Budapest

Day 12. Prague to Budapest.

After a quick breakfast I made the boring and un noteworthy train ride, bout seven hours total, to Budapest.

When I arrived I am embarrassed to admit that it took me a good five minuets to find me way out of the labyrinth that is Budapest train station under construction. Seriously I was stuck in the station. Lol. Found my way eventually and followed the detailed instructions with a few hiccups but I did find my way to the hostel. I even caught the tram, after which I realised that I was probably suppressed to pay for, but didn't. In my excitement and eagerness to find the place, paying simply slipped my mind. 

Arriving at the hostel, which is a gorgeous old building and unmarked, up a stunning and lavish (but distressed looking, which I love) stair well and into the hostel that seriously feels like I am staying in a group house. A detailed introduction to and map of the city and the hostel and an immediately social vibe. 

There are some cool people here already, though a lot of them are leaving tomorrow, but more will come. I decided to scratch Bratislava and extend here for two more nights. Hopefully that will be a good call. 

I signed up right away for the jäger train party tonight, not quite understanding what's jäger train is. 

Away we went, after all ordering in some pizza as a group to the ruin bar for the famed jäger train. We, quite a small hostel, met up with our two sister hostels there, so there were a whole heap of backpackers. And some colourful characters indeed. 

The jäger train is, as it happens, where they set up a whole stack of glasses of red bull and balance the shots of jäger on the edges and then all in one go set them off like a domino chain. All the jäger dropping into the other glasses. You then go and collect your five. That's right five jäger bombs and all do the first one together. I somehow, astonishingly drank all my jäger bombs and remained standing and was able to speak all night. 

Back at the hostel I and a Canadian guy fell asleep on the bean bags in the common room, waking up at about seven in the morning and finally having the bright idea to go to bed. 

A fun night was had by all. 

Day 13. Budapest

No voice 

Goulash with bert the Canadian.  

Bus ride and waiting. Long hot and unorganised tour. Chatted to people on the bud though. 

Caving trip. Amazing fun. !! 55m below gRound. 

Home late 

Caught up to open mic night 

Saw baby Pommy's and Eddie that I met in Berlin.  

Tired, went home earlyish.

Day 14. Budapest

Feeling much better, a it of a voice. 

Breakfast with Morton in the Jewish quarter. Super cheap 900ea sw and lemonade 

Jewish quarter. Tracked down great coffee. 

Bike tour bastards wouldn't go. So rented a bike and explored. 

Terror museum

Heroes square and park etc

Costume party. 

Stereotypes. 

Stupendously fun night. 

Buckets

Stock market

Karaoke

Weird end. 

I did... Nothing. Nothing all day.

A lie. I cooked food. 

Then I went out in search of food and got waylaid by a collection of staff members who had met for half price margaritas. So I joined them for a while, loving every moment of the crazy stories and world that is the hostel industry in Budapest. 

After that I returned to the hostel hungry and drunk. :)

Somehow managed to get dressed and ready and then set off for the much famed and awaited boat party. 

The party was a blast, mingling, chatting, a little dancing, kissing under bridges (an old Hungarian tradition) and general nationalist mockery. And of course a fabulous look at the spectacular beauty that is Budapest. Especially all lit up at night the castles and monuments are offensively attractive. 

After the boat sailed and returned to dock we all shuffled off and onto a consistently docked boat that is a club. The club wasn't all that good but the people on board certainly were. There were a few adventures like Alex (aka Crusty) one of the staff members trying to keep guests out of the boat toilets who enraged one man to the point that he threatened to piss on him. 

I was chilling with the staff for most of the night and was mistaken for a staff member by multiple people. Even guests of the same hostel I am staying in. Because I wasn't new when they arrived and just seemed to fit in apparently. Yay for me. 

The night was a blast and one to be remembered.

Still in Budapest? Well yes I am. 

I was meant to be here for a grand total of four nights, one of my longer states anywhere and a number I have found to be a good limit that doesn't allow you to become bored (not that you every truly get bored, but you don't long to see new places) with a place but gives you long enough to see a lot and party a lot.  Well tonight is my sixth night. Deciding to scratch Bratislava from my itinerary was an easy call as I heard it was quite boring and I was frankly loving the feel of it all in Budapest. So I extended, before i had even been out that night. But now, I keep extending. I can't escape. Haha. What can I say. I love it here. But I was a bit disappointed that I arrived the night after the bath party (a wild and raucous party in the thermal baths) and would be leaving the day of and would be missing it. So I cancelled one night in Vienna and extended here yet again. I am going the whole hog. And staying the full week doing every BPH party.  

Today I forced myself to venture out and do some touristy shit. So I went and joined a walking tour. But to be honest the whole tourist bit kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. My experience hanging out with the staff here is so grungy, bohemian and free that I just couldn't hack walking around, camera in hand and listening to stories about why a statue was erected or bad jokes about Hungarian accents or them speaking Hungrish. Also I picked out a "free" tour, something I had never done before, usually preferring bike tours. I had always assumed that these free tours were run by the council or local tourism boards or something. But they are in fact a company and tips are expected. Silly of me not to realise that but I just think that is something says it is free in the name, it really ought to actually be free. Also it means that big groups turn out to save their dolla dolla and the tours are just kind of mass produced and tacky. Well this one was at least. Better to just shell out for a real tour I think. So I went along for a while and then started thinking long and hard about extending or not. So I bailed on the tour and headed on home. 

