Budapest - part 2

On Wednesday I did something I never thought I'd do... I drove a Segway. It's really easy to make fun of people on Segways saying that they look dorky or lame. "Why don't you just walk or ride a bike?" You say. Well let me tell you why... Because Segways are awesome. Segways are the two wheeled magical unicorn transportation of the future. A Segway is checking its balance 100 times a minute. A Segway zooms by pedestrians on the sidewalk. A Segway effortlessly goes uphill while the losers walking and riding bikes are huffing and puffing. Ever since riding on a Segway I think to myself or say out loud at least once an hour, "Man, I wish I had a Segway." In short, Segways are far superior to any other mode of transportation. Moving on.

I took a bunch of pictures. Excuse the quality because, remember... They were taken from a Segway.

 Not only are Segways awesome, but I also look really great riding them.

So does Peter, obviously.  

These pics were taken before and during my trip over the bridge to the other side.  The weather was perfect, I got a bit of a sunburn but it wasn't too bad.  Zooming by people on a Segway is the ultimate level of satisfaction.

Our tour guide said a few interesting things about Budapest.  The thing that stands out the most in my mind was how everything is similar to Disneyland, how it looks old but it's actually just pretending to look old.  Things were destroyed in wars and floods and they rebuilt everything within the last 100 years.  The Gothic-looking church pictured above was built for the World Fair like the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris. After he said that, every time I looked at a building I had to question its authenticity.  Regardless, Budapest is a beautiful city.  It is clean, the Hungarians are kind and helpful and all around it is just an amazing place.

Our Segway guide took us off-roading through Margaret Island where we were going through grass and over rocks and stuff.  He said he even takes it up to the mountains! Segways can handle all terrain. Segways are all terrain vehicles.

Wow Kevin is so cool

The largest parliament building in continental Europe

One thing about Hungary that just perplexes me is the language.  When I see it written, I would think that it sounds something like Turkish, but it has a sound all its own.  I have tremendous respect for anyone that speaks both English and Hungarian.  Or Hungarian and any other language for that matter.  I don't even want to think about verb conjugation in Hungarian.  Ooooooo boy. 

I passed a vegan place while on a beer bike (a tale for the next post) called Nice Rice and it wasn't featured on Happy Cow, which I thought interesting, so I'm going to look into that.  I got a veggie burger at a bistro in Budapest thinking that it was going to be grains and vegetables... nope.  What I was served was basically a burger made out of cheese and I'm pretty sure egg.  I just think it's kind of cruelly funny.  I still ate it though because it was delicious.  I put onion rings, this tomato dip that it was served with and some sun dried tomatoes on top of the burger along with a lot of ketchup.  Hungarians do not share the love of ketchup with Americans.  You always have to ask for ketchup and when you do, you get a tiny amount.  I'm not complaining though because I was able to fully appreciate the flavor of my food without the ketchup, but it really just comes down to the fact that I love ketchup.  Sorry that I'm not sorry. 

I have two more blog posts coming about Budapest and Eger.  We just did SO MUCH that I wouldn't be able to fit it all in one post! So there's more to come!

ciao ciao - Katelyn