Budapest

Of all of my trips thus far, Budapest was planned the furthest in advance. My friend, Annie, found a cheap EasyJet flight around Thanksgiving, and asked if anyone was interested in going. At that point I was up for traveling anywhere. All I knew about the city was from facebook albums that I'd seen of friends who had traveled there, and it looked beautiful and mysterious. As I've also heard of Berlin, this post communist city was raved about by everyone who had visited. It will be interesting to compare it to Berlin when I go with my family in June.

Annie, Rachel, Chelsie and I took Friday off because our flight was in the early afternoon, meaning we'd have to leave for the airport that morning. We had Link (our au pair group) the night before, so we just went back to Rachel's apartment afterwards and had a sleepover. It was a good excuse to start our weekend early :)

I'd printing out the directions from the airport to our hostel, and knew we had to take the train from the airport into the city. After exchanging our Euros and Swiss francs into about 35,000 Hungarian forints (it's one of those crazy currencies that had us constantly calculating at the arrival of every meal bill), we got train tickets for 380forints (about $2) for a half hour ride into the city. We didn't realize at the time how cheap local public transportation (and pretty much everything) was. By the time we hit the mall on the last day of the trip, we decided we were living in the wrong city (Geneva)....

Our hostel came as a recommendation by a friend we met at our Chamonix chalet, and Aussie traveling around Europe with his brother. He said we had to stay at "The Groove" because the people who ran it were awesome and made them feel at home (even made drinks for everyone). There was some discrepancy when searching on hostelworld.com because in Budapest, there are 2 hostels with the word "groove" in their name - "The Instant Groove Party Hostel" and "The Groove." Apparently, we chose the right one, "The Instant Groove Party Hostel, " which actually had a huge night club underneath. Well...that is until a few weeks before our arrival (looking back, this was a good thing...can you imagine the noise coming from below our room if a club would still be pumping all night?). We located the correct street address, however I was initially really scared by the looks of it, and we couldn't figure out how to get in the locked metal doors. I went into the deli next door, and when I asked for help the Hungarian woman gave me some disparaging looks and in communicated to me that it was closed (by waving her hands and motioning slitting her throat). Luckily, a man walked by was able to help us, showing us the right way to buzz in - thankfully, our hostel wasn't shut down with the club, as I had worried. We walked up the winding stairs and our mentalities were flipped once we met the staff and saw how much work they put into the hostel. It wasn't a fancy chain hostel, but the little details and decorating was what I liked about it, and now the picture was starting to match what our Aussie mate had described.

On our walk to the hostel we passed many exotic looking restaurants. The one which looked most appealing boasted a giant totem pole entrance - that's all it takes to win over a few hungry North American au pairs! When we arrived we realized it was actually an enormous tea house (one of the largest in all of Europe). It's called Zold Teknos Barlangja (Green Turtle Cave). We were looking for dinner food, but the unique, trance-like atmosphere alone was enough to keep us from leaving. It was a Native American themed tea house! The servers were clad in Native American garb and even donned feather headbands. With about 8 pages of teas to tantalize our tastebuds, there was still 1 page of food. We ended up ordering 2 traditional Hungarian platter and some fajitas. We opted for dessert and tea as well...all to the tune of 8,500HFT for the 4 of us (about $43)...In Geneva, a meal of fondu for 1 person costs $40!

After dinner we walked down to the Danube and along the river from the Elizabeth Bridge to the Chain Bridge to get some views of the sights lit up at night. Then we headed to a "ruins bar" (like ancient ruins) recommended by our hostel. ROMKOCSMA places (Ruin Pubs) have been cropping up all over the city recently. They are pubs that are built in the courtyards and gardens of condemned houses and apartments. Typically in residential areas, you usually wouldn't otherwise be able to tell that a huge pub occupies the space because the only thing visible from the outside is a stream of people with plastic beer cups and maybe some body guards...once you enter through the plastic hanging flaps, it is a whole new world - music, alternative displays and art everywhere, recycled furniture and anything and everything salvaged from a junk yard thrown onto the walls. They're open until 4am and time definitely washes over you while you're there. I'm really glad we got to experience this part of the night life because it showed a lot about the culture which was difficult to glean from the daily life of the city. The one we visited was called Szimple. My pictures didn't turn out very well...but here's a look at some from their website (http://www.szimpla.hu/budapest/kepek).

We started Saturday with a walking tour of the city. I won't go into detail about that...see facebook for pictures and details. I think it was the best city tour I've been on yet. We were really lucky with a clear sunny day. Our tour group was full of American study abroad students, and our tour guide had a huge personality and good sense of humor. It was a bit windy crossing the Chain Bridge to the Buda side, and you could really feel and see the difference in the purpose and occupants of the east side of the Danube (more historic and militant in one part, upper class residential area in another). The looks of Budapest reminded me of a combination of Paris and Florence.

After our tour we searched for a cafe to eat lunch back on the Pest side. Yet again, we were impressed by the eclectic cafe we found called "Most" - with a yummy array of food with a clean, and quirky designs.

After a little downtime at the hostel we took the subway to the northern edge of the city to experience the Turkish Baths! Two places had been recommended to us, and we learned on our tour that one of them was open until 10pm. Good...we wouldn't have to feel rushed during our soaks and oculd still get back with time to go out that night.

My only exposure to hot natural baths was in Asia - in Tawain and South Korea; both indoors and outdoors. I have to say that the Turkish baths stacked up well to their Asian counterparts... better than I anticipated. There were indoor and outdoor ones. They were bigger than the ones I went to in Taiwan (therefore, not as crowded), and swim wear was manditory, as opposed to the naked jinjipans in South Korea.....which was a good thing because as soon as we entered the courtyard pools, I immediately sensed the eyes of large, Hungarian "mafia" type men. My friends and I had some fun conversations in the bubbling hot pools (we made up "would you rather" situations for each other). One of the "mafia" men overheard our conversations and engaged us in conversation....mostly telling us about his life and travels. We were creeped out until he said that he was an Olympic boxing coach who'd been to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics...despite still being a burly, boxing, "mafia" man, somehow knowing that he'd been to Atlanta made him okay haha. Although we ran into him again in the sauna, and soon made a bee line for the exit...

That night we the rest of the crew at our hostel and played cards in the common space of our kitchen before going out. There were about 12 of us - a mix of British, Canadian, American, and Eastern European. Peter, an Instant Groove staffer took us first to an underground club with live music, and then two some smaller pubs also with dancing - they were really crowded. At first, I got a little agrivated with people who were dancing/falling into me with no apologies, despite the ample dance floor....of course I've been amongst swaying dancers in the past, but this just seemed like the style even for people who weren't intoxicated. The music wasn't anything that we knew how to dance to, but after an hour or two, we just let our bodies feel the flow and partook in the personal space evasion dancing.

We allowed ourselves to sleep in the next morning since we didn't get to sleep until about 6am.....one of my friends tried Absinthe the night before...so when we got back to the hostel she kept us up and laughing for another hour or so. Before checking out of the hostel and heading the the train station on Sunday, we hit up the mall - only covered about a quarter of it, but we all came out with some satisfying purchases, leftover from the January sales.