Hungary

Sunday: We got into Budapest and took a taxi to our hotel. It surprisingly turned out to be pretty nice. We dropped off our stuff and headed to a place called Hero's Square. It's pretty much a huge park with a castle, some statues, a zoo, etc.

I have been really impressed with Budapest. I wonder if Hungarians are offended by what Americans assume Budapest is like. It's the cleanest most beautiful city that we've been in so far. Lots of tree-lined streets, really wide streets, a great Metro system, the Danube going through the middle. It's great, aside from having probably the most crazy language and strange system of money.

Monday: We woke up early and took our own little walking tour of Budapest. We saw the Parliament building and St. Stephen's Basilica.

Then we took a series of busses and trams to Statue Park. After communism fell in Hungary, they decided to move all of the communist/era statues out of the city. They put them all in this park called Statue Park. We took some funny pictures imitating the statues.

We were then so hot and tired and frustrated with not being able to speak Hungarian that we ate at McDonalds. It was easy to point at what we wanted from the menu and we weren't worried about what sort of mystery food we'd be getting. Now we're back at the hotel just resting before we head to the Chinese marketplace.
Hope all is well in the states...................see ya!