Budapest, Hungary

Before going to Austria I visited Hungary to see my friend Attila, a former AFS student in Poynette (if you don't already know him). Budapest is beautiful, and we really kept ourselves busy seeing the sights and going out on the town at night. There is really so much history there—it seems like every building is between 500 and 1000 years old. The first day we just walked around the city and looked at some of the important buildings. We climbed up a hill to a citadel above the Danube, which had a great view of the cityscape. We also went to the Budapest Zoo, which is simply amazing. Even the buildings in the Zoo are architecturally interesting.

On Day 2 we took a city tour on a "Hop-on Hop-off" bus—one of those bright red double-decker affairs you associate with 50-year-olds wearing Hawaiian shirts and straw hats. (There were plenty of them too.) The bus ride really was awesome though—it gave me the chance to see a lot of the city that I never would have gotten to see otherwise. We also hiked between several stops since we could get on or off any of the tourist busses.

Later in the week we traveled to visit Attila's parents in Veszprèm. Attila's mom is a great cook, and she made some delicious traditional dishes. While we were there we went to the Balaton area, which is on a large lake. Aside from being a beautiful area, there are a lot of mineral water springs there. We also visited the Herend Porcelain Factory in Herend. If you don't know what Herend porcelain is, check it out online. It is beautiful—and expensive! We got to see how it is formed, fired, painted and fired again. It was really quite an impressive tour.

After visiting Vesprèm we went back to Budapest. We went to a club called Morrison's 2 with Attila's friends. Woof! It was huge—you could literally get lost in there. The building must have been half a block in size, and had seven or eight dance music with various types of music, a billiards hall, tables, and who knows what else. I didn't see the whole thing. It harkened back to days of old before Madison went smoke-free in bars. There was a blue haze above the dancers, and in the darker dance rooms you could see glowing cigarettes in everyone's hands.

Moral of the story—go to Hungary if you can. There is enough to do there that you will easily fill a week.