It’s been about a full month now since I have landed in Austria and I can’t wait to see what the rest of my time here in Europe has to offer. What makes Vienna a great city to study in is that it is also very close to nearby European cities. This past weekend, me and a few of my friends traveled to Budapest in Hungry.
The country of Hungry is very historically close to the country of Austria. So I wasn’t expecting the city to feel as different and foreign as it did. While the country is within the EU, they do not use the currency and instead use what they call Forint. The value of the Forint is about 270 Forint=$1. So everything seemed way more expensive then it actually was! My dinner bill alone came out to 10,000 Forint!
Budapest was an absolutely great city to visit. The people were friendly, the buildings were rich in history, and the nightlife was lively. We went to one of the most famous bars in the world called Szimpla Kert, a bar build within old ruins. It had a very grungy vibe with graffiti and all kinds of art on the walls and was filled with people from all over the world. Not to mention the size of the bar was massive! It was so big that we even discovered a small concert going on in one of the backrooms with no more than 75 people listening. The music was fantastic, the beer was delicious and most importantly cheap.
Me and my friends were very glad we decided to stay for more than one day because we quickly realized how many exciting things there were to do in Budapest. We learned a lot about the dark side of Budapest’s history during World War 2 a it was initially under Nazi occupation and then later under Soviet control. It is a city filled with love and loss that never stopped being breathtaking. Although at times the city felt far from home, we were constantly reminded of our home base of Vienna because the two cities both lie on the beautiful river Danube.
There will surely be more adventures on the near future. I can’t wait to continue to explore and discover new things about both myself and the world.