Framed: A Taste of Budapest

Howdy folks! Today was the first full day of fun on our trip. For those of you who don't know, I am chaperoning a group of undergrads who are studying strategic management and international business. Throughout the trip we will be going on several company visits and economic lectures to learn about the economy of central Europe and the way businesses are structured and run round these parts.

We had our first company visit today at MOL, a Hungarian oil company. It is a very successful and pretty cool business even though oil seems pretty straight forward. They have exploration and production operations in some pretty unstable countries (Angola, Iraq, Syria) so it was interesting to hear about their relationships with those government and the risk/reward calculations they have to make. They are also researching heavily in second generation bio fuels and other alternative energy sources. Neat stuff.

Enough learning! Let's get to the pretty pictures. After our company visit and a lecture from a government agency on Hungarian investments (Also super interesting if you're into that sort of thing, but I'm guessing most of you are not), we took a walking tour of the city. It starting raining about halfway through so I only have pictures from the first half, but I plan on revisiting some of the places tomorrow or Sunday whenever the rain stops.

Buda and Pest were two different cities for a long time and they were united together into a single city 1873. Buda is on the west-bank of the Danube and Pest is on the east and the two cities are joined by several bridges. All of the bridges are very different in looks and each was built during a different era in Budapest's history. This is the Liberty Bridge. It was built in 1896 and is named for its proximity to the Soviet liberation monument (another story for another time).

Next stop was the Budapest Market. This was one of my favorite places the first time I visited Budapest. It's enormous and full of fresh spices, cheese, meats, and beautiful leather and linen goods. They also sell one of my favorite foods here, lango. It wasn't meal time when we stopped by but I plan on eating a lango tomorrow and will share pics then.

After the market we crossed the bridge and headed into to Buda, up to the Fisherman's Bastion for some amazing views of the city.

Up on the hill we also went into Matthias Church. It's an incredibly beautiful and unique catholic church. The wall paintings in the interior perfectly capture the Ottoman, Russian, and Austrian influences prevalent throughout the city of Hungary. So cool!