How many forints?

Remember I told you that when the hostel said they had free maps and luggage storage in their description online they lied? Well Tuesday is when that became relevant because we had to check out at 10 and leave for the airport at 5 with no place to store our luggage. Luckily back on Saturday, I had scrounged up a booklet with a map in it from a tourist kiosk and it had other useful tidbits of information such as how to find the cave we went to on Monday and that the train stations had luggage storage, apparently the newly risen Lord was looking out for us. So if took us an hour to find the luggage place because of course it was upstairs and behind the trains and all complicated. On top of this good fortune, my batteries died, so I have no pictures of the day I will just have to describe it to you. (Don't close your eyes though because then you won't be able to read the description.)

It was cold and just as we crossed the Liberty Bridge into Buda, on our ascent up Gellert Hill, it began to rain. Poor Lindsey's umbrella had snapped so we were both cowering under mine climbing up steep paths until we go to the citadel at the top. Then we realized it cost 4000 forints or something ridiculous like that to go inside the citadel. So we just walked to the Liberty statue (the one holding the giant feather in the photo above that I had taken the day before) So after all that cowering under the umbrella and hiking up, we ended up being at the top for maybe 20 minutes. The other side of the hill had better paths and the rain stopped so the descent was much more pleasant. At the base of the hill we walked into a glassed off niche that turned out to be a small cave that had been converted into a chapel. We warmed up in there for a little bit then braved the windy walk over another bridge back over to Pest. There we took shelter in the local market building and wandered through aisles of meats, fruits, paprika, and tourist junk. I was so tempted to buy one of the Buddha statues for Gwendolyn (you know, a Buddha from Budapest) but they were asking for a billion forints. We ate lunch in the little cafe at the market. I had pork and potatoes and Lindsey got goulash which in essence is also meat and potatoes but in soup form(typical Slavic nation food: meat, meat, potatoes, and meat.) A little bit down the street from there were a couple churches that we hadn't seen yet and then it was time to go get our luggage and head to the airport.

All in all a successful trip. Budapest was gorgeous and the free walking tours were the icing on the meat and potato cake.

Caving

Budapest has a huge amount of natural springs which is where they get all of their water. As a result several natural caves have formed in the limestone around the city. Lindsey and I wanted to go to one where the crevices are so winding that you have to wear overalls and helmets with lights, but that cave was closed for Easter so we ended up going to one where you just walk through on a normal tour. Not as thrilling, but it was still gorgeous. We were the only Americans in a huge tour group of Hungarians so we ended up not paying attention and taking pictures in the side passages because as you might know neither of us is fluent in Hungarian, I barely know how to say thank you- köszönöm(kersernerm). It was cold and dark and random stuff kept dripping on me. To make it even creepier the tour guide turned off all the lights and this chanting music started playing which would've been fine if we knew Hungarian because he probably gave warning in Hungarian but as it was, Lindsey and I freaked out more than what was necessary. I was very tempted to scream "What is happening?!" like our tour guide did when the lights went out in the catacombs in Italy, but he turned the lights back on before I had a chance. The I made Lindsey lay down like Chester Copperpot, but there was no treasure to be found in the cave.