Mikele Marie: A Labyrinth, on Halloween, in Budapest.

Not many people can say they have spent Halloween in Budapest, but I can. It is crazy to me that one year ago I was doing the exact same thing teaching in China. Now, I am here teaching in Lithuania traveling Europe. It is crazy how time flies and how many things in your life can change. Holidays are always a good marker and time indicator for me. Usually I can think back to exactly where I was at that time and compare. I am so happy with my progression in life in the past year. Even though I think my life is going in a good direction, it is completely crazy to think about where I will be a year from now and what will have changed. Who knows! Anyways, back to Budapest.

We spent our morning exploring the beautiful sights of Budapest. It was our last day in our favorite place so we had to go out with a bang .We decided to go out and see what Budapest is famous for… caves! Apparently, there are hundreds of caves all around Budapest, and we had to explore one. We took a bus up to a cave on a hill and went inside.

The cave was really cool, but it wasn’t the coolest cave I have ever seen. I did enjoy myself though. How many times can you say that you explored a cave in Budapest? Not many. I think I would have enjoyed the cave tour more if our tour guide was happy to see us. She was bilingual and did speak English, but I am sure it was frustrating to repeat everything she already said in her native tongue again to us after. It is her job though, so she could have at least faked a smile. Oh well.

When we were done at the caves, we went to go see the parliament. The parliament in Budapest is breathtaking! I could stare at it all day long. It is the massive cream building with tons of spires all around. It has a giant dome right in the middle, and it sits right on the river. I am in love with it. It is an architectural masterpiece. After we were done at the parliament, we kept on exploring the beautiful Budapest.

While we were exploring, I had my major face palm moment of the day. Jessica and I got tired from walking around so much so we decided to sit down. When I looked at the ground, I saw a memory card for a camera on the floor. I picked it up and started wondering whose it was. I know how devastated I would be if I lost my memory card, so despite my huge language barrier, I walked around the whole place asking people if it was their memory card. I even creepily hunted down the Asian mother and daughter who were sitting on the bench before me. All of my trying was to no avail. Finally, I decided to pull the ultimate creep and put the memory card in my camera and hunt down the people in the pictures. When I put the card in the camera, to my surprise, it belonged to Paige my roommate. I felt so dumb. I was the one using her camera earlier, and it must have fallen out when I sat down on the bench. Face Palm. Good one Mikele.

The next highlight of my Budapest day was when I asked a street performer if I could borrow his violin. He happily obliged me. When I got the violin in my hands and everyone was watching me I completely froze up. All those years of violin lessons didn’t do me a dang thing because all I did was play an open A string. This moment really inspired me to pick up a violin and get my violin skills up to par again. I have always wanted to be a part of a city orchestra or something, and this experience showed me that I need to practice up.

Unfortunately, this is the point in the day where Rosie becomes extremely ill. It was heartbreaking. As much as she wanted to explore the city and as much as we wanted her to stay, she had to go back to the hostel and sleep off her massive headache. Rachel kindly volunteered to go with her. The rest of us ladies decided to go up in the steeple of a cathedral and see the city from above. We were really happy with this choice. When we got up to the top, I spent half the time admiring the view, and I spent the other half taking pictures and laughing at Paige for being afraid of heights. The girl could hardly even walk around. Silly Paigey. After seeing an aerial view of the beautiful Budapest, it was time to go and get ready for our Halloween fiasco.

Of all the things I have done on Halloween, this has got to be one of the coolest things. We decided to channel our inner Sherlock Holmes and go to a labyrinth. In this labyrinth, we had to use teamwork, our brains, and clues to get the keys to the locks and get out in less than an hour. It was freaking hysterical. If you know our group at all, you know that we all love each other like family, but we bicker like family as well. I knew going in to this little labyrinth I knew It was going to be one interesting night. We got our black stealth giddups on, the staff gave us a walkie talkie, and we made the plunge to inside the labyrinth. Dun Dun Dunnnnnn.

Once we were inside, we were in a black room full of tunnels. On the walls of the tunnels were numbers. There was also a big wall that was made of wood. In the middle of it was a bag that went back into the wall and below it was a wooden door with a lock. Once we had observed the premises, we all went crazy running around yelling numbers at each other that we thought would open the lock. The only good thing that happened was we did find a secret hidden hallway that led us to the next room. Unfortunately, that door was locked too. After like fifteen minutes of compete mayhem, we finally realized that we should pay more attention to the wooden wall instead of the numbers that were doing absolutely nothing for us in the lock department. Rosie was the brave soul that would put her hand in the nasty bag on the wall. Once she had, she realized there were numbers inside the bag that could be the lock combination. We all got giddy with excitement. We put the numbers in the lock and chink. The lock didn’t open. WHAT? We were so confused. We had already wasted about 20 minutes inside of the stupid tunnels and we only had an hour in the dang thing. Good thing we had the walkie talkie. We rogered in to the friendly desk staff and they told us that the number we thought was a seven was actually a 1. Apparently, the Hungarians write their ones all fancy and their fanciness cost us 20 minutes of game time. We finally got the lock open and we grabbed the pole that was in the secret wooden door and ran to the trap door. Us Lithuania girls were back in action.

The next thing that transpired was most likely the epitome of my happiness. Inside the next room was a stuffed guard. Inside his pocket were keys, I had to use the pole to pull the keys out of the “sleeping guards” pocket. IT WAS AWESOME. Once we got the keys, we were in. We spent the rest of the time figuring out how to get all the keys that unlocked the exit. It was a blast and we escaped just in time without dying. GO TEAM. I think that Rexburg needs to make one of these for FHE or date night. They would make bank because I would go every day. Better yet, I should buy a space and make one of these myself. Dream job.

Here are some pictures of the ever so lovely Budapest.