Today was primarily a travel day, so there is not much to report. The shuttle, flight, shuttle, and arrival were all smooth and uneventful, so I’ll leave out the details.

Instead, I will tell you how beautiful this city is. Getting off of our last stop before arriving at our destination, we walk across a plaza containing the Hungarian Parliament Building. This building is a youngster compared to everything we saw in Rome. It was built in 1904 out of white stone, and overlooks the Danube.

The weather here feels much cooler, although it’s fairly comparable to the weather in Rome. There are some gigantic differences between the two.

Firstly, the small amount we’ve seen is very green. There are several parks with lush grass and trees. Secondly, the area seems a lot more open. The streets are open, and the calm river seems like a gigantic park connecting the two halves: Buda and Pest. Third: It’s so clean here. Where in Barcelona, Rome, London, Glasgow, and pretty much everywhere else we’ve been, you get used to seeing trash lining the streets, here it’s a rare occurrence.

We are hosted a block away from the parliament building, between two parks and the river. For dinner today, we went to the nearby Aldi to pick up some wine, nectarines, sandwich materials, and a Hungarian poppy seed pastry. The sun set on us as we had a great picnic and watched the boats go by.

-Ray