Budapest is a very interesting city, not really what I expected, and much different than most we've visited so far. I'd always considered Vienna and Prague to be cities in Eastern Europe...no, those cities are in central Europe, Budapest is eastern. You can just feel that this city is different from everything else we've visited, and looking down from the top of the castle verifies your feelings. Budapest doesn't have the medieval feel of Prague with cobblestone streets everywhere and the endless lines of baroque buildings. I also expected Budapest would be like Prague in the sense that it is better seen without a map while just randomly walking around, however, not true, Budapest is absolutely huge and walking everywhere would take days and the streets aren't quite as nice to see anyway. At the same time, if you focus your sight seeing on specific parts of the city and certain buildings, it can be very rewarding. Budapest is actually comprised of two cities which were combined a while ago, with Buda on the west of the Danube River and Pest on the east of the river. Our first day here we went to Buda and walked around the inside of the castle walls which look down over the city from on top of a hill. There were some very good views from up there, but unfortunately due to the foggy weather here all three days I doubt any of the pictures will turn out. One of the highlights of Buda was the labrynth located below the castle, it was pretty extensive and one of the sections was actually completely dark and you had to hold on to a rope to get through. The next day we saw Pest, there were a handful of buildings that were really impressive, but overall I was a little disappointed by the general architecture (in the city's defense it's been destroyed multiple times). The parliament building was one of the highlights, it looks similar to the English parliament building in London, but this one is white. They also had a huge cathedral (I know...shocking) and the largest synagogue in Europe. Anyway, the highlight of our trip to Budapest was definitely our time in the thermal baths. We went to the bath that is typically shown in pictures and associated with Budapest. The baths are very confusing and intimidating, particularly for people who don't speak Hungarian. First you stumble up to what looks the most like a ticket office out of a group of windows and doorways, then try to convey you want one ticket, then enter a maze of lockers, stairways, and doors trying to figure out where to go until somebody points you in the right direction, then you change and begin the search to find the baths, then eventually you find the baths and spend another eternity looking for the large outdoor baths. However, once you get situated, it is an amazing experience. There were a total of about a dozen pools, ranging in temperatures as well as a handful of saunas. The procedure is just to jump between pools, then go to saunas (one of which was 75 degrees celsius) you can barely breathe in, then jump in ice cold water, then go to really hot water, and so on. After a couple hours, I was unbelievably relaxed, it was an amazing experience. While Budapest is nothing like I expected and it disappointed me in some aspects, it also exceeded my expectations in other areas and I would recommend it to anyone going to Europe. At the very least, it is unlike any other city we've been to so far.