This day was a sightseeing day for us. After eating breakfast and being assigned with a number for count-off (I was number 7), we waited outside for the buses. In the meantime, we played with the hotel’s revolving door. Boyuan kept on passing the entrance, saying, “Oh no! I missed it! Oh no! I missed it again!”
Our first stop was on top of that hill that the bishop was pushed down all those years ago (unfortunately, I don’t know what the hill was called- I believe it was named after the bishop). From the hilltop we had a lovely view of the River Danube and the buildings on the two sides of the river. Budapest, like most other cities with a river, has been divided by it. One side is the Buda side and one is the Pest side. The Buda side is older, and one of the two sides is also hillier than the other but I’ve forgotten which one.
On the way down from the hill, we passed by a cat. Everyone started taking pictures of it. One of the chaperones walked past us, and upon seeing what we were doing, said, “You’re going to see a cat in England, you’re going to see a cat in Belgium, you’re going to see a cat in France and you’re going to see a cat back home in Australia!” (We didn’t end up seeing a cat in all of those places!)
We then headed to the Castle District which had its fair share of historic buildings, one of which was the Matthias Church. Before going there, however, Nora told us about one of the superstitions of a nearby university. Near the university was a statue of a horse. The statue was greenish in colour except for its balls, which were gold. University students believed that if they climbed the statue and touched the balls of the horse, they would get good grades. We all got the opportunity to touch the balls of the horse, and we even managed to get Stevie J to do it too.
Right before we entered the church, we saw a man showing off a falcon (I believe it was a falcon, and, if I remember correctly, it’s also the national bird of Hungary).
The Matthias Church was the first cathedral I had ever been in (though it certainly wasn’t my last). Every pillar and archway was ornately decorated, and it was dimly lit apart from stained glass windows near the roof and at the end of the cathedral. The roof was high, making the cathedral one of those places where if you drop a pin it would probably echo.
We walked through Fisherman’s Bastion and saw a guy who could imitate all sorts of birds and animals with his voice. We didn’t have much time to marvel, though, because the buses were waiting to take us to the Kaltenberg Restaurant for lunch.
I can’t remember what we ate, but the food was good. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sit with my friends because the tables were full. I sat at a table with the boys, who finished eating twice as quickly as I did. When we were served our main course, Scotty said, “Thanks, mate!” to the waiter. It was pretty funny.
After lunch, we all went to the Hungarian Parliament House. We entered the house in bus groups, which was just as well, because the poor old building would probably be overwhelmed by 139 kids storming in at once. It would have been a shame too- it’s a beautiful building.
While we were waiting, we could hear loud fanfares. We could tell the rough direction from which the noise was coming from, but we had no idea who had made it or why. Soon motorcycles started storming around the street and some special smoke of different colours appeared down one end of the Hungarian Parliament House.
The Hungarian Parliament House was an impressive building, both inside and outside. It had high roofs and a large dome in one of the rooms. It was also ornately decorated. The House of Representatives was quite large, seating over 200 people- and that’s after the number was reduced. Our own House of Representatives only seats 150 people.
On the way home, we passed by a Costa Coffee. It was as if Miss Costa, the scary Italian teacher at our school, was following us everywhere! (There was also a Costa Coffee at Dubai Airport!)
That night, we went to the Hungarian Opera House to watch an opera called Il Trovatore. It was in Italian, but fortunately, it had subtitles. Unfortunately, the subtitles were in Hungarian, so they weren’t very helpful. In any case, many of us were too tired and jetlagged to watch, so we were practically falling asleep in our chairs (which weren’t particularly comfortable ones at that). We felt so rude doing so, but we were so tired that we couldn’t help it.
After the opera, Eric moved his hand downward in a karate-chop-like motion. Angus was wearing a shirt with press studs, so that didn’t work out too well. During count-off, he had to yell his number from behind the pillar where he was re-buttoning his shirt. As we walked towards the buses, Eric told us that he knew how to undo regular buttons. Angus looked at him and said, “Eric, that is scary. You have a skill for undressing men!”
No comments:
Post a Comment