An ode to Budafok

Budafok is the southernmost district of Buda, the western side of Budapest. It is very far out of the way and quite difficult to get to, and thus, until a few weeks ago, we had never visited it. Three weekends ago, though, we set out to start the district challenge. What is that, you ask? Well, Budapest is made up of 23 districts. So the district challenge gives you two weekends... that's four days, plus two evenings, to hit every district. And it is not enough to just pop up from the metro. It is not even enough to grab a coffee. You must do something unique in each district. We decided to start out in Budafok because it is the most far away. Apparently there is a statue of a man chugging wine. Sweet. So Lyla, Briggi, and I set off to take a picture with this statue and then continue on for a very full day.

We hopped off the bus and heard brass music. Mi van? What was, in fact, was a wine festival. Oh no/Awesome! So we drank some wine. We literally watched the news of the arrival of Three American Girls pass through the crowd at this out-of-the-way suburb. Wandering down the road, we discovered... wait for it.

Lyla, Briggi, and the brass band.

Keep waiting.

Look, a pretty church!

Seriously, it'll be worth it.




A wine high school. That's right, a high school devoted to teaching high schoolers how to make wine. So how could we pass that up?

Wine, made by highschoolers.

After this much wine without breakfast, some food was necessary, so our next stop was a bakery for some cheesy pogacsak. Walking back to the bus, determined to continue on our challenge, we discovered that we were right by the Torley champagne factory. Which was offering free tours. Today only. So we went on that, and stared at the beautiful beautiful boy conducting the tour (you know, in Hungarian), and were then offered some free champagne in honor of our Americanness.

There are no words for the amazingness of this picture.

So, yes, the district challenge was left for another day.