25512 so last night we did end up going out, to a very characterful club, the place was originally some kind of bunker, or bomb shelter cut into the mountain, the place was full of blasting club music and lasers and smoke and all the disorienting things normally found in such establishments. some catz went elsewhere after a while, but i made my way home with one of the girls, who stumbled onto something unpleasant toe first, requiring my expert first aid/improvisational skills to patch her up right. i didnt really talk about the hotel yesterday, but it dawned on me that something was off. it reminded me of a lot of the hotels down South, in the Balkans, like they were the crown jewel hotel, like 15+ years ago, and nothing much has been done since then to spruce it up. anyways got up, and hopped in the bus for the ride to Budapest. for the first half me and one of the girls chatted, till the back half showed up, and i passed out, sleeping very hard. i woke up after we were already in the city, so i missed the Roman ruins that are allegedly visible. after getting to our tiny hotel, we dumped our stuff, and wandered around the immediate neighborhood. we are in a residential neighborhood, which kinda sucks, cause we are far away from everything, and actual residents dont seem to be too fond of tourists. after this we went on a rather long bus and walking tour of some of Budapest. we wandered through the big castle that overlooks much of the city, Stephen I who was king in the latter portions of the 10th century, looked upon the hill, and decided it was time for a castle, thus spawned the beginning of Budavári Palota ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buda_Castle ). it was built up further at various points throughout Hungarian history.
Holy trinity square, you can see the plague column built in the 18th century to commemorate those that have died of the plague, every city we have been through, all of them looking about the same. Mathias church, main parish church, first was built after Tartars left, it was later rebuilt in a Gothic style, and renamed after the king Mathias. When the Turks rolled in, they tore out all the frescoes and statues, and when the Turks were kicked out, it was rebuilt as a church in baroque style. It acted as a coronation church for a handful of Hungarian kings. This was covered in scaffolding last time i was here. This view is from the citadel built in the 19th century as a military outpost, built by the Hapsburgs after the Hungarian revolution in 1848. It was built on top of the hill to better control the rebellious Hungarians.
Parliament building. Is new, considering Budapest is only recently the capital of Hungary, many of the buildings, including this one, were built to commemorate the 1000 year anniversary of the Austro-Hungarian kingdom in 1896. And as such they put a bunch of symbolism in here, with shit being 96 ft tall, or having 96 steps.
Original crown, of Hungary, Stephen I got it from the pope, crowned on Christmas of 1000, it is made up of parts gifted from the byzantine emperor, and pieces made locally.
During WWII the Regalia was taken west through Austria and Germany by the Crown guard, and eventually handed over to the US, cause they knew what the Commies would do with it if they got their hands on it. the US kept it in Fort Knox for a buncha years and returned it in 1978 (cool point: i met the Foreign Service Officer that worked as Chief of Staff at the Embassy at the time of this event). The Hungarian parliament was bicameral, hence the 2 symmetrical wings in the original design. But nowadays, its unicameral, so one wing is used for the primary parliamenting, while the other side is for tourists to gape at, and international conferences n such. All of it is furnished in slavonian oak. a you can see in the pic (that will be posted eventually) the place is pretty awesome (in the most literal sense of the term), everything is covered in marble or gold, or fancy scrollworked wood. There are currently 386 members of parliament, and only 4 parties, with a 5% minimum, right now the young democrats have an unprecedented 2/3 majority. which is kinda shitty cause having a 2/3 majority means the party (who is kinda Right) can force through any legislation they want, and the opposition can seldom do anything about it. the building is infact the third largest parliament building in the world, behind the one in Buenos Aires (stick around and youll see that one too) and the one in London. im tired now, tomorrow, i should have the where-with-all to give you some description and comparison of the city to the other cities we have been to. also, we are hitting the museum of terror tomorrow, so thats exciting. I must also note, that this pics were gotten from a friend with a very nice camera, though she is big into "sky" and apparently the "sky was pretty yesterday" so...
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