Budapest was nothing I expected, but gave me so much more than I could have ever dreamed. For some reason I had this idea of a very vibrant and colorful place, but that simply was not the case. I learned so much history and this trip put a lot of things into perspective for me.
The first day we were there, we decided to go visit a museum. We went to the “House of Terror” which is sort of asking to be spooked, but it was an amazing experience and definitely worth it. 
This house of terror was used by the soviets to hold hostage and torture innocent Hungarian people. We saw the actual rooms that people were detained, interrogated, tortured, and even killed in. They were dark with no windows and cold as could be. We listened to recordings of peoples stories who had family members or were even held victim by the soviets. They were brutally tortured and it gave chills down my spine to think that just because they had different beliefs, different colored skin, or different colored eyes, they were seen as criminals who deserved to be tortured.
The last soviet left Budapest in 2000. That is in MY lifetime. While I was being raised in beautiful Southern Californian by two loving parents, these people were just coming out of the darkest season of torture and pain. Some people who live there still see Budapest as communist, so they act like they are still controlled. It is the weirdest thing to be around something like that because I don’t know anything besides freedom!
After going on this tour, I felt this knot in my stomach and it just hit me how naive I can be to what goes on around the world. While I enjoy my comfortable life and can be whoever I want to be, there are people who are being tortured for no reason, or held hostage, or who knows what! It makes me sick knowing that these things still happen in the world while I just get to travel Europe as a 21 year old. I guess it made me realize how blessed I am to be in the situation that I am in.
I felt this overwhelming sense of guilt. I had these questions running through my head of, “Why them and not me? Why were people born into the situation of torture and pain, while I was not? How did I get so lucky? What makes me deserve my life more than the person who was held in that room of torture?” The whole “life’s not fair” saying could never rang more true in that moment. We may be all born with a clean slate, but we are born into the situation that is around us and we cannot control that. So yes, life is simply not fair and it sucks.
God placed us into the family that we are in, the countries that we live in, the schools we attend and every other aspect of our lives. But why are some situations better than others? I do not know the answer but I know that God only gives us what we can handle and that he has a much bigger plan that I cannot even wrap my head around. I can’t justify why innocent people are being tortured, but I do know that God has a plan for them too.
I guess what I learned that day was that we need to be thankful for the life that we have. People complain about politics, taxes, celebrities, the weather, relationships, school, and the list goes on and on! In the grand scheme of things, those things don’t matter compared to the freedom that we have been given. I didn’t realize how valuable or how much we take for granted the freedom that we get in the United Sates. Although Hungary is free now and has every right that you and I do, there are still deep scars there that you and I don’t have to live with every day.
Moral of the story from day one was to BE THANKFUL!!
On a lighter note, Budapest had awesome natural baths, and beautiful views!
We went to the hot spring baths the second day and I thought it was going to be gross being in a bath we a bunch of strangers, but it was surprisingly very clean and didn’t feel gross at all! The baths are all natural so the water is fresh and heated by the earth which is super cool. The baths have been around for thousands of years and people still go all the time.
We also went to a lookout point called Fisherman’s Bastion which was 
absolutely beautiful and definitely the highlight go my trip. We could see the entire city and there were many stairs and walking paths. It is located on the bank of the Danube river on Castle Hill. Budapest is actually two parts. One side of the river is called Buda and the other is called Pest. The Buda side of the castle wall was protected by the fishermen’s guild and this is why it got the name “Fishermen’s Bastion”. The guild of fishermen was responsible for protecting this stretch of the city walls in the Middle Ages. I loved being somewhere with so much history and beauty.
Budapest taught me lessons, filled my belly with some great food, and gave me endless memories with some of my best friends.
EUR Invited 