Today was another great day in Budapest. We set out in the morning to walk to and up Castle Hill. We first stopped at the market to buy bread, cheese, and fruit for lunch. While most people at the tourist locations speak some English, that is not the case in small shops, so we were reduced to pointing and making gestures to get what we wanted. This worked well for fruit and veggies, but we soon realized that cheese was going to be a bit harder since we had no idea how to say how much we wanted. I was all ready to indicate with my hands what size wedge we wanted, but luckily they had a small package of mozarella, so we just went with that.
Since it was even hotter than yesterday, our walk up to Castle Hill was a sweaty affair, but it was worth it as the view from the top was amazing. We could see most of the city, including the gothic-style national parliament that we saw on our run yesterday. I think that is my favorite building in the city, mostly because it is just so huge and impressive-looking. From there we walked over to the castle, also an impressive building. This is definitely the tourist center of Budapest, though we heard surprisingly little English. There were a lot of French speakers, which I was excited about, and I took to following them around and trying to listen in on their conversations.
After taking pictures of the grounds, we decided to pay the 5 bucks or so to go into the castle. We went up to the first floor and soon remarked that it wasn´t what we expected - it had been renovated and was more like an art museum. We walked around some more, the high point being when Maggie remarked about a painting of a woman with 3 breasts: "Look, that woman has more than one boob!", to which I responded "Most women do." A few minutes later we were looking out the window when Maggie asked if we were sure that we were in the actual castle. At this point, we realized that while we were in fact in part of the castle, we had actually bought a ticket into the part that has been turned into the Museum of Fine Arts. Turns out there wasnt any part of the old castle that was availabe to walk through, but we still felt a little dumb for not knowing what we were buying tickets for!
After the castle, we ate our homemade lunch on the hill and then walked down and into Buda for the Turkish baths that we were so excited ábout. Some more language confusion followed when I thought that I had accidentally just bought a towel for about 25 dollars (it was actually just a deposit that I would get back when I returned the towel). We then spent a very pleasant four hours lying in the sun, testing out the wave pool, and visiting the thermal baths. The whole complex was beautiful - certainly not your typical public pool. And of course, the prevalence of men wearing speedos made it different from any American swimming pool.
After the baths, we returned to the hostel, where we had another great homemade dinner - pasta with vegetables and wine. Our hostel has been great (except for only having one shower). The owner came by today for the first time and gave us Hungarian chocolate, which was really nice and unexpected. We also have free bread and jam for breakfast, all for only $11 a night! Our other roommate is a French guy. I was really excited to practice French with him, only to realize that he is deaf. He can manage a few words, though, in English, which is impressive, and seems very nice. We remarked that he can practically communicate better than we were able to at the market.
Tomorrow we have the morning in Budapest, and then a long overnight train ride to Split, Croatia.
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