Budapest

On Sunday, me and Spencer had sore throats and weren't feeling well so we stayed home from church. The next day, we were feeling a little better, which was a good because we were going to Budapest. Budapest is the capital of Hungary and is about 5and a half hours from Lugoj. We stopped in Timisoara to pick up a package. Well, we waited in the car for a long time and when mom and dad got the package we put it in the back. But, when dad tried to start the car it wouldn't work (we were in our 'new' van). Dad tried to find somebody with a jumper cable, but both taxis said "no". Finally we got a taxi to help us and soon we were on our way.
We stopped near the Romanian-Hungarian border to eat lunch and go to the bathroom.
When we were at the border, we luckily sat there for 30-45 minutes. While we were waiting, we noticed the Hungarian guards were helping themselves to people's food. They took salami,ham,and even somebody's homemade tea!! A Spanish car got pulled into the garage, and probably had his trunk emptied. Finally, we got our passports and drove over to the guards. Believe it or not, we got waved on!!
We finally got to Budapest. We found our hotel (owned by an American named Jeff and his manager is Romanian). That night we walked over to the 'Buda' side of Budapest. We crossed the Danube river on a large bridge. Since it was night the lights on the bridge clicked on. We walked on a sidewalk across from the largest hotel I've ever seen!! This sidewalk went up rather than straight. We came to a fork in the road. Way 1 led down,Way 2 straight,and Way 3 led up the mountain. We had seen a building in the mountain (it looked like Helm's Deep from 'Lord of the Rings'). On top of the museum (yes it was a museum) was a cross. We decided to get to the cross. We saw a statue of Iozef so and so. We looked down. We saw a bit of Budapest. But the cross was still far up. Before we left, dad noticed a cookie under the statue," Look somebody left me a cookie." Mom didn't find his reaching arm very funny. We traveled up, up, and up some more. Gina scared Nate by saying there were bears in the forest (there was forest on either side of us). After that we got to some stairs. Stairs, some more stairs, and finally more stairs. Then we went up,up, and another serving of up. When we got real high, we looked down to see the cross was way, way 'down' there. We could see Budapest from here!!
The next day, Dad,Spence, Andrew,and I went in the car to find a parking spot for the van. We found a parking garage but it was for 400 forint an hour. So we left. We couldn't find a single parking spot!! For an hour we travelled. We were lost. Finally, we found our street again. We found the same garage, and dad decided to deal with it. But the garage was FULL. Being the patient type, I leaned back and enjoyed the ride (or not). 20 minutes later we found a garage. When we left the garage, we asked the guard where Uloi was (the street next to our tiny street). Answer," Uloi? Ummm..." Dad said," Uloi Utca or..." (utca means 'street')"Umm... Uloi street?" He pointed to the road. "Yes." "Ummm..." Then he called a friend of his over. Dad asked him, " Where is Uloi" "Uloi... oh yes you go that way... then that way uh-uh." Then he said "Come I take you." He walked over to his car. Dad was bewildered. "In your car? Do I have to pay you?" "No no I drive you to Uloi free." We hopped in his car to find out he was from Nigeria. That explains the interesting music. He dropped us off at the street of Uloi. Then we got ready to go to the zoo. But that's a different story.