Budapest Pictures

Okay clearly I am never going to get around to writing about Budapest. This is unfortunate as it is my favorite city I've visited in Europe! I've been pouring all my writing effort into essays on things like "money as a social currency in Thackeray's Vanity Fair." This weekend I'm going to Scotland so I will have new adventure to write about. In the meantime here are some Budapest pictures at least:





This is the City Park, absolutly beautiful with the leaves changing...




Anonymous, the greatest scribe in Hungarian history. He is the Magyars primary source of knowledge about the history of the Hungarian people. Obviously they know nothing about him (leading us to question if he was even a man at all?). Scholars visit his statue and rub his pencil for good luck. So far it hasn't helped me much!



This is St. Stephen's Basilica, an enormous Catholic church. It took almost 100 years to build (partly because it collapsed a couple of times. We walked all the way to the top of the dome where there is an amazing 360 view of all of Pest. Inside of the church they also have the mummified hand of St. Stephen, Hungarys first king and patron saint. it was gross.

Heroe's Square, a monument to the great leaders of Hungary. Apparently there were a lot. During communist times this entire edifice was covered with a giant picture of Marx. Like many beautiful things in this country, it managed to endure.

Fisherman's Bastion, not actually a fortress but a very pretty piece of architecture hanging off of Buda Castle with again, beautiful views



The Gellert Baths. Hungary is known for it's famous thermal bath houses. Only half of our group was brave enough to test them out. Fortunatly I was one of the brave ones. Although it involved seeing many, many more naked Hungarian women then I ever really wanted to, the baths were wonderful and cheap to boot. You can get a 30 minute full body massage for the equivalent of 15 american dollars. but when they say full body, rest assured, the mean full body...


I have seen a LOT of churches on this trip and St. Matthias in Buda Castle was one of the most unique. It has existed on that spot for almost a thousand years. At one point Hungary was overtaken by Muslim forces and the church was changed into a mosque, only to eventuall be changed back. As a result it has a gorgeous east-meets-west motif. It is amazing how many of these churches managed to endure through so many invasions. It's amazing how the Hungarians managed to keep their culture intact even after 4 major occupations (the muslims, the austrians, the nazis and the soviets).

As with most of the places I've been the pictures really don't do Budapest justice. It was a beautiful, modern, golden city with such a rich history. Okay I sound like a travel brochure I know, but it was awesome.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Rest assured I have plans. They may not do Thanksgiving in britain but I know enough Americans that the holiday won't go totally unobserved. Then Friday I am off to Scotland!

Praha Part Two

Even though Prague was subjected to a double whammy of destructive occupations, first the Nazis then the Soviets, there are still an amazing amount of churches and synagogues perfectly preserved. The churches have far outlasted the faith of the people- this city is something like 86% atheist, but they have the most beautiful religious buildings. The most impressive in my opinion was Saint Vitus Cathedral. St. Vitus is actually in the center part of Prague Castle, one of the biggest castles in the entire world. It was kind of cold and rainy so I didn't see most of the castle, just the cathedral with it's amazing stain-glass windows which were glowing despite the pouring rain. I actually saw several different beautiful churchs in Prague, all roman catholic and Renaissance or Baroque in style. They shared similar painted ceilings, huge frescoes and gold gilding. I haven't been to Rome (yet) but these were the most beautiful churches I've seen thus far.

Europe is of course full of grand churches, but what is unique to Prague is the pefectly preserved Jewish Quarter of the city called Josefov. Almost all the Jews in the city were wiped out by Hitler (I think there are about 600 left in the city today) but he left the buildings just as they were. Sickenly, he meant them to serve as a museum of the "extinct race." The lucky thing is that all these synagogues are still there, you can visit them all for one price, including the oldest synagogue in Europe (it is confusingly called the Old-New synagogue) and a really elaborate Spanish synagogue. My favorite part of the Jewish Quarter was the Old Jewish cemetary (Europe's oldest jewish cemetary). Yes, I have a thing for cemetaries. Yes, I know that is weird. I just really like them okay? What made this one interesting was the unique arrangment of tombstones. The cemetary has been around for so many years that people have been buried in layers one over top of one another, which has cause odd rippling and sinking in the ground. As a result the tombstones are extremely crowded together, leaning against each other, on top of each other, sinking into the ground, just general chaos. It's a little hard to describe but very interesting to see.
Other cool things I saw in Prague included the Charles Bridge. This is a medeval bridge which crosses the Vlatva river and has these amazingly huge religious statues dominating it, such as the one on the right. We went there are sunset and watched the sky change from gray to pink to purple, blue and black. Very beautiful and very romantic. I also really enjoyed waundering the old quarter of town. I happened upon some very cool shops and this cute outdoor market selling fruit, food and souveniers. Prague was a very pretty city, it fit exactly into my ideas of Old Europe. Still, after four days in the city I felt like I'd pretty much seen all of it and I was ready to move on.
Coming up: Budapest- aka the best city in the entire world (except maybe london)!

The Eastern Bloc: Praha Part One

This past week was Reading Week at University College London, a time for students to catch up on the massive amounts of work the professors pile on us. Or, if you are an American, time to go on a European vacation! Which is exactly what three of my awesome London friends and I did, spending our week in Prague and Budapest. I will warn you guys that this is going to be a several part story because we did an absurd amount this week.
We arrived in Prague early Saturday (note on future travels: flights/trains before 9am are simply not feasible). I was really excited for Prague because so many people have told me about it and because I had never been anywhere so far east. Both Hungary and the Czech Republic were of course part of the Soviet Bloc until 17 years ago. I wasn't sure what to respect in that regard, but I think Prague has changed dramatically since then. Everything I learned in IB twentieth century topics came rushing back to me this week. This picture is me with a giant statue of Vladimir Lenin at the cities Communist Museum. It was an interesting study in contrasts that that museum was located above a McDonalds and next to a casino. A fast changing place indeed. Wenceslas Square, the large central boulevard in Nove Mesto (translated as "New Town" although it's actually about 600 years old) has seen 4 revolutions in the past 100 years. That is a lot of murder, violence and suicide in one place. Everything is peaceful now though and it is a major shopping area actually.
Of Course Prague has a history stretching way back past communism. The city is 1000 years old, and this can best be seen in Stare Mesto, the Old Town. This area is full of old buildings and churches remarkable preserved and still used. A dominant feature is the Astronomical Clock, a giant medieval clock which shows the time, the phase of the moon, the star sign and a variety of other important facts. It is quite beautiful and people crowd around it right before the hour to watch the various mechanical figures dance when it strikes the hour. My favorite part was a small dancing skeleton figure holding an hourglass- he is supposed to remind the citizens to be aware of their own mortality. Kind of dark but kind of cool too. Most of the Old Town is very touristy, full of restaurants and gift shops selling nesting dolls and tee shirts. Even so it is very pretty, especially when the sun comes out, as it only did one afternoon of our four day stay in Prague.
Prague is known as a party city but it also has some pretty cool shows at night as well. My favorite that we went to was an all marionette version of Don Giovanni. Puppets singing opera sounds kind of lame, and isn't for everyone, but it was actually pretty funny and well done. We also saw a black light show which was incredibly stange and trippy. Not really my thing, but if you like dancing eyeballs wearing powder wigs or a three foot tall red mouth singing yellow submarine, definatly worth checking out.

Coming up: Churches, Castles and Nazis!