beautiful from the top. Becca, Kytan, Emily, and I talked Anna into going as well (she is very scared of heights) so we felt accomplished when she admitted to having a good time. Overall my consensus of the town is Buda not Pest.