Hungary

Budapest was marked by pouring rain, delicious fried street food, and the Danube River. We had a little apartment and great recommendations from Marton, a twenty-something entrepreneur who rents the place and will no doubt be very wealthy sometime soon. The apartment was on the Pest side, a block from the river, which meant that I could run to my heart's content by the Danube. Which meant that on our first morning, I found myself battling driving rain, thunderstorms and very odd looks when I showed up at the local market looking like a drowned rat, ready to buy bread for breakfast.

The city had an Eastern European grittiness to it, with some very new wealth sprinkled on top. We loved both aspects of the city and spent our days wandering the streets. The highlight? Visiting the Turkish baths at 1 am. The baths are underground in this cavernous room which looks like it hasn't changed much in the last six centuries. We emerged more relaxed than we've been in months.

We also loved the street fair on one of the bridges that connects Buda and Pest. I tried to buy every cheap touristy knick-knack, but Natty won out, and we bought giant fried potato pancakes instead. Good choice, since he probably would have been left hauling the cheap knick-knacks all over Europe.

We ended our stay in Budapest with a chat with a local couple at a bar outside our apartment. Turns out, we were staying in the Jewish corner and the woman's grandmother had hid out during the war on that same street. She explained the shoe memorial by the river, a tribute to the Jews murdered during the Holocaust. They bought us a round of Unicum, a liquor too potent for it's own good, and wished us the best on our travels.