For our second day in Budapest, we decided to take a break from the museum hopping to visit someplace we were all really looking forward to: an authentic bathhouse. We had done a project similar to a bathhouse in architecture school last year, so I was definitely excited to see how a real experience would compare to what we had been designing and discussing in first year studio. We set out on our journey in the morning/mid-day, so we had plenty of time to explore a bit and spend a nice couple of hours escaping from school!

Crossing the bridge by foot was a pretty cool experience in itself: there were some really great views of the Danube River and it was nice enough that people were actually picnicing on the bridge itself (as you can see above)!

As we neared the end of the bridge, we began noticing a castle-like building emerging from the rocky hillside that was before us. We drew closer to realize that it was actually a church, so of course when all but one of my friends headed to the bathhouse, I had to go with her to see what was inside. I can easily count how many times I cross this in everyday life (zero) so I was completely curious to venture in.

It didn't quite have the paralleled grandeur that the exterior did, but it was certainly a charming little church that provided enough of a history lesson that I felt I had adequately learned something additional about Budapest that day. The cave was in its first life a source of healing thermal waters, something which St. Istvan, a local monk, took advantage of to heal his neighbors (the statue pictured a few photos above is of St. Istvan and his horse). The cave become St. Istvan's home, and was later re-purposed to serve the spiritual needs of the monk community. It thus became a sort of cave-church, which lasted for about 20 years until the Communist Party arrested all the monks and constructed a thick concrete wall around the church. After the fall of the Communists in the late 1900s, it was returned back to be used again for religious practices.

Next we moved onto the Gellert bathhouse, which was conveniently almost right next door. From the outside even we could tell it was huge, which began to worry us a bit since we had heard rumors that it was a pretty tedious and maze-like process of entering.

But, it was also incredible from the beginning. The main hall had high ceilings with beautifully crafted detail. It was lit by the sun and there were a fair number of people waiting to buy tickets--we were anxious to see the baths.

Walking in definitely was a bit of a labyrinth. We took lots of turns to the point where I was even more disoriented than I normally am. There were a few signs along the way, but again we were in Hungary so it was mostly in Hungarian (: We didn't know it at the time, but this hallway was one of the last we had to walk through before reaching the locker room. It was pretty neat since there were small rounded windows running along the right side, which actually showed underwater views of the pool next door.

Good thing for pictures!

Finally we made it! And it was amazing--there were a lot of little levels, decks, and places where visitors could relax and take in the sun. This show shows the main pool and some of the raised tiers where people were tanning. The main building toward the left is from where we emerged, and also where the indoor pools are located.

This is one of the smaller pools on a higher level, which exists because it is considered a 'warm pool.' I really liked that they had different temperature pools, since I usually am a bit chillier than everyone else! 

This is the main pool, which also doubled as a wave pool every half hour or so. I wasn't expecting that to happen, at least not at an ancient bathhouse! It was fun though, that's for sure (:

This is one of my favorite photos because it shows the procession of entering the pool. We had talked a lot about this in architecture school when we were working on our pool project, and it was explained to us by my professor that it is customary to have a small, shallow place to dip your feet in before entering to keep the pool clean. It's just cool to think about all these little things and ways of going about activities that influence an architect's design.

A beautiful day with beautiful flowers and greenery!

There were stairs and that lead up to shaded garden areas with lounging chairs and everything. There were places for every type of pool-goer here to say the least.

You can see more tiers again above

Inside was amazing as well, which admittedly we didn't even enter well until a few hours after arriving (it was just so darn sunny and nice outside!) but once we did, we found it to be just as nicely lit by the sun as outside nearly! There were large sky windows to help with that. The etiquette was different inside as well: swim caps were required, and it was just a bit less playful as people were doing water aerobics, laps, and other things. So the shots above are of that pool.

..and behind the main pool was a smaller, and again, warmer pool that was more used for relaxation. There were large gargoyle-like heads fixated on the sides of the pool that spilled out water at a high pressure, which people in turn stand under to work out kinks in their backs. Soo relaxing!

The last of the pools we had yet to experience were the hot thermal baths, which have yet another set of rules! The thermal baths are split into two private rooms to separate gender, as we soon found out this is because people apparently are allowed to walk around naked or half-naked to their heart's content. Talk about an awkward surprise. Either way, the baths were fairly toasty, and the water was so clear and blue it was remarkable. The ornamental tiling was super pretty, I had never seen anything like it. After staying in the hot thermal bath for as long as we could stand, we found a spout in the wall pouring ice-cold water into something which resembled a bird bath. Thank goodness. It felt amazing.

There were showers in the thermal pool section as well, showing off the brilliant tile work I mentioned!

Another neat contraption we stumbled upon on our way out: adjustable hair dryers! I started passing these a bit slowly trying to figure out what these were, and once we figured it out I thought they were a clever little invention.

Along the way home, we passed the Parliament building once more and finally arrived at the market/train station to take us back to the hotel.

And then, it was back to the busy restaurant row around the corner for dinner. I figured my luck had expired with all of the great things I had whimsically come across earlier in Budapest, and I was nearly right. I wound up splitting just an average chicken/potato dinner with a friend, but it was in Budapest so what did I care?! The three of us wound up splitting dessert too, so that doesn't make for a bad touch either (: Also a fun little note about the menu: look at how peanut butter is listed. Always fun to come across little strange English translations throughout this trip!

All said and done: a very cool day. It was extremely intriguing to witness and play a part in a place that has its own little set of customs, rules, regulations, and general way of going about things. Even more exciting was the chance to have designed such a seemingly bizarre and foreign function and program, and then see how a successful one actually operates in reality. It's always neat to have studied something for an extended period of time, and then have the chance to see it afterward.

