Pronounced Boo-da-pesht

They call it "Paris of the East", but I'd take Budapest over Paris any day. I'm sure that I'm in a very slim minority with that, but whatever: Budapest > Paris. Where Paris is beautiful, expensive and rude Budapest is beautiful, cheap and rude. But at least the Hungarians have an excuse. They've gone through a lot over the last century: WWI, losing their empire, WWII, Soviet occupation and 40 years of communist dictatorship. Not to mention the weather. All of these aspects makes visiting Budapest particularly interesting for us since it's such a mix of new and old (and really old) worlds that makes for a place unlike we've experienced so far. Taking the bus and train from the airport to city center was particularly interesting since the outskirts of town looked just like you'd imagine Hungary to look in the 1980s. But then you get into the city center and there are beautiful old Barque buildings next to Starbucks, next to a gray Soviet box of a building, next to a Classical looking church, next to a modern building of steel and glass with an H&M at ground level and condos above.

Matthias Church

Hungarian Parliament

Soviet era apartment building

Cave Church

Central Market Hall

Chain Bridge

We also saw an amazing mix of monuments and memorials.
My favorite one was of Peter Falk (I grew up on Colombo re-runs and later discovered his work with John Cassavetes - so I adored that man). This one is pretty random - he does have Hungarian ancestry and there is a possibility that he was related to Miksa Falk, a 19th century Hungarian politician, but even still it's not really much reason to create a statue of him as Colombo with his dog...but I'm certainly glad it's there.

Another random one is this makeshift memorial to Michael Jackson. After he died people started to attached pictures of him to this tree in the middle of town and it has been kept up ever since. Hungarians and Poles and Croatians and Moroccans and pretty much everyone we've talked with on the subject has a very deep affection for MJ. He toured in these countries so it meant a lot to people from these areas which tend to get skipped over, and we seem to hear him everywhere.

This is the Statue of Liberty for the Hungarian people. It stands at the top of the Gellért Hill which over looks Budapest and the Danube River. The locals affectionately call it the world's largest bottle opener.

This powerful memorial consists of dozens of iron shoes along the Danube river and remembers the 20,000 Hungarians Jews that were shot here during WW2. They were ordered to remove their shoes (leather was valuable and shoes were needed) and then were shot and thrown into the river.

This is the 1000 year hand of St. Stephen (the first king of Hungary) that was discovered to be mummified after they dug up the corpse for Sainthood.

And the rest of these were communist statues that were rounded up and put into a park on the edge of town after 1989.

I love this one. It looks like they're hovering.

This is actually a replica (the rest are originals), but it's an important one in the history of Hungary. During the failed 1956 revolution, a giant statue of Stalin was torn down at the boots and became a symbol of anti-Soviet feeling in Hungary. We were actually there for the anniversary of the 1956 Revolution, which is a national holiday.

Budapest is also famous for being a party town. We are not really into that scene so can't say one way or another but we did make it to two fairly famous bars for a drink. This was a neat place called "For Sale Pub" (really more of a restaurant) whose walls and ceiling are covered (covered!) in messages written on paper placements by former diners/drinkers and the floor is covered in straw and peanut shells.

And this one here is supposedly the first "ruin" bars, which basically consists of a big space with many rooms of old furniture and hip art on the wall. This isn't entirely accurate but when we were there I thought of that converted warehouse that all those bad (Shredder) kids in TMNT hang-out at. I always had a secret fantasy to belong to such a place. The ruin bar was alright, a bit douchey maybe, but cool nonetheless...but it might be the closest I'll ever get to that bad-kid-we-own-this-place fantasy.

I'll leave you with some of the amazing views that Budapest has to offer. If you get the chance come here. The people aren't necessary the nicest and I got pretty sick of all the meat and potatoes, but still what a place!