No rest in Budapest!

Budapest was nice. The best part may have been the adventures had wandering the streets in the wee morning hours with all of our luggage walking from train station to train station trying to find a train home after we were not allowed on the bus.
Got back to Prague today around 1 from Budapest and am exhausted because we got little sleep the whole weekend and no sleep last night due to travel bumps along the road. I do think that being exhausted at the end of a trip is the best way but it was a whirlwind of awesome times and stress.
I'll tell you the whole story.........

Thursday:
Went to class with my drunk teacher and learned a few things :)
Boarded the midnight bus to Budapest and made it there at 7 in the morning. Our first order of business was to check in at our hostel which was sweet. It was down an alley way and called the 11th our cinema (they show videos in the group hang out room). They kept our luggage for us until we could check in to our rooms. we found the free walking tour which we discovered in Paris is amazing (they just run on tips). Navigated our way to the meeting place and met our super tour guide who had muscular legs and wore yoga pants (whoooaa). The free tours are so cool because we got a quick overview of the main sights and get to hear the history and facts and then can decide where we want to go back to later and go inside and visit. The free ones are great too because they tell you tourist traps and what may or may not be good to visit. We saw how the architecture is so different there with very old looking buildings next to communist grey sterile looking ones, we walked around the Buda castle and the downtown touristy area (where we were told not to hang out). After the tour the guides showed us a cheap Hungarian cafeterias aplace where i sampled some Galuska. Budapest is made up of Buda and Pest, the two different sides of the river. Buda is the flat part of the city where the parliament bridge and churches are. Pest is the hilly side of the road with the castle and battalion and such.
After the tour and lunch we visited St. Stephens church where we saw the real right hand of St. Stephen, they have it preserved in a glass case (gross). On the plaza in front of the church we saw people taking pictures with flat Stanley (the travelling paper boy that I had in 3rd grade) we talked ot the couple from California and Tennessee. We saw a Jewish Synagogue and a golden tree that has leaves of the Jewish killed. We then went back to our hostel and while my buddies napped I made friends with the roomies (we were all in different rooms) they were from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. We went out with them that night to a club in an old train station (which came in handy our night of terror because we recognized the club that was across the street form the real train station).
First Impressions:
- saw a women with her small son begging as soon as we got off at the tram stop
- saw more bikes and people on bikes here than I have since being in Europe
- Hungarian language is equally as hard to understand as Czech
- Freezing on day 1. Warmed up a bit.

Friday: We woke up and the girls walked a long the main roads close to our hostel to try and find a market I had looked up, we found some cool antique stores and a store with tons of leather jackets. i found a really cool old chocolate box. We met the boys and went to the Great Market which on the bottom floor has meat stands, cheese, paprika and food. On the top is a touristy area. I bought a t-shirt and some paprika, oh and a Hungarian dessert. (thanks to Julie Kenney I stopped in every Pek I saw, bakeries with cheap desserts) We walked across the bridge (there are four main ones) and up to the citadel which is a huge statue on top of a huge hill, it's a communist statue that was covered up for days after the end of communism but they kept it because it was pretty (info learned on the free walking tour) we had a picnic of bread, cheese, and delicious Hungarian pastries. Also saw a church that is carved into a mountain. Learned on the tour that a lot of the stuff in Hungary may look old but some of it is pretty new and kind of there for tourists. The fisherman's Bastille is one of those (pictures included). We trekked to the other end of town but walked along the river and saw the parliament buildings. Tiredness hit and things were closing down so we went back to the hostels for dinner. I went to meet a friend of Julie Kenneys that lives in Budapest, she was very nice and met me at the metro station and took me to the castle district where we rode the Funicular up the mountain and walked around a bit, we went to a cafe and had the 2nd best hot chocolate I have had in my life and another delicious Hungarian dessert (I discovered I kind of judge how cool a country is by there beer/wine and desserts.....is that bad?) She drove me to the top of the citadel to see the lights at night which was amazing and am glad she did because my friends weren't too interested in seeing them and that is one thing i was told i should do.

back at the ranch....or hostel.... we got ready to go out to listen to some live jazz and turned up at the place around 10 and it was over already. weird. So we had made friends with one of the tour guides that did not wear tight yoga pants and they told us about a club to go to went there and did not want to p[pay cover but decided :when in Budapest" got in and it turned out to be a great idea. there were four bands playing, all Hungarian, and they were all awesome. we partied and danced efficiently.

Sunday:
Awoke with bags under our eyes but ready to explore the city. Walked around our neighborhood to a corner store for bread buns for brekkie (which they eat a lot here) then to the Szechenyi Baths. These were incredible. It's a large hotel but has about 10-15 baths, most of them thermal. They range in temperature and size. After about the first hour in a ginourmous hot tub outside surrounded by beautiful architecture i wondered how long we could hang out there but about 5 hours later I didn't want to leave. All the while we were with our friend we met in the hostel Luciana form Argentia, on our way back to the hostel we were looking for somewhere to eat, she overheard ppl speaking Spanish and asked them and we found a gem of a place that was very artsy and delicious with traditional Hungarian food. My view of budapest is that it has a definite underground art scene which inspires me. The concert and all the posters and just the people I saw reminded me a lot of Austin. Our tour guide did say that although Hungary was under communism rule they did experience about 2 decades of under peaceful communism rule. I think you can tell in the way the people act and the freedoms they seem to express more so than in Prague. But I'm still searching for the underground scene here!

Sunday night:
Craziness that involved arguing with the bus man, being stranded at midnight in Budapest, going back to hostel where they were so nice and let us hang out in common room, leaving comfortable common room at 3 in the morning to wander the streets, finding one train station, train station closed- no tickets, wandering to another train station across town, don't worry no muggings, seeing light of train station #2, buying tickets, boarding with 5 minutes left, seeing sunrise in dining car, paying way too much for breakfast, getting to see beautiful Hungarian countryside, even seeing random castles built on top of hills!!!, not sleeping, getting home at 1pm, crashing. As this adventrue was occurring it was exciting, the train ride home turned out to be beautiful. but I can't even imagine backpacking for weeks on end. i am exhausted after a few days. Maybe I'll learn the tricks because we met Luciana who was supposed to be on vacation for two weeks but has now been travelling Europe for a year, and others we met in the hostels are awesome inspiring ppl. I pretty much want to be like them.

Good trip- planning Berlin as we speak.

Does anyone know anyone in Europe, I really enjoyed meeting with a local for coffee and am hoping to couch surf in Berlin this weekend!

Ciao

Pictures to come later....my computer is slowly dying.