Seeing Slovakia

This past weekend (I guess it was almost a full week ago now - so I'm not that great at updating.), we went on an 'excursion' to the countryside. This meant that Friday, very early in the morning, we all piled in a van and headed on up to Szentendre, a city about 45 minutes outside of Budapest. First we stopped at a very large outdoor museum, which was made up of buildings from all the different regions of Hungary. First of all, for being such a small country, Hungary has a lot of regions! There were something like 9 different regions, as well as the actual ruins of a Roman villa. My favorite building was the windmill:

Then, we went into the city of Szentendre which was very touristy but very cute. After about half an hour on the main market tourist drag, I, as well as a few of my classmates, couldn't handle it anymore. We ended up following this staircase

up into the more residential area of the city. It was absolutely beautiful. It was, in many ways, exactly how I picture a European town to be: small, windy streets lined with old tiny cars and old tiny houses.
For our third tourist event of the day, we headed to the town of Esztergom, where we toured the absolutely stunning Esztergom Basilica:



From the rear of the cathedral was a view of none other than the country of Slovakia.

So, there we are. The closest I have ever been, or expected ever to be, to Slovakia. We were all a little disappointed that we didn't have our passports and thus couldn't cross the bridge and say that we have been in one other small Central/Eastern European country.
Our next town was Visegrad.
That night we slept in this log cabin and ate Hungarian barbeque. Hungarian barbeque is in fact a sort of shishkebab that consists of the following ingredients: sausage, bread, paprika, cheese and hunks of fat. Yes, hunks of fat, stuck on a stick and roasted over a campfire. I could only manage to down one, but it was a rather unforgettable experience for a girl who doesn't even like mayo much.
The next morning we walked over to a 'Summer Luge' place, where we proceeded to coast down hills at a (relatively) fast speed. I was actually slightly disappointed with the experience (it really wasn't THAT fast, and the 'tight' corners were more like slow curves), but when it costs only $1.50 for something that would in the States probably be closer to $10, it's hard to complain.
We then headed over a small mountain to an old castle. It was there that I discovered that Hungary is, in fact, an absolutely gorgeous (if often foggy) country.




After the castle, we went to a palace, where I idiotically forgot my camera outside in my bag, so I will be forced to steal the pictures of other members of my group. Oops.




And with that, we headed home on a ferry down the Danube.