Budapest

When we boarded the boat for Budapest on Sunday morning, I had mixed thoughts of anticipation about the Hungarian city. I basically knew nothing about it other than that their currency, the Forint, is worth less than the dollar at $1 to 187 Ft, they speak Hungarian, a language in its own language family but for some reason grouped with Finnish, and that the city is rather Eastern due tot he Soviet influence and control until 20 years ago. Upon arriving, I had mixed feelings, but now I am a huge fan of this slowly westernizing city. 

Our hotel is quite nice, but on the Buda side of the city and Danube where not as much seems to happen. On our first afternoon here, we took a tour of a Synagogue and Jewish heritage memorial and museum. Pre-WWII, Hungary had one of the world's largest Jewish populations with around 1.3 million. Now, the small country has only about 100,000 Jews with 80% of them living in Budapest. The Synagogue was beautifully reconstructed in the late 1990's after the end of Soviet occupation. Sadly, the Hungarian government made a deal with the Nazis during WWII that ended up turning against them and then with the Soviets after the war. Now this small country is working on rebuilding its economy and making up for 45 lost years of development. You can easily tell what parts of the city are Soviet era construction and what parts are more historic, but in need of attention and renovation. The country's GDP per capita is at about $20,000, but with the recent Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council, much progress towards further economic integration has been initiated and reiterated. 

After the museum and checking in to our hotel on Sunday, we went to a four star group dinner across town. We had to take the underground to get there and quickly learned that Budapest doesn't mess around with their mass transit metros. They stop for much shorter time periods and the doors slam ten times faster than other underground systems in Munich and Vienna. At our scrumptious dinner, a few Passau and Hungarian students joined us. We got to know these students and found out they would be joining us for our lectures on Monday and Tuesday in a joint seminar program at Andrassy University here in Budapest organized through a Passau professor now here in Budapest. 

On Monday morning, we walked through a sketchy part of town to get to the university building. Once we were there though, the area immediately surrounding it was ok, and the building ended up being a palace!! I think we had class in a former dining room or something. The lectures were very interesting and on the Eastern dimension of EU security and foreign policy, the Energy Community, and on the Franco-German relationship in Europe. 

During our lunch break, us girls decided to walk the opposite way of the sketchy area we walked through earlier and came across a wonderful place for lunch called California Coffee Company. Though not true Hungarian food like dinner the night before, it was delicious, convenient, and clean. I had a heavenly strawberry muffin for dessert....so worth it! We also managed to change our Euros for Forint which is the so strange to do because you get 10,000 bills that look like Monopoly money. It is hard to truly grasp how much things cost and what exactly you are spending without a calculator. 

After our break, we went on a field trip to the Botanical Gardens where we learned more about the Danube Strategy and the EU's "bottom-up" program development system as it applies to sustainability projects in Hungary. At these beautiful, once donated, gardens, we learned about the public administration side of the Eu and its influence at the local level. We got to see some development projects such as geothermal heating systems while admiring the gardens. 

That evening, we had true Hungarian goulash at a delicious restaurant recommended to us by the hotel staff. Goulash is basically a savory beef soup with carrots and other small vegetables. I am a huge fan!

This morning we had another lecture here at the Hungarian Ministry of European Affairs where we learned much more about the Danube Strategy of macro-regional governance from Kata who was a student with the Danube Summer Institute a few years back when she was at Passau. The lecture was highly informative and well organized. 

After a brief meeting about our essays with J-Rob, 8 of us went to the area of town known as "fashion street" close to the river where there are lots of shops and restaurants. We had yummy lunch and absolutely delicious ice cream at the Budapest Atrium Cafe outside. We even took the guys into H&M afterwards, haha. There were a few sketchy people around town like a gypsy in the street, but overall, it wasn't creepy at all. We did a little postcard/ tourist shopping before heading back to the hotel. 

After chill time for napping and journal-writing at the hotel, we were supposed to have some sort of political organization meeting tonight at 8, but the meeting turned into another yummy outdoor dinner. We had some very intense conversations at dinner, but I loved getting to know the European students more. 

Some parted ways with us after diner, but unfortunately for them, they missed out on seeing the most amazing castle at night on top of the hill. It is an old Habsburg palace on the Buda side of the city on a hilltop overlooking the Danube. From up top, you could see the whole city all lit up. I loved seeing the beautiful castle all lit up at night too. 

Tomorrow will bring another new language and currency, but I cannot wait for Prague!!