Budapest: Night 1

Getting on the bus to Budapest was a great reward after such long tiring days in Vienna. It turns out that the woman sitting behind us was speaking Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese none-the-less, so Ana made friends with the woman and began to talk with her. She was indeed Brazilian, and had lived in Budapest for three years prior. She spoke very good English too and gave Ana a bunch of tips about where to go and what to see. She told us where to go to enjoy a great Hungarian bath, she told us about a special horse show going on at the castle during the weekend and she even drew us a map and told us where to buy Hungarian pastries, where to go at night, where to eat, and a short walking tour to see some of the famous sights of Budapest. She even helped us out by saying that Budapest is very different than Austria (Vienna) where you can ride the subway without buying a ticket (we never got checked), so she told us to always buy a ticket!

When we arrived in Budapest, I woke up from a pleasant and much needed nap on the bus. We got to the bus station and unfortunately our friend couldn't stay and help us find our hostel, but good thing I'm good with a map. I had printed out directions before we left camp so I knew we had to take the subway. Of course, after getting to the subway station, we didn't have Hungarian Forents, so we had to find an ATM to pull out money. Travelling with the 6 wonderful blessings, they all crowded around the map and began asking 100 questions before I could even look at the subway. Ekta, always has to know where we are and where we're going and she's the worst back-seat driver of them all, but I do have to admit she sometimes reminds me that we're about to go the wrong direction on the subway, so she helps sometimes. We finally got to the subway station and after getting out, we had a choice to catch a tram or walk. I wasn't sure how far to walk, but I had a very small map, so we decided to walk. About halfway through the walk, the girls began to become uneasy. It was 10 PM on a Thursday, no one was on the streets, and it was dark (good thing it was still 25°C out still…aka too hot for 10 PM). They were complaining and nervous and even though I insisted we were going the right way, they had to ask for directions. As they were asking for directions, I read the street sign to see we had arrived at our hostel, and I had to pull them away from some strangers to let them know we weren't lost and were in fact at the hostel.

The hostel was about as nice as a Ritz Carlton for homeless people. For $10 a night, I wasn't expecting much. We checked in, which was relatively easy, and we made our way to the rooms. It was nice to see that we had private double rooms for each of us (4 rooms total), the shared bathroom was horrendous, and the three showers had no curtains and one door to lock. This meant that if one person was showering, they locked the door and the other two showers were useless until the person came out. Of course, I didn't bring shower shoes on our trip because I packed all my clothes in my backpack and they just wouldn't fit, but I survived and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The joys of a hostel!

The hostel didn't have internet or air conditioning but when we checked in we got tickets for a free beer at some pub in central Pest. (Budapest was historically two cities, Buda and Pest, which were on opposite sides of the Danube River. The officially conjoined in the 1800s to become the capital of Hungary. We are staying on the Pest side, the more modern and less hilly side of the capital.) Rather than try and sleep in the unbearably hot rooms, we decided to venture out and find this free beer. It was like a quest for the Holy Grail. I used a better map given by the hostel and led the walk to the bar/restaurant. We arrived after a 30 minute walk, had a beer or two and decided to walk back, passing along the sites of Budapest and enjoying our first evening in Hungary.