I’ve been in Budapest 4 days. When I think about it that way I get a little shocked. By how much I’ve seen and how tired I am I feel like I’ve been here at least 2 weeks. I’m exhausted, but excited about how much you can pack in to an afternoon here and how much I will get to see/experience this semester. Today we had more orientation where we listened to more professors discuss their courses, and toured the Pest side of the city. We saw Hero Square, discussed how the streets of Pest were laid out, saw a giant concrete slab area that turns into a giant outdoor ice skating rink in the winter, walked through the city’s center, learned about the Parliament building, heard about how communist Hungary affected the area, saw many statues/monuments (including a really cool one of Ronald Reagan), walked passed the US Embassy, and saw St. Stephen’s Basilica.
My tour guide today was very animated and taught me a lot of Hungarian history. The most striking things were about communism in Hungary and about St. Stephen’s Basilica. The Basilica is striking because of its architecture. An untrained eye like mine just sees a beautiful old church, and of course it is that too, but it is also has a fascinating eclectic architecture due to the first and second architecture each dying before they finished and finally leaving it to a third to complete. Each architect fancied a different style of architecture and added their’s to the mix.
We were told both personal and general history stories of Hungary’s time behind the Iron Curtain today which I found horrifying and shocking. We drove passed the KGB’s house of terror on our tour which is where the Russians used to torture people with dissenting opinions or just locked them up until they could kill them. Many of the people fighting against the Soviet Regime here were young boys under 18, and there was a law you could not kill children. So, some were locked up for 3-4 years before death on their 18th birthdays in the early morning. Our tour guide said his mother, even after the Russians left, refused to pass in front of the House of Terror and would cross the street a block in front and behind to avoid it (when she walked in front she could hear the cries of people being tortured). Surely the House of Terror represents pain and suffering here in Hungary, but I want to go tour it to further understand just what these strong people survived. In 1956 the Soviets had been in Germany for around 11 years and people were tired of them. Thousands of Hungarians started a peaceful protest out front of the parliament building to demand that the Russians give back their country. The response by the KGB police was to shoot machine guns down into the crowd from the rooftops. Hundreds of people died and to remember they’ve added large steel spheres to represent the bullets that killed those people to the pillars of the building across the square from parliament. This subtle remembrance of tragedy is starting to seem like a trend in Hungary after I heard about the city putting the Russia statues together in a park, making a museum out of an old torture house, and putting metal shoes along the Danube River where Jews were shot by Nazis during WWII. There has been so much painful history in this city where governments take over and oppress the people that I suppose they were forced to find a tactful and powerful way to remember and teach the history around them. I have a lot of respect for what I have learned about Budapest’s preservation of their history; especially since 60% of the city was destroyed in WWII and what was rebuilt was destroyed again by the Russians in the 1950s when the Hungarians tried a revolution. Remarkably the opera house has outlived all destruction. I cannot wait to see an opera there.
Everything I’ve learned about Communist Hungary sounds scarring for this city, but somehow they have at least a slight sense of humor about it. When Hungary became free again they began to move all symbols of communism to one place to keep it for historical reasons, but still remove it from their culture. There is one Russian monument in front of the US Embassy that remains an unwanted symbol of communism in Budapest. For diplomatic reasons the government doesn’t have permission to officially move it; however, they still prevent it from taking any notion of freedom from them. The monument is mostly hidden by small trees and shrubs planted around it, but what’s really quite funny is that they asked the US for a statue of Ronald Reagan to put facing the Russian monument. So, now there’s a mini recap of the cold war right here in Budapest just a stone’s throw from the US Embassy. If you can’t already tell this city’s making me like history more.
Budapest is also making me like dogs more. There are so many beautiful dogs just wandering around. Their owners just let them off the leashes and they play in the city. It's amazing. There's a park right in front of the US embassy where we saw a ton of dogs playing. I didn't get any good pictures of them, but made a note I needed to go back and make friends with someone who owned a dog.
Our tour guide pointed out a place to get really good strudel, so after our tour some of us walked over there to try it. I got an apple poppy seed flavored one, and it reminded me of baklava, apple pie, and canolis because it was flaky like the outer part of baklava, had an apple-y taste like apple pie filling, but also the consistency and some of the richer taste of a canoli. It may have had ricotta in it, but I have no clue. I’m glad I tried it, but I think I’ll stick to the gelato.
After pastries I met up with my dear old pal Megan for dinner. It had only been a couple days since I saw her, but it still felt like too long. We wandered around the city center for a while, saw a really good Hungarian acapella group performing on the street (at one point they sang the Beach Boy’s Barbara Ann), and picked out a place to eat dinner. We ate a a place that served sushi, soup, salad, pasta, and fried rice. The menu was overwhelming and diverse in the same way the Cheesecake factory’s is. Megan ate this yummy gingery turkey and rice, and I ate creamy salmon pasta. I also drank the “iced tea” which was super different from tea at home, but quite delicious anyway. We sat outside and got cold, but the restaurant had blankets for us. It was a bit more expensive than most Hungarian restaurants since it was in a tourist area, but they gave me a blanket so I didn’t mind :) The company was pretty wonderful too! I knew it would be invaluable to have Megan in Budapest with me, but I’m only starting to truly benefit from and appreciate having someone from so close to home here to experience the city with me. Our friend Maddie comes to visit in a couple weeks and it’s only going to get more fun.
Classes start tomorrow and I’m very excited. My first class is Quantum Probability and Computing and second is Hungarian Music. I’m done with class at 1, so my plan is to spend the afternoon in a museum and continue to explore this remarkable new home I have. If I keep busy then I won't have time to be tired I hope. 
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