Hungary

"Merry Christmas!"

My girlfriend Felicia and I exchanged gifts, and the gifts would be that we would go to Hungary to meet the spring 4 months later. The time finally arrived and so did we to the capital Budapest which I quickly renamed to Budabest since I liked it so much. Pest in Swedish means plague so it sounded better to say best.

Budapest is everything I expected Berlin to be, it's creative and charming since it has embraced the worn down buildings. They even got bars called ruinpubs situated in buildings that were doomed for destruction which are now instead equipped with rejected furnitures and beer taps.

We arrived at night and took a quick walk around the block before we went to bed. The next day we immediately left the city center to go take a morning bath at the famous and yellow Szechenyi thermal bath.

It's the largest medicinal bath in Europe and was opened in the early 1900's. It smelled like fart in the inner sections so we quickly went outside for some fresh air, and to greet the sun we hadn't seen for a whole dark winter in Sweden. Old men were playing chess in the waters and you got to love when old people still gets out to do something, even if it's the same old game of chess every week. 

We took a nice stroll through the City Park that surrounds the bath and people were enjoying themselves in pedalos in the lake while a building almost looked as if it was sinking into the lake.

I found a statue that looked like a Dementor from Harry Potter, and I would quickly understand that this wasn't the only statue in Budapest.

In fact it's quite a center for finding beautiful statues.

And you can always count on the police statue if you see someone who isn't law-abiding. 

The one artwork that made the most emotional impact were the shoes next to the river Danube.

Felicia and I had just been trying to reach down to the river that separates Buda from Pest but the water was nasty when we came closer so we had changed our mind. When we understood that the shoes were there as a memory to the victims that had been shot into the Danube by fascists during World War II, we were happy we hadn't been in contact with the water since dead bodies had been floating around in it. The victims had been ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. It's a horrible story and the shoes are what great art is about, it tells an important story and it's impossible not to be touched by it.

I love open space so it's always a taste of fresh air when you get out of the narrow city streets and reach the river of Danube. At daytime the sun is shining and shimmering in the water while the birds fly over the view of Buda.

At night the boats are going through the beautiful and lit up surroundings such as the Chain Bridge that connects the both sides. 

Berlin didn't live up to the hype, but Budapest sure did live up to the nowadays fading hype. So make sure to visit Budapest instead, so that the hype becomes stronger again!

* Best things about Hungary – I love the creativity in the city and that they can turn a bad thing into a good thing, like the ruinpubs even though I didn't visit any of them since I'm not that into drinking, I love all the statues that makes the city come alive and most of all I love just walking down by the Danube day or night when I feel the city is too crowded for me, the thing that made the most impact on me were the shoes on the Danube Bank, great art at its finest

* Most mediocre thing about Hungary – Szechenyi thermal bath didn't live up to my high expectations but it was alright

* Worst things about Hungary – I didn't find the art masterpiece of a giant that is coming up from the lawn in front of an old beautiful building, apparently it was only there for a short period of time as part of an art exhibition, but I think it should be Budapest's landmark

Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):
1. Croatia
2. Montenegro
3. Andorra
4. Cyprus
5. Turkey
6. Greece
7. Italy
8. Spain
9. Monaco
10. Malta
11. Netherlands
12. Iceland
13. Denmark
14. Sweden
15. Lithuania
16. Macedonia
17. Portugal
18. Hungary
19. Slovakia
20. Slovenia
21. New Zealand
22. Ireland
23. Germany
24. United Kingdom
25. Belgium
26. Poland
27. Estonia
28. Czech Republic
29. Switzerland
30. San Marino
31. Kosovo
32. Romania
33. Finland
34. Latvia
35. Moldova
36. Norway
37. Ukraine
38. France
39. Bulgaria
40. Luxembourg
41. Liechtenstein
42. China
43. Serbia
44. Bosnia And Herzegovina
45. Albania