Budapest is better after sleep. First I have to apologize for all the typos but I never reread my posts because it costs money to be on the Internet and there is no spell check and I am usually doing this late at night. Okay so I already posted today but I had to write it all down before I forgot it. Sorry Daryl and Brian I have not found any of your long lost relatives.

So Katie and I had a problem we had that was totally frustrating. Katie and I were trying to buy apples in Budapest and we get to the front of the line and the lady is like no you have to weigh them first. so while everyone waits we go and try to weigh our apples. It is a machine that is supposed to spit out a sticker for the weight of your produce. Well we have never seen this machine and everything is in Hungarian and so we are pushing all kinds of buttons and like about 15 people are standing in line staring at us and well we think we are totally dumb but it ends up there is no paper and the machine is broken so then we try another machine and it is also broken but we don't know this so we just keep trying to push buttons while we hold up everyone in line... needless to say we didn't get apples that trip and it was quite embarrassing

Katie, Sean and I went to the great market hall (nagyvasarcsarnok) where there is produce, meats and textiles to be purchased. It is in this HUGE old building and we had lunch there. Sean went off by himself because he already toured the area Katie and I wanted to see with the Swedish girls yesterday. Katie and I walked along the Danube past the citadel which is this Roman looking structure and up to castle hill on the buda side. This side is much more lush and pretty with rolling grassy hills. We wander around the palace that has been destroyed and rebuilt more times than I can remember right now. There are amazing views of the largest Parliament building on the continent across the river. You can also see the chain bridge which is a famous bridge guarded by two lions (not real ones). We wandered around for a while and then crossed the bridge with fabulous views of the river and the pest side.

Okay so the highlight of Budapest and the only real reason I would return is the Szechenyi thermal (furdo) baths. We met Sean at 4:00 pm and after a week of traveling this was a lovely treat. Entry into the baths was 2500 forints or about 12 dollars. It was challenging because no one was really able to speak English. We paid and were directed upstairs into a changing areas. We went downstairs as directed in our bathing suits to these inside baths. I did not want to be in here. I wanted to go outside but we did not know how to get out. It was like a maze in there. We finally asked someone and found our way to the outside baths.... OH MY! this was amazing. These hot thermal baths with statues around and fountains and bubbles and columns and decorative domes. This was heavenly. There were multiple inside pools and saunas and then outside there was one swimming pool. One hot pool and one warm pool. These pools were very very large. Lots of speedos. There were old men playing chess while lounging in the baths. These types of baths are all around Budapest but the ones we went to are the ones visited more by locals. This was such a wonderful way to end our stay in Budapest. Then we went and had phenomenal Indian food that was out of this world! I am happy and fed and now mostly packed for our really long train ride to Bled, Slovenia tomorrow. Katie and my legs are very sore, it will be a day to rest our very walked selves.
Egeszsegedre! (Cheers),
Renel