Budapest

The date is Wednesday, October 23 and as of now, Kraków is my only sample of Central Europe. So since I have an extra-long weekend this week, I decide to take the overnight train to Budapest. I go to the train station, buy a ticket, and hop into a sardine can of a sleeper car. I don't mind it much, but I feel quite sorry for the Dutch guy in one of the bunks opposite me.

I arrive in Budapest early Thursday morning and check into this obscure hostel called Tiger Tim's, across from the beautiful Nyugati train station. Rule #2 about hostel names: they usually involve some random animal.

My favorite thing to do when I first arrive in a new city is to get lost on foot, so that's what I did. In the afternoon, I took a free walking tour and learned all sorts of cool facts, like how Budapest used to be two separate cities, Buda and Pest. Also, it turns out the city's name is actually pronounced "Budapesht" - who knew?

I felt like a boss, carrying 20,000 units of the local currency in my pocket.

That night, I went on a boat party on the Danube with some of the people from the hostel. Here's a picture of us with the Hungarian Parliament Building in the background. Yes, that is the real Parliament building. It looks like a superimposed image because only the façade that faces the river is lit at night.

Building the world's largest parliament building? Easy.

Lighting the damned thing? Not so easy, I guess.

Nationalities in the picture: Danish, Hungarian, Australian, Australian, Australian, Australian, and Australian. Australians consist of 0.3% of the world's population, but 87% of the people you meet while traveling through Europe. True fact.

A friend of mine named Tas (also Australian), whom I originally met at Greg&Tom's, had been traveling throughout Europe for the previous few months and had been using Kraków has his base of operations. He decided to meet me in Budapest on Friday, since he'd had fond memories of the place. We spent the afternoon at one of Budapest's world-famous thermal baths. It was nice, I guess. Basically just a warm swimming pool. Anyway, here's a picture of the gang from the hostel when we went out that night:

Tas is the blond guy in the middle-back who looks way too happy. If you ever meet him, ask him the story of his friend who had stayed at Tiger Tim's two years prior. Left of him is Tim, the weird hostel owner. Matt and Andrew, the Australians on the back-right, visited me when they went to Kraków the following week. Great guys!

Anyway, that night we went to a "ruin bar" to sample the Hungarian nightlife. Ruin bars - one of the trademarks of Budapest - are pretty much what they sound like: bars built in building ruins - typically from WWII. They were probably the highlight of Budapest for me. Historical significance, beauty, and fun - all in one!

The next two days consisted mostly of market-shopping, cuisine-sampling, and exploring. Saturday night I went to a "Spa Party" at the thermal baths - basically like going to a bar... in the water! Sunday, I saw the world's biggest synagogue. It was... big. Finally, filled to the brim with goulash, Tas and I returned to Kraków on the overnight train, in time to get breakfast on Monday and make it to class.

I had now been to another Central European city. Though two is hardly a reliable sample size to assess a region, I now had something to compare to Kraków. Budapest was a great city, but it reaffirmed my confidence in the choice of Kraków as a home.