I should mention that just before I did bail, there was this statue of a little girl down by the river that you are supposedly meant to rub its thighs for good luck. A bit pedofelic I thought, but, when in Rome. So away I rubbed, now remember this for latter and judge for yourself just how lucky this was for me. 

So I went back and decided, yes, extend again. 

Something. I did something I can't remember. 

Hanging out in the hostel a girl Laura, who had just checked in was on Facebook and flashed around this photo of a guy she had met on her trip who had fucked up his foot in Croatia. We all ooed and ahhhed and were glad it was not us. A moment latter I checked my Facebook and what the hell. There was the very same photo on my news feed. :O

It was a guy I has met in Budapest at the hometown stereotype party. She had met him in Prague I think. Crazy little world. 

It was then time for the bar crawl. Led by Will today. Now apparently Will is the one staff member that gets the hostel bad reviews occasionally, he can be rude occasionally. But I would gladly punch anyone that thought Will was anything but an amazing human being. He is from London, but has lived in hipster Melbourne as a barissta. So away we went, stopping off at an ATM on the way. Oddly, the new girl Laura and I both had trouble getting money out of a machine, both using cash passports, this was odd. Eventually a friendly ATM was found. But what was weird is that somewhere in the space between pulling my card from the ATM and putting it in my wallet as I walked, literally, ten steps the card disappeared. I think I was pick pocketed. But have no way to know for sure. Anyway. After searching the area I decided I needed to go back to the hostel and cancel the card. An hour on hold and a lot of stress my card was cancelled and luckly unused. Phew. 

Then to meet back up with the pub crawl, I had all the spots marked out on the map and ran back there. And I do really mean ran. Screw the time it takes to walk. I was in a hurry I had been stressed out of my mind. It was time to FUCKEN party. 

I found them all, and perhaps smartly, perhaps foolishly downed two vodkas in about three minuets, then Will led us to a thinly little local dive bar and made us all do shots. And then another drink directly after that. But all was well in the end.

After this we started meeting up with the other sister hostels and headed to a dub step and techno club. On the walk there some d bag stepped on the back of my shoe to which I jokingly went ape shit at him, laughing at the end. Before I realised that he had actually broken my boot. Fuck. So now I was stuck all night with one boot with a sole hanging half off.

 But I found my people. The staffers again. Particularly Krusty (they give the most awful nick names out here) and after a bit of dancing and drinking we headed up to the roof to chill and chat. It was at this point that Krusty (aka respectable 23 year old salesman Alex from Nebraska) started to complain about his eye hurting. It suddenly dawned on him to wonder if perhaps he had left a contact lense in there. After a bit of a drunken eye poke he discovered that in fact he did have a contact in there. Just in the one eye mind you, that had been in there for at a minimum of five days. I guess never having needed glasses I can't really understand how he had not been just a little bit curious about why he could see so well without contacts. 

After begging me to tell him sad stories to make him cry and make the pain of a five day old contact removal, and many vain attempts on my part to comfort him we eventually left the club. On the threshold though he smashed his toe on the door frame splitting the whole front of the pad wide open. Good nigh for Krusty. 

So he, broken footed and I broken booted somehow made our way to both late night pizza and yet another bar and then back to Retox bar to drink more with the staffers and then finally off to bed. 

Day 18. My last day in Budapest. Wahhhhhhh...

I woke up and hung out with Shannon for a while, a Retox bed bitch (lives at the hostel for a short time for free doing menial cleaning tasks and errands) who was finishing up that day and so had no cleaning duties. I then went back and packed not wanting to have to do a rush job the next morning. 

I went out and did something. Only I can not for the life of me remember what. 

Then it was time for happy hour at arribas where I had four margaritas and felt pretty good about that. There was a huge group today and much fun was had. I received many arse slaps due to a BPH rule that forbids the word "mine", if ya say it ya get a slap. And I am not quite conditioned out of the habit yet. 

Drunkenly we returned home and got changed and ready for the spa-rty. The big ass party in the thermal baths. 

We started out at Retox bar where for some reason people kept handing me more drinks for free. Huh. Well I wasn't complaining. Jess glitterised everyone's faces, mine included and then off we set in a massive walking train all the way to the baths. All the ti e aware of the Budapest noise curfew and the legends of thrown eggs, food, piss and shit from locals's windows. Urgh. 

We made it, unsoiled and checked into the baths. You pay for a drink card, load it up with money and use that to pay by scanning your card. Much better than trying to stash or keep money dry. 

And on it was. Great lighting, great music and beach balls a plenty. I learnt early not to take my drink into the water. Unless I wanted it laced with pool water, and worse. Much worse. 

Finding the staffers again I was with them the rest of the night. Where I made a spur of the moment decision to tackle and wrestle Krusty. Inadvertently screwing up an old shoulder injury for a few moments. Once fixed, Krusty revealed that he in fact was on his high school wrestling team, leotards and all. To which I had zero hope of ever controlling my laughter. Only in America hey. 

There was more excitement, craziness and much grouping. As we were leaving Krusty remembered a conversation the staffers had had earlier and very abruptly "marlined" me. Marlin, as in a prize catch fish. It involved him picking me up and lifting me out of the water, hooking a finger in my mouth and displaying me as if I were a sword fish. My mind realed in the shock trying to figure out if I, as a feminist, needed to be offended. I decided no I didn't and let the laughter run free. It was damn funny. 

We got a cab home drank and tried to make the night last forever, as it was my last.