Budapest storyboard

Today we have a guestpost from Budapest storyboard. Follow them on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/budapeststoryboard?fref=ts

Weronika from Warsaw


Weronika Ukleja is an Erasmus student from Warsaw, Poland. She’s been studying at Corvinus University for a few months now. We were interested in what her impressions, feelings about Budapest are so we sat down with her with a nice cup of coffee.

- Why did you choose Hungary?

- It’s pretty easy. I’ve already been to Budapest, I visited the city previous summer for a short, 5-day vacation. There was an opportunity to buy Warsaw-Budapest flight tickets at a very low price, so I immediately called my best friend, said „we can buy cheap tickets, just give me yes or no and we’re going”. We were staying somewhere next to the Great Synagogue at Dohány utca. Even if the weather was a bit too hot for sightseeing, for me it was love for the first sight. It kind of reminds me of Warsaw so it feels like home but it still has a different atmosphere in a way. We were living at the city centre, which was perfect for two tourists to get to know the city. We were first scared that we would have to pay a lot for transport but finally we were walking all the time – everything that is interesting from a touristic point of view was within walking distance. So when I got the opportunity to choose which city I want to go to in the Erasmus program it was obvious. That trip was amazing and as a student it was also important for me that Budapest was financially affordable. As I mentioned the flight tickets are cheap, too, so my friends can fly back and forth, visit me anytime.

- Has any of them visited you already? Did they like the city, too?

- Yes, two of my friends have been here already and two are yet to come. They loved Budapest, too. One of them even stayed for a whole week so I had the chance to show her plenty of interesting places. It’s funny but she called the city „a little Paris”, mainly because of the pieces of architecture. The city centre of Warsaw was totally destroyed during World War II, but Budapest still has some of her beautiful, old buildings in a pretty nice shape. Andrássy Street was for example like a „little Champs-Élysées” for her, or part of a church reminded her of Notre Dame.

- Do you already have a favourite place in our capital city?

- I’m living next to the Parliament now, so it’s always the first I show my friends who arrive here. In fact, it is wonderful, but right now it’s under construction so you can hardly see anything. But there’s an incredible monument, art composition of shoes made next to the Parliament that I adore. Whenever I see a monument dedicated to The Holocaust it’s always kind of obvious what it says, the message is out in the open. And here you can only see these shoes made of steel and can imagine the rest which makes it special. The artist was really clever. Anyway, we can say that I have a lot of favourite places by now. Not only sights, but restaurants, pubs, cafes as well. I love that you can get a beer for a few hundred Forints at some places!

- Is there any negative things you would emphasize, bad experiences you’ve had in Budapest at all?

- Well, there is a friend of mine who came to Budapest and loved the city, but his apartment was robbed – and the scary thing is that it happened while he was sleeping. He’s not so excited about Hungary anymore which is really sad for me. But fortunately nothing bad has happened to me yet. The only thing I would share with Hungarians that the language seems to be kind of a nightmare for me, so I really respect all of you guys for being able to pronounce all of these „strange” sounds and for speaking Hungarian.