Budapest

After leaving Korea, I went to Budapest to do a CELTA course (CELTA stands for Certificate for English Language Teaching to Adults). I did the course over 4 weeks at International House and cannot recommend it highly enough! Budapest is beautiful and a great city to visit and live in.

Royal Palace

View over the Danube taken from the top of the Citadel

I was lucky that Estelle came over with me for a few days before the course started and then Lisa visited me for my final weekend. We arrived at Ferihegy airport on Thursday evening and caught the train to Nyugati station. My first impression of Budapest was not that favourable as the station (designed by Pierre Eiffel who also apparently designed a famous tower in Paris) was dirty and seedy. Our hotel was a few minutes walk away and was great. We stayed at the Star Inn Centrum which was a bargain at £32 a night. After checking in, we headed to nearby Irish bar for cider and caught a good covers band.

The next day, we bought tickets for the open top bus tour (I think they were around £20 each) which allowed us to hop on and hop off for 24 hours. There are great viewpoints from the Citadel and the castle, from the fairy tale looking Fishermans Bastion. In the evening, we went for Hungarian food at a restaurant on V. Utca and got ripped off by the waiter offering us "traditional Hungarian licquers" which tasted like nail varnish remover and an equally offensive price of £6 each....

St Stephen's Basilica

On Saturday morning, I went to collect the keys for my temporary home for the next 4 weeks. The flat was on the Buda side of the river, inbetween Margit Bridge and Moskva Ter (which IH is located). The block was very communist era and the flat was old fashioned, but was spacious, comfortable and most importantly clean. I also had the feeling that I wouldn't spend that much time there! Estelle and I had a wander along the Danube to look at the Parliament building. We stumbled across a sad monument of lines of shoes honouring the Jews who were murdered during the Second World War by tied together, shot and falling into the river.

Parliament Building

Memorial to the Jewish people murdered during World War 2.

We then had a stroll down Andrassy Ut. which is Budapest's grandest street down to Heroes Square and City Park. Andrassy Ut. is notable for two things, firstly it is home to the world's second oldest underground railway (the oldest, of course, being the London Underground) and secondly, it stood in for Buenos Aires in the film version of Evita!

In the evening, we went to a Korean restaurant which Estelle had stumbled upon and had excelled dolsot bibimbap! Then we had a few beers in the theatre district and stumbled back to the hotel. Estelle had to leave the next day and I had to go and unpack in my new flat!