I managed to be able to sleep in on Sunday. On a whim before I left I searched for Budapest Church of Christ. Research results showed a bilingual Church of Christ and the Buda part of town. In the past I had gotten into the bad habit of not worshipping God on Sundays while on vacation I decided to start a new healthy habit of trying to find a church at destination points of my vacation. Through some research I found some contacts at the Budapest Church of Christ. They confirmed that there would be some American missionaries visiting during the time I would be visiting and therefore this services would be bilingual. I was interested in knowing more about the average Hungarian and wanted to spend time with other Christians at the church. The church was located at an apartment complex near the Castle Hill area of Buda. I went to the address but I did not know which apartment to ring in order to be able to be let in. I wish someone in a panic mode because I really wanted to spend time with the church but I wasn’t sure if I was going to be let into the apartment. Just a few minutes later an American missionary showed up and I asked him are you with the Church of Christ. This must of caught him off guard with having an American speak to him in English and in a foreign land. He knew which door to buzz in to allow us to go up to the church. I spent time speaking with the Americans there the minister was an American who had married a Hungarian wife. There were other missionaries from Memphis and New Orleans. It was good to spend time talking with them. I’m normally an introvert but on this particular vacation it causes me to crave for human interaction because I had been away from Americans for several days. Worship was time to begin. Just having some familiarity with worship put my mind at ease. The sermon was very basic emphasizing the fact that the Bible is the one and only source of God’s Word. I’m guessing many of these Christians are new converse and therefore they need to have the milk of the word given to them before they’re able to take on the stronger meat. The service was translated into Hungarian by a couple of different translators. We also sang songs in Hungarian some of which I knew the English versions of but the others I had no idea about. It helped me to understand some of the Hungarian language because quite frankly I don’t know any of it except for just a very few words.

After worship was over they dismissed the children to go to Bible class and I stayed for the adult class which consisted mostly of another sermon without much interaction with the crowd. It was a little disappointing because I was hoping that there would be more interaction with the crowd. After worship was over I spent time talking to the preachers and also enjoyed a few snacks in the church’s kitchen area. Afterwards I was invited out to eat by the American preacher along with some of the other missionaries. It was good to be able to spend time with these preachers and hear more about some of the mission efforts that they have been involved with. The current preacher in Budapest had spent several years preaching in various locations including the Soviet Union.

After a lunch of fried chicken and fries I decided it was time to depart and see some sights at Castle Hill. The only problem was it had started to cloud up and was going to rain sooner or later. I hiked up to Castle Hill and take some photos at some of the news. By the time I got to St Matthias church it was starting to sprinkle. I bought a ticket to st. Matthias Church which happened to be discounted because it was so close to closing time. Once into St Matthias Church I found that it wasn’t really anything special as I had seen many other churches in Europe. I guess once you’ve seen one old church you’ve probably seen them all on various degrees of design. I really wanted to go to the second floor of the church but they had blocked it off because it was so close to closing time. I exit the church and wanted to find one of two things in order to end my day. One was the Labyrinth and the other was the Hospital in the Rock. The map I had was very difficult to navigate. I decided that whichever one I found first I would do that and then try to find the other one if there was enough time. After wandering around for quite a while I finally found the Labyrinth and entered. The Labyrinth is a maze complex with in the underground of the castle. Its claim to fame was Vlad Tepes had been kept there. The Labyrinth had quite a few wax figures and other archaeological artifacts. At one point I wandered into the maze of darkness. Honestly I could not see anything at all and had to break out my cell phone in order to find my way around. The only problem was I did not want to use up all of my cell phone’s battery as I had been using Google Maps to try and find my way home. Luckily there were some other Americans within the dark maze and I was able to follow them around with the light. The labyrinth would be good to use for a Halloween party or something of that nature. In fact I saw where they can have children’s birthday parties there. At 6 p.m. they cut off the lights and gave other people lanterns to find their way out. The only problem was I did not have a lantern and had to rely on others to find my way out. One particular couple seems not amused that I was following them around but I really had no choice since I couldn’t see anything. The Labyrinth also had a prop grave of Dracula, some fake heads impaled on sticks, among other things.

I spent about an hour in the Labyrinth and later found my way to the Hospital in the Rock. The Hospital in the Rock was used during World War II, the uprising of 1956, and during the Cold War as a bomb shelter. I paid my fees and waited. I had a nice good 45 minute wait until the next tour. In the tour we found about how they had to improvise on certain things because the amount of patients was just so high during world war 2, especially during the siege of Budapest. The hospital was built to hold 60 patients but it went to at least 200 or more during world war 2. They pushed beds together in order to have three people in a bed. Also during a dire shortage of bandages that begin to use bandages off of the patients who had recently died. This of course was bad for infection but it was the only way because they had ran out of clean bandages. I had noticed our tour guide had a Finnish flag on her lapel and I asked her about it. She said that she was studying Finnish and asked me if I had interest in the Finnish language. I told her that I just recognize flags and that’s really my interest in the Finnish language. I meant to ask her later on if she had ever been to Helsinki because it is on the list of my destinations to visit. But I never did ask her. The museum had many wax figures in them some unrealistic but it did help and visualizing how the hospital operated during previous times.

I think our tour guide did not know English as well because I asked her a question and she did not seem to understand it. I think I may have been the only native English speaker in the door because the other seem to be Japanese or Italian.

For supper I decided to get pizza at Leonardo’s Pizzeria just down the street from my hotel. On my five minute walk I saw a homeless person female peeing on the side of the church. I think the neighborhood where my hotel is has a problem with homeless people. Although it may be widespread all around Budapest. I have seen homeless people sleeping near the metro station. Also I saw a homeless person sleeping in the 24-hour lobby of a bank. The pizza at Leonardo’s Pizzeria was ok it was quite thin but I was able to eat all of it. While I was waiting on my food I was watching the Hungarian version of American Idol. It was kind of strange to see Hungarians sing the music of Elvis and KISS. I’m not even sure if they have the English lyrics correct but they did know the chorus. That’s the thing about Europe is that you will hear English songs on the radio no matter where you are. I think Europe is in love with American music and doesn’t care of that they may not know the language involved.

After Pizza I returned to my hotel room to try and get a good nights sleep before touring again tomorrow.