Budapest, the adventure continues

I shall warn you right now that this post might end abruptly. I had my first Hungarian meal at a highly recommended restaurant today. Unfortunately, either the goulasch soup or the roast pork dish I had is not agreeing with my gastro-intestinal tract. (AKA vomitting and diarreah - I'm kind of wondering if I have the Norwalk virus again because I either have massive stomach pain or massive bloating. I can't tell which.) I'm mostly okay now though. I think.

On to less gross stuff, shall we? Again, I don't have my notes on me, so I will cover what I can from memory.

On last year's trip, and thus far on this trip I've been on the go pretty much non-stop. I walk to my destination, do what I need to do, and then go straight on to my next destination. The longest I sit down is for my meal or a quick 5 min rest on a bench. Well, yesterday I made a concerted effort to sit down and relax too.

I originally planned to go to a famous art museum, but I realized that my transit pass was ending soon, so I decided to attack Castle Hill instead since it's just that - on a hill. With the transit pass I could at least knock off part of my walk.

So off I went. The view from Castle Hill was terrific - On one side you could see most of the Pest side of the city, and on the other you could see Buda and Old Buda. Of course, I was often dodging other tourists - I saw more of them on Castle Hill than I have at any other tourist location thus far on this trip (but not nearly as many as I did during peak tourist season in Italy/France).

I didn't do much on top of Castle Hill - I walked around the buildings but I didn't have much interest in actually going into them. The only one I actually entered was Matthias Church - it was funded by an old King of Budapest and several other Kings were married in there. It was a very pretty church - it reminded me a lot of Sienna's duomo because the walls were painted with intricate patterns, etc. The outside of the church (reminiscent of the duomo in Milan, so it must be gothic-style, right?) was under construction, or at least being "cleaned up."

It seems like a lot of places in Eastern Europe are under construction, and they also seem to be taking a massively long time. My guide book was published in mid-2009 and it mentions "at the time of printing" that things are under renovation/renewal, and when I arrive, it turns out that yes, they still are under construction! (E.g. the castle at Bratislava was also under construction - you could walk around it, but not enter it.)

After my brief foray into the church, I wandered around the rest of Castle Hill. I made a half-hearted attempt to go the Museum of Military Weapons, but I entered the wrong entrance and was too lazy to go find the correct one. Instead, I found a shady bench overlooking Buda, copped a squat, and read a book that I found at the hostel. I was there for at least a couple of hours. Every once in awhile I'd glance up, think, "Holy mackerel, I'm reading a good book on a bench overlooking Budapest! How cool!" and then return to it.

Unfortunately around 1 PM my stomach started reminding me that I hadn't eaten yet, so I ventured back towards my hostel area (which has a lot of good, inexpensive restaurants) and had Thai. After lunch I wandered over to Margit Island (a giant local park) and promptly flopped out on a bench again with the aforementioned book. I stayed there until 5ish when the wind became a bit too bitter to stay outside.

I returned to my hostel and spent the evening relaxing, a task easier said than done. It was a bit busy since a bunch of people had arrived that day and they were making a bunch of noise, and then people kept asking me how my day was, etc.