On Sunday, a few BSM-ers organized a game of ultimate frisbee. I'm not very good at frisbee, but I really like it, and the whole idea seemed like a pretty fun get-together, so I headed out to Margitsziget, which is Hungarian for Margaret Island. I took the metro to the closest stop and stepped out into the sunshine and found that I was completely and utterly lost. I looked for a sign and there was an arrow pointing exactly perpendicular to the street right in front of me. But. There was no perpendicular road. Luckily, I ran into a friend of mine who also looked a bit thrown off after getting out of the metro station, and we found our way together.
As we walked in the general direction of where we suspected the island was, we passed by some office buildings that were quite contemporary architecturally. It's really quite incredible how diverse the architecture is here.
We eventually came to the bridge that would take us from Pest, over the Danube, and straight into the island, and the view was incredible:
But that view wasn't all that I was in for. The island was absolutely, astonishingly beautiful. There were large fields of brilliantly green grass, surrounded by lush trees and vividly colorful flowers, and it was just lovely. It was a beautiful day, too, and that just made everything that much more incredible.
It takes quite a while for me to get to Margitsziget, but I liked it so much that I think I'm going to spend all of my Sundays there from now on. I'll head out with food, a canvas mat, a book or two, and spend the entire day reading and eating and maybe playing some frisbee.
When it started getting chilly (I was cold for almost the entire time, and I even had a sweatshirt on, but most of the other BSM-ers go to school in Minnesota, so their tolerance for the cold is significantly higher than mine), we headed off the island, into Buda, and went to Nagyi Palacsintázoja, a cute restaurant that serves a huge menu of sweet and savory palacsintas, which are the Hungarian equivalent of crepes. They were tiny, but at 160-500 forints per palacsinta, it was still quite a deal financially. And they were delicious. I'm definitely going back again. Extra plus: It's really easy to get there. You can just take the redline metro to the first stop in Buda (coming from Pest), and it's right across the street. I can't wait until I have the chance to go again. Here are some pictures of the interior of the place:
It was, all-in-all, a wonderful Sunday, and I got to hang out with a bunch of cool BSM-ers, "discover" my favorite place in Budapest (so far, at least), and realize that there is at least one specialty of Hungarian cuisine that isn't completely saturated in grease and oil and fat. Trust me, here. If ever in Hungary, don't go home until you've tried a palacsinta.
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