A weekend in Budapeast

As I'm about to go on holiday again, I realize that I never posted anything about our trip to Budapest. I apologize for my laziness, but the weather has actually been pretty good lately, so I've been spending as much time outside as possible. Plus Leo's parents were in town and now some friends from New York, so it's been a pretty busy month.

The end of April/beginning of May we went to Budapest with our friend Lars. I think the way we decided on Budapest went like this:

Leo - Lars, when are we going to see you again?
Lars - I'm coming to Europe at the end of April, maybe we can meet up then.
Leo - So will you be heading to London?
Lars - Hell no! I hate London!
Leo - So where should we meet up?
Lars - Well, I've never been to Budapest.
Leo - Ok, let's all go to Budapest.

So, we all went to Budapest, and it was a wonderful trip. The food was amazing...rich, meaty, saucy, not too expensive. We had some fabulous meals (when we were able to find the restaurants, and they were open). And the weather was perfect for Leo death marches. We basically spent the weekend roaming around, eating, drinking, sitting and then doing it all over again.

Here are some highlight:

This is a view from the castle in Buda, overlooking the Lanchid (chain bridge) and our hotel Lanchid 19 (I think it's the one with the glass roof).
On our first day we walked to the Jewish quarter in Pest and saw the second largest synagogue in the world. Equally as impressive as the synagogue was the fact that Leo and Lars wore yarmulkas while in the synagogue (well, they were forced to by a little old man at the entrance).
The second night we were there we went to Take 5, a jazz club in Pest to see Nicola Conte perform. Walking around on day 2, we saw many of the sites in Buda. This is a statue of St. Gellert on the south side of Gellert Hill.

That evening we ate a a restaurant in Buda known for serving excellent game. I had the rabbit.