24 hours later…

After getting on the RIGHT train and arriving in Vienna at 9am, I had to run to an internet cafe to email Dustin to email my professor to have him call his daughter who was to meet me at 915! Crazy, but true. All communication went through (thank goodness), and I headed to the train station. Of course, my connecting train to the one to Budapest was LATE, resulting in a minor panic that I may miss THIS Budapest train as well. However, all trains were late and I FINALLY arrived in Budapest after 24 HOURS of train travel. I was pooped, but ready to see the city.

Tamas' daughter Sylvia (spelled differently in Hungarian...) met me at the train station. We then took the metro to the tram to a bus and finally to her house. I felt like the end of the world was surely coming -- I was so bone-tired. I knew that if I did not keep going, I was going to fall asleep and not wake up for two days. And then all of the extra sightseeing time would be lost. So, I took a bath, had some lunch, and met the rest of the family. My prof, Tamas, was not due home until late that evening. I really enjoyed chatting with Sylvia and her mom Zsuzsa. To those of you whom this makes sense -- the family reminded me of a cross between the Trobergs and Hardwicks, so I felt right at home!

The oldest daughter, Marianna (nicknamed Matzo -- but again, spelled differently in Hungarian), took me into the city to see the sites of Castle Hill and the Danube. She is pictured here (on the left). The other daughter (Sylvia's twin) is named Chilla (again, spelling). I ended up not meeting her until that evening. Chilla is quite the ER fan -- it reminded me of "ER nights" that Sierra and I used to have on Thursday!





The first site was the post office at Moskva Ter... It looks like an old castle:















As we walked up to the castle, we passed a number of buildings which were in disrepair. When I asked Matzo, she explained that they were still damaged from WWII and were on the list to be fixed. Here is a picture of some of the damage from the bombs...










Being the good student that she is, Matzo wanted to show me her school. It is an old building -- apparently it is like the building described in Harry Potter? It is also a public school -- who wouldn't want to go to school in such a cool place?













We then walked up to Castle Hill, to St. Mathias Church and the Fishermen's Bastion, pictured below.













The view from the Bastion was GORGEOUS. Here is a picture of Parliament across the Danube... And a cityscape...




















Finally, we made it to the castle. This is the entrance:













And then down to the Danube. If you recall, two weeks ago, the Danube was flooding. The water came up to just below the "P" on the sign (the Danube is just on the lower left of the picture). Pretty crazy.













After all of that -- it was to home, dinner, and to bed!