Budapest

Who knew that Budapest used to be two different cities? We mostly stayed on the Pest aka right side of the river of Budapest but that's mostly where the funsie party stuff is anyways. Plus the view of the castle from the Pest side looking into Buda was better anyways :) We found an AMAZING hostel via hostel world and the 9 of us travelling together had a BLAST. Ruin bar crawl and clubbing on a boat anyone?

Arrived in Budapest at 2:00pm and headed over to this bar/pub/cafe per the recommendation of our fantastic hostel staff. Grabbed a dark beer and a eggplant/brie cheese sandwich. yum-o.  

And of course, we just happened to be in town for a random foodie/music festival. 

Had soup bowls for lunch on the first day after an intensive 3 hour walking tour of the city. Amazingly enough, despite the time, we only managed to walk around 10 blocks. Our tour guide really liked to talk. We did learn a good deal of interesting/random/obscure facts and stories about Budapest though.

Shown above: potatoes, stuffed cabbage, pastry covered in sugar, bread dough with plum filling and poppy seed topping - reminded me of a bun stuffed with red bean.  Not a crowd pleaser but I thought it was quite tasty :)

Caught the Budapest Philharmonic orchestra on the last night. The program included Mozart's Magic Flute along with a Symphony by Tchaikovsky and another Mozart piece. Of all of my favorite things about Europe, going to the opera has to be on the very top. The interior of the Opera Houses is always absolutely stunning and the snacks  during intermission are delectable. Grabbed this linzer tart during the 30 minute break.