Murals, street food and horses

I have to start this blog post by stating that we LOVE Budapest. Neve has stated numerous times that this may become her favorite city she visits this year. With a fusion between Paris and Portland, Oregon, there is so much to see and do. David and I have repeatedly commented that around every corner we explore, we discover something new. Budapest was not a city we had discussed before heading off on our year off, but we are so grateful that we get to spend a month here to better learn of the rich history, absorb the city’s beauty and and eat some great food (David made a super yummy Goulash for dinner two nights ago and there is a local food truck court called Karavan about a 1 minute walk from our apartment). It’s not a good idea to walk down our street when hungry because there are so many good smells coming from the numerous restaurants.

To continue familiarizing ourselves with the city, we went on a walking tour of 15 “must see” murals yesterday morning. One of the murals was of the rubix cube, a Hungarian invention, while others were just really beautiful paintings. After about a two hour walk, and empty stomachs we went to Karavan and tried some Langos, a type of Hungarian fried bread. We tried a pepper and sheep cheese one, one with cheese and David and Sophie’s favorite, a lango pork burger.

Today we walked back to Hero’s Square and experienced the “National Gallop,” a national horse racing event with many Hungarian towns hoping to bring honor to their town. Hungarians have a strong equestrian culture and the first race dates back to June 6, 1827. In order to transform Hero’s Square into a horse race track, a type of “sand castle” was built around the main monument by placing multiple layers of special sand granules to prevent the horses from slipping and becoming injured. We were able to get into the middle of the square and get a really close look of the horses and the races. As Sophie mentioned in an earlier blog, we wanted to try Chimney Cakes. Part of the National Gallop included many food trucks and we were able to find a sizeable cinnamon flavored chimney cake, the official dessert of Hungary. They are a type of hungarian sweet bread that is crispy on the outside and has a light fluffy dough on the inside. They are shaped like a cylinder with a hollow centre, resembling a hot chimney when they come freshly out of the oven. So good.

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