Two Halves Make a Whole
Today was our inaugural day in Budapest. We are staying here at the Colors Hostel on the Pest side. This hostel is tiny and more intimate compared to our others ones. There is one main room, about the size of your average living room, with four 8-bed bedroom doors leading off of that. That's it. Its location is pretty convenient; its right on the river and within walking distance of most important sites. The closest of which is the Great Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe. We went there first.
It has some interesting history, most intriguing of which is that itself as well as the surround neighborhood were the center of the Jewish ghetto in Budapest during WWII. On the side of it is a small graveyard. It is only about the size of a tennis court with just a few headstone. I was shocked to learn that it was actually a mass grave that was home to over three thousand bodies. This was our first bit of in-person exposure to the Holocaust and just a small preview before we hit Auschwitz in about a week.
After the Great Synagogue, we wandered around a few of the central parks until we meet up with a free walking tour at 2. Our guide, Norbert, took us all over the Pest side seeing statues building, recommending activities and restaurants before crossing over the Chain Bridge into the much wealthier Buda side. Here we saw the main palace, a huge gothic church, as well as the Hungarian White House. As the Buda side is extremely hilly, certain spots provide a great view over the river to the much flatter Pest.
A few interesting things we learned is that the "hun" in the word Hungary is actually from the race, as in Attila the Hun. The name of the country in Hungarian is Magyarország. Clearly different. This is because of a rather unfortunate mix up. The original Hungarians were actually nomads from northern Asia, and essentially when they settled in Europe, europeans just decided to call them Huns even though they were a completely different race. Needless to say, it kinda stuck.