Pest

While the Buda side has the castle hill and all the rich people, Pest has the Parliament building. I have to admit, I am going to get a little carried away with pictures of this thing, because I thought it was so very cool.

This is the flat side of the river. Not so shockingly, it has been known to flood. The cathedral was built on the mound where a bunch of people took shelter from the rising Danube. This is the fancy hotel of the town. All the rest are 70s monstrosities. Funny thing is, when this building was built in the 1800s, it too was considered obnoxiously modern.
The CESRI group spent much of our time on this side of town. This is the inside of the impressively fancy Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
The audience hall was very somber and beautiful. The balcony used to be the only place women could be to observe the proceedings. But then, someone fell and they stopped that. Whether women were barred, or the balcony was, I don't know.
They took us to an opera one night. We got to see Don Carlos. Between the jet lag and the busy schedule, there were a lot of nodding heads, but all agreed that it was beautiful. Even the building itself was worth the trip. I got all excited when I realized I knew some of the songs. According to those that know, this opera house is supposed to be among the top 3 of Europe, so ...Another view of Parliament, from Buda this time. In one of the big city parks, there is this amazing castle. Turns out it is a replica of a Transylvanian castle that was built for some big event. Silly people like me like it so much, they have yet to take it down. I got the impression Hungarians think it is ridiculous though.

In that general vicinity, there is this really impressive monument. Now, I don't normally get excited about statues, like I said in my previous post, but for some reason, I really liked this one.
It had a lot of really neat historical information on the Magyars (the original Hungarians), and the horsemen were super cool.
More metro stuff. These are the old metro cars. Very cute.
On our last official night, we went on a cruise on the Danube for dinner. Here's Jay and Justin, looking snazzy.

The Parliament from the boat, convinced of its beauty yet?

Some of the CESRI crew: Danielle, Abigail, Alison, and Dan

Happy girls (looking forward to a full nights sleep, at last...)

And... at night.
One fun thing as we left town. At the train station, there were guys waiting to help you pass the time with a game of chess. This one tried really hard to get me to play, but I wouldn't (never really learned, strange huh?)

Jay took them up on it though, fun stuff.