Cheers and happy Independence Day!

It had been a long journey to Hungary, but once we were there I was totally excited since I had heard a lot of great things about Budapest! We were also staying at a hotel instead of a hostel, which was also pretty exciting in itself. So once we settled in a bit and got bundled up (it was cold!), we went out to grab some dinner and already I could tell our location was spot on. Around the corner we stumbled upon another packed row of restaurants where everyone was eating outside and chatting, watching sports, and having a good time. 

Oh, and we also had to switch currencies--this was our first country along the trip that didn't use euros! Apparently Hungary is in the process of converting to the euro, but until then they are still using their national currency of forints. Forints are both a pain and completely awesome, in my opinion: they're a pain because the conversion rate to the US dollar was something like $1=225 forints, which definitely freaked us out a few times when we saw things like a bottle of water going for 450 forints! Haha, but this is also why forints are so awesome, because you feel like you're loaded! At least I did when I pulled out 12,000 forints from the ATM. Crazy!

My favorite forint bill was the 500..the mustache says it all.

This is what my dinner looked like! It was by far the BEST dish I've had since I've been abroad. I never would have ordered it if it weren't for my friend Kat, who happens to be Hungarian and is used to having this dish at family gatherings and whatnot. It's called chicken paprikash, and it's absolutely delicious. The stuff next to the chicken are noodles, but I'd describe them more like small clouds of deliciousness that melt in your mouth. I made Kat promise to teach us how to make this one back in the states.

The next morning, my small modern architecture group and I got a little more familiar with the town and decided to visit one of our three required museums for history class. 

The museum was called the House of Terror, which instantly made it seem like it would be less exhausting and dry than some of the other informative places I have visited. The building itself had 'terror' carved out of its roof plane, which already made it halfway intriguing.

And it was well done, as it turns out! There were a lot of diverse exhibits, with actual artifacts from the communist and nazi parties, sprinkled in between video and audio clips, photos, antique media, and more. The only problem was that it was nearly all in Hungarian, which we didn't speak a lick of, and unfortunately it's so far from English that even a stab at it would've been pitiful. Either way, there were still a lot of things to be gathered from looking at some of the exhibits.

It was really surprising to come across certain rooms which were completely composed of a single material, like propaganda posters or lard blocks. (We all thought this room was made out of soap at first..just glad I didn't pick at the walls like some of my friends did! I actually had to Google what the room was made out of since all the blocks were engraved in Hungarian, go figure.)

The House of Terror had a smaller room at the end where it showcased a series of monuments/exhibits that had been chosen from a contest for their respective year. This contest has been running annually, and it was really neat to see the construction drawings of some of these exhibits. One of my favorites was a monument of chains, doubtlessly representing the iron curtain. It was huge, probably about 8 or 9 feet tall, and stood outside of the building.

Ultimately, I was glad I went to the museum. I know it was required and all, but I think it was important to gather information about a political regime whose wrongdoings are often overshadowed by the nazi party. It was informative to consider the two within the same context, compare the two and think about how they may have fueled one another, and ultimately reflect again upon Europe's dense, complicated, and broken political past. It all makes America seem so straightforward sometimes.

Next stop was lunch at another Doner Kebab place (which I was slowly beginning to realize populate at least half of Europe!) and our hotel to get ready for photography class.

Later that night, my small group and I tried to check another museum off our list, but found out it was closed so we decided to cut our losses and head for the next best thing: the top of the hill that overlooks Buda and Pest! This was a fairly lengthy metro ride from our hotel, but we were already halfway out so we crossed the river via metro and started climbing a ton of stairs to get to the top!

 There was a gazebo marking the perfect place to look over Pest! And by sheer chance and luck it seemed we made it at the end of a beautiful day, so we got some great sunset shots! It was so pretty.

We wound up asking a couple to take a few group shots as well, and they mentioned to us that the view on the other side was even better. I just remember thinking how could it get better?! I already felt like it was incredible watching the painted sky sink into Pest, but we were curious and eager so we meandered throught the streets, stumbled upon a beautiful church and finally onto the edge overlooking Buda:

 In both of these shots you can see the Parliament building, which was very neat to point out from the top of the hill. Looking over the Danube River was unreal. Looking at these photos now, I almost might think that these sets of shots were taken on different days but in reality the sky was just a completely different color on this side of the hill. It was stunning and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to catch both at such a great time, and take in all of Budapest on a beautiful summer night.

And time flew and before anyone knew it we were hungry. So it was time to eat again and we wandered back to somewhere in the middle of our two viewpoints and found an artsy, eclectic looking cafe that was actually inspired by Joan Miro! 

After having a lot of luck with the random paprikash dish earlier, I decided to go for another bizzare choice and ordered duck. I've never had it before, and once again got lucky because it was soo good! What's funny is that the photos do the dish justice: it looked absolutely strange and gross to the point where I was beginning to wonder what the heck I had gotten myself into. But we all shared and soon everyone was asking for seconds and third of the duck. Who knew? Second favorite meal on the trip, I'm thinking.

 All in all, an absolutely great first couple of nights in Budapest. It was a great experience and a defining moment of the city hands down, and I remember waiting anxiously to see what else it had to offer!

Hope y'all are gearing up for a fantastic fourth of July! It will officially be my first Independence Day abroad, and I am bracing myself for what will surely be an independent celebration on my behalf in a country that looks at it as just another random Wednesday! (: