July 14

Buda
Today Sydnee and I walked to one of the many Hungarian baths. It was in the north part of Buda (Budapest is two cities- hilly, old Buda, Danube River divides it from flat, cosmopolitan Pest). We got a local's experience! We went to all these thermal baths that are set to various temperatures. Here- modesty doesn't translate into Hungarian, so it was great that Fridays are women only at the spa. From the baths we got a 30 minute massage (for only $15), which was amazing! Then we walked Buda through the Castle District and to the most famous and touristy bath/hotel, the Gellert.
From Buda we went to the Market (which was less clean than Spain's) in south Pest. Budapest is the most stately and grand city Syd or I have ever seen. Every building is magnificent, you can really imagine the splendour of the city in its prime.
I have been meaning to talk about the Hungarian language, it is an "orphan" language, only distantly related to Finnish, so not a romance or germanic language. It is pretty much impossible to try to guess the meaning of words like you can in German or Spanish, so it is good practice for the Arabic or Asain languages we will encounter. Young people usually speak some English, but the older generations speak German if they know another language (once again, fun to try out my Deutsch).