At the start of any trip to a far away place there is always a sense of wonder that dazzles people, and my trip to Budapest does not deviate from this norm. Budapest was a dream world across the ocean with fantastic soup roughly 2 weeks ago. It is hard to express what it is about living here that makes Budapest so much better than the image I had of it in my head. Maybe its the larger subways that can carry me throughout the city very cheaply, or the way the barista at a coffee shop I frequently study for the GRE warmly smiles when talk about poetry as I’m waiting for my coffee. It could potentially be the cheap beer here that currently consists of more calories in my diet than food on the average day. Most likely though it is the stimulation of my senses by a completely new place. Whether I smell the broth of a fresh soup coming from a restaurant down the street or a homeless man who has not showered in quite some time the stimulation feels so new and foreign that it is impossible not to be enamored with Budapest
So many things have occurred over the last 2 weeks that I would crash word press and probably develop carpal tunnel if I had to write them all out. One notable event is a trip I made to Buda castle for a folk art festival roughly a week ago. I went with two of my friends, Meg and Anton, and may have gotten a little lost on the way, but once we arrive it was a fascinating experience. There were blacksmiths working right in front of us hammering various red-hot metals into rings and swords. There were pottery stands, handmade leather shoes, stain glass art and even a hand-made chess set carved from bones. As we meandered through all the offerings of the festival we were enticed by a man in a small tent to try his solving his traditional hungarian puzzles, and as all good math majors do, we immediately took him up on his offer. An hour later we had solved a handful of puzzles and were left with difficult ones in pieces in our hands. Defeated and full of pride each of us bought the respective puzzle they couldn’t solve and took a break at a table with some homemade Hungarian wine before catching a bus back home.
Picture below is one of the wonderful statues I saw during the Buda castle adventure
