Stick with the Hungarian Specialties...

Note: If you are interested in the highlights from South East Asia, we finally posted the Wrap-Up. Take a look.

Budapest, Hungary

September 14, 2007
N47°31.120
E019°04.900

After two fairly uneventful days in Bratislava we continued our journey east, towards Hungary. Even though our stay in Bratislava was brief, we were ready for a change. And Budapest, with its vast history, beautiful architecture, and the Danube River running through it, may be the recipe.

The Slovakia landscape quickly turned into a distant memory as our train zipped into Hungary. We commented how easy our travel days have become now that we’re in Europe. However, they don’t produce the infamous stories like our bus ride in Ecuador, or 27 people crammed in the bed of a pick-up truck and Hmong villagers puking up their rice lunch. Yes, we miss the stories, but we enjoy the clean, fast travel of the European rails.

A new country, a new city, a new currency and, of course, a new public transportation system were all in store for us upon arrival in Hungary. We quickly scoped out an ATM to grab some Hungarian Fornit, bought a week pass for public transportation and hunted-down our “home” for the next five nights. After checking in, we stowed our gear and headed out for an early dinner.

At dinner we quickly learned one important thing about Hungary, order the local specialties. We went to a restaurant in Lonely Planet that promoted its authentic Hungarian cuisine. I decided to order one of the restaurants pork dishes, crispy pork roast, to be exact. When the pork arrived it was far from crispy; instead it was more like a brick cut into four dry pieces. It was so hard I couldn’t even cut it… it should have been served with a hammer and chisel.

After sending the concrete pork roast back to the kitchen, I choose one of the Hungarian specialties—chicken with paprika sauce and dumplings. The chicken was nice and tender—I could even cut through it and the potato dumplings were yummy, especially with the paprika sauce.. At least we learned this important lesson on our first night in Budapest.

Tomorrow it’s time for a bath…