Parliament

On Thursday morning, we were instructed to meet at parliament, but until then the morning was ours. We decided to sleep in a bit (as that is a very rare occasion on this trip), and then we headed down to parliament. To get there we had to take the Metro. The Metro is their subway line, and though it is the oldest on continental Europe, I think it is still one of the most primitive. The cars looked like old boxcars, and they were very beat up. The first time I saw them I was scared to get in them. They were not smooth at all: they went really fast and they jerked a lot. They are also the place where the most pick-pocketers are, so you had to be extra careful.
We decided to get off the Metro a stop early and just enjoy the day on our walk down to parliament. It was a beautiful day- we have been very lucky with weather this whole trip. When we arrived at parliament, we knew we needed to get around to the back, (since that was where we were meeting), but we really weren’t sure how to go about doing such. There were gates and fences everywhere, but we finally found an opening. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by Hungarian hippie-looking people camping out in tents decorated with “what democracy really is” signs. Yep. We had walked right into a protest. Apparently it’s been going on for three weeks, but that most of it had calmed down. We weren’t the only tourists in the area, though. WE made it through, met our group, and took our tour.
The parliament building is HUGE. It is so ornately decorated inside, all in beautiful colors of burgundies, olives, and golds.