May 18-20
Hello everyone! I’m going to be blogging about the three-day weekend after the first week of classes. Evan, Sarah, Matt, Jane, Allison, and I (Kelley) all went to Budapest, Hungary for the break. We took an overnight train on Thursday and arrived on Friday morning.
Matt, Evan, Sarah and I checked into our hostel on Friday. We really enjoyed our time there and here are some pictures:
The courtyard
Evan hanging out in the common room
Evan, Kelley, and Sarah at the Loft Hostel (photo creds: Matt).
Once we got from the train station to the hostel, we went to get lunch at the Hummus Bar. Then we walked across the Danube river and checked out some ruins underneath an old church and the Buda Castle. We walked around the outside of the castle for a while before we headed to the Szechenyi thermal baths. The baths were super relaxing after a long day of walking around and travelling.
Ruins!
Sarah, Kelley, Jane, and Allison at the Szechenyi baths.
The next day was a little rainy so we spent most of the day in the Budapest Terror Museum. The museum was about the horrors of the Nazi and communist regimes that struggled for dominance in Hungary during the 1900s.
The Terror Museum was eye-opening for me because I never learned about how war-torn specifically Hungary was during the World Wars. The people of Hungary suffered at the hands of both the fascists and the communists. We learned that by 1964, one in three Hungarians had been either interrogated or jailed for disloyalty to their totalitarian government. The museum was in the same building as the interrogation rooms and prison cells that were used not too long ago.
After the museum, we got Thai food and checked out the ruin bars in the Jewish Quarter. We had heard from everyone at our hostel that the ruin bars were a must see in Budapest and we were not disappointed. The next day, we got waffles before heading to the bus station.
We were all really glad that we managed to make the most out of our long weekend by visiting another country. Seeing Budapest was well worth the fatigue we felt when we got back to the university!
-Kelley Ahlers