Budapest - part 3

Although I am thoroughly a dog person, I love cats.  Unfortunately, I am allergic to them in the worst way.  I also feel like they can sense that I am allergic to them and they go out of their way to make me miserable.  Cats are a little evil and I respect that.  I remember being kept awake at night by my friend's cat in middle school because he was stroking my face with his tail.  I didn't know what to do, so I just let him. 

Over the years my allergies have gotten progressively better, so I felt confident enough to visit the Cat Cafe in Budapest.  You can visit their website, HERE.  It's all in Hungarian by the way. It's right across the street from St. Stephen's Basilica.  You can sit with a cat on your lap and drink a cat-puccino.  I didn't get one but I heard that they were great. 

 They were all very sleepy. 

This one was my favorite.  He/she was HUGE.

Like my father, you might be asking yourself whether a cafe full of cats is sanitary.  They were really on the ball with keeping the cats away from the food.  There was a clear plastic section completely sealed off where the food was kept and prepared.  It's a great place for any cat lover to visit. 

There was even a kitten!

After the cat cafe, Peter, Jackie, Kevin and I strolled around and decided to look for a piercing place because we're super cool rebels.  Actually I just have a dermal where the top fell off and my skin grew over it so I wanted to get that taken care of, Jackie just wanted something pierced and Kevin wanted to get his ear pierced.  We ended up at 7th Ink near the Opera metro stop.  They don't have an official website but if you google search them everything will come up.  It was clean and the guy who did the piercings did an amazing job on my dermal. 

If you've ever seen my dermal, the little top that screws on had fallen off and my skin had grown over it, so it was essentially inside my skin.  He had to open me up, take out the implant and then put a new one in by making the smallest hole possible.  I had prepared myself for extreme pain and I was breathing heavily and sweating but by the time it was over, I had experienced little to none discomfort.  I don't know the guy's name, but he had giant spikes under his lips, so if you go, ask for that guy!

Sorry about the awkward close up but the one on the right is new!

Jackie ended up getting her nose pierced.  I'd never seen anyone get pierced so that was an experience.  It looked painful!  Kevin's earring went well too and then Peter decided to get his done too! We are all so cool. 

Champ

I think Peter was secretly scared

After that we spent the evening it the Szechenyi thermal baths!  I've been to the thermal baths in Ischia a few times so I kind of knew what to expect but it was amazing! The buildings that they are housed in are beautiful but there are also outside pools.  You can get more info about the baths from their website HERE.

I loved going between the hot and cold baths.  I really shouldn't have been in the water with my new piercing but I risked it and I haven't seen any adverse effects. 

I didn't get any pics during the actual baths because I didn't want to have my phone out, but I got all of these afterwards.  The inside baths close at 7 and the outside baths close at nine.  Afterwards my aches and pains from walking around were reduced, which I'm pretty sure is the whole point.   

There were a bunch of old men in Speedos playing chess in the water.  It was adorbs.  It was a really great experience and I'm very thankful that the Therriault/Swisshelm family took me there!!

ciao ciao - Katelyn

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

Budapest part 1

I'm currently blogging from Budapest, Hungary.  But this isn't any ordinary vacation.  I'm here for Peter's sister, Anne's wedding.  I got here on Saturday and I leave on Sunday.  I was lucky enough to have visited Budapest before with my family, but I didn't appreciate, so this is Round Two and I'm loving it. 

Let's start with the prospect of being vegan in Hungary.  There is basically nothing.  About 95% of the dishes feature meat heavily and if they don't the main component of the meal is grilled cheese.  Other than that, there is the celery in my Bloody Mary and a variety of pickled vegetables.  I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I caved and I commenced vegetarian mode.  I'm with about half of Peter's entire extended family so it's not like I can be like, can we please go somewhere that serves vegan food.  Yes, I could have ordered the grilled veggies without the grilled cheese on top, but I'm on vacation and I decided to go a little crazy.  Peter ate most of the cheese though.  He's basically vegetarian now, which I'm really proud of/psyched about.   

Grilled vegetables and mozzarella

However, when I'm not eating out with Peter's family, I explore my vegan options.  I bought the HappyCow app for my phone and I've looked around at what's nearby.  Today Peter and I ate lunch at Thai Wok, which is my favorite kind of place.  Where you basically build your meal by choosing the base (I chose rice noodles), your add-ons (I chose tofu and mixed vegetables) and your sauce (I chose pad thai sauce, which I made sure did not have fish sauce in it).   If you go there, make sure that you ask for no eggs in your noodles because I made that mistake.  It wasn't listed in the description, but it was in there... I considered sending it back but I didn't.  I also got the Pad Tea and it was phenomenal.  

But this blog post isn't about how I screwed up at being vegan, it's about my trip to Budapest!  The first night we had a traditional Hungarian meal (I had the grilled veggies which I showed above) and then Peter, his sister Jackie, his brother Kevin, cousin Ian and I went out to explore Budapest.  We ended up riding a giant ferris wheel which is very similar to the London eye, just smaller. 

Then on Sunday we all slept in and then met up at the Hard Rock where I had my first Bloody Mary ever.  Something about tomato juice just always turned me off, but it was so so tasty.  I had a normal one and a spicy one and ooooooo boy I will be having more of those in the future!!

Then we went and ate lunch and walked down this long street with people selling old things and things that they have made.  I am trying to be fiscally conservative on this trip so I didn't buy nything but a few things caught my eye, like this one Soviet Union-era hat and a flask and some "energy crystals", but let's be honest I do not need an energy crystal.  We also found this random old car show with a bunch of cars and motorcycles.  Peter was super excited about it. 

1998 Lotus (I have no idea the significance of this)

Then Peter and I walked along the water, where I was STUNG BY A BEE.  It hurt so terribly.  This was only the second time that I was stung by a bee and I'm not going to lie, I cried.  THEN Peter and I stumbled upon a beer festival, where we killed about two hours waiting for dinner.  It's crazy being in a city where there are so many things to do!

Then we met up with everyone for dinner in a boat/restaurant on the water.  Peter and I communally ate a Greek salad, stuffed shells, gnocchi in a parmesan cream sauce with porcini mushrooms and spinach and this thing that was basically lasagna but instead of noodles, there were potatoes.  The view was so beautiful and by the end of dinner I was no longer terrified by all of Peter's relatives. 

Then we went back to the hotel for sleeeeeps.  This morning we slept in again.  Peter and I ate at Thai Wok and then met up with everyone.  It's his brother's birthday, so we went and did this cool Trap thing where they basically lock you in a room for an hour and you have to solve a series of riddles and use random props in the room to get out.  The guide (for us it was Robert) can see you and hear you to help you if you need a hint or an idea.  We definitely utilized Robert but I think we did a pretty good job getting out of it.  We finished right before our hour was up.  We were in the medieval room.  There was also an Egyptian room that looked preeeetty cool.  You can learn more about the Trap thing HERE.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Budapest.  It's only an hour and it's really fun!

So far I am LOVING Budapest.  If I was here by myself I would probably try harder to find vegan options, but it's not my priority.  But I'm having the time of my life right now.  I've been keeping up with the World Cup religiously and I am super duper excited to watch Team USA play tomorrow night!! Italy is out but it's whatever.  I think this is the year for a non-European team to win but it will probably end up being Germany or The Netherlands. 

I'll post more as the trip goes on!!

ciao ciao! - Katelyn