A compleatly different ball game all together

Budapest took me by suprise. I had no idea what to expect, it outdid all my expectations. Budapest is a massive city, the hub of commerce in eastern Europe, a truly remarkable place indeed. We spent 3 days here and it was no way near enough. The city has a real hustle and bustle feel to it. It is quite a dirty city, with lots of tramps and homeless people everywhere. However some parts of the city are extraordinary with magnificent architecture.The city itself is split in half by Danube river, one side is Buda and the other side is Pest. I believe they used to be seperate places, at some point it became Budapest.

After saying goodbye to Weston who flew back to the UK from Bratislava we boareded our 8 hour train journey to Budapest. We met up with this strange fella called richard. He was like 15 years older than Josh and I, he was quite interesting, had done alot of travel. He asked us if we minded if he tagged along with us, we said its fine not realising we would be lumbered with him for the whole 3 days!!

It outdid all my expectations, Budapest is a massive city, the hub of commerce in eastern Europe, massive nightlife, a truly remarkable place indeed

After a long train journey, we finally reach our destination. The heat was extrodinary, much hotter than we had previously experienced. After talking to the tourism office at the station, it became apparent that the hostel we had booked was 1.5hrs out of the city. We were advised to change our hostel which we did, in exchange for free transport there. Hostel hill, on top of, you guessed it a really big hill. (note to self, never stay at a hostel with the word hill in it again!) We booked a triplet. We dumped our stuff and left. The hostel itself was actually a university halls of residance. It was quite strange as there were university lecture theatres with exams going on. We have a little wonder around our local area. We were all hungry (no pun intended) so we head intot the first restaurant we find to eat the worst meal of the whole trip. It was utterly disgusting. Tuna pasta that was actually cod! Any way, we were told there was a music festival very near by and head towards it. After walking around for a while we eventually find this music festival, what an adventure this would become.

We arrive at the festival, which was actually pritty lame at the start. We chilled for a couple of hours and drank the beer on offer. to cut a very long story short a couple of hours later we end up on the roof of a wharehouse in god only knows where, with a couple of hungarian blokes and three girls. They showed us the most amazing view of the city, it was rather spectacular. We were later dropped back at the festival where, by now it had turned into a full blown rave. Several drinks, and several beers later we left for the hostel.

The next morning the three of us go for a walk into town. On the way to town we notice this statue ontop of a mountain, Liberty statue. We decide to trek up there to get a better view of the city. On the way up there are plenty of scammers trying to get the better out of the tourists. Up there we have great views of budapest, from the Buda side, so looking out over Pest. There was a bar up there, so we chilled to have a drink and watch the olympics. Nice start to the mourning. Back on ground level we cross the river and head into a market where we buy lunch. We sat down on a main shopping street and ate our lumch. We blended in nicely as the city is full of tramps anyway. We decide to walk around the city and see as many cites as possible. We saw chain bridge, which i believe is the first bridge to link Buda to Pest. We saw the government building which was beautiful, almost gothic in style. After this we walked towards St. Stephen's Basilica which was a lovely runway lined with bars and restaurents with amzing views of the cathedral getting bigger as you walk towards it. We approached the cathedral which had a large square lined with bars. We went in and had a look around, as richard was catholic he gave us some insight into what we were seeing.

We came out of the cathedral and headed towards Budapest's Jewish centre. We saw 3 or 4 old synagogues. one of them was the main one, this had an extrodinary holacaust memorial. After a sit down and a long talk with richard about Jewish life, we walked passed a chabbad house. What this is is a ultra Jewish orthodox place of wership. We went in , had some food and left. Was nice. It started to rain, so we ran under a bridge congrigated with teens. kids smoking and drinking under this bridge in the pouring ran in budapest. We decided to wait here and talk to the kids while the rain passed. It never passed, we we legged it from here into a club! It was about 5 or 6pm and we were in thisclub. there was a live band and it seemed everyone was in here because of the rain. It was packed in there. It was rather cool and funky. After staying in here for a while we decide to make our way back to the hostel which was a good hour walk away from where we were. On the way back we stop at a english style pub for probably the most expensive pint in the world. We head back stopping for food and just crash after a shattering day of touring the city.

The following day we decide to finish off what we missed the day before. We arrive at a bar at the Bacilisa for a drink. We chilled there for about an hour. This is when Josh and I decided to be a bit spontaniuos and came up with the idea that we want to go Croatia right now! Thats what we did, with a hickup along the way of korse. We tell richard that we are going back to the hostel to collect our stuff to leave for croatia. We all head back together, this time we r on the tram back. Tickets we did not have and we got caught red handed by an inspector. We are marshed off towards the police station. We pay the man a cash bribe of about £10 each and we are on our way again to the hostel, with a ticket this time. Josh and I pack our stuff and say good bye to Richard, it had been emotional, not really. Josh and I wer at thisp oint on our way to Croatia, fun in the sun to finish off what had so far been an amazing trip.

We get to the tram stop to the station, only to discover we could not buy a ticket, we asked everyone, each person said a different thing. We tried everything everyone said and were still unable to find a ticket. So we jumped on anyway. We got to the station and qued at the international desk for about an hour before we saw anybode. We met these cool Finish girls who we were chatting to for several hours. I cannot remember where they were going, but they had been in Budapest for 2 weeks! That just goes to show our 2.5 days wwas no way near long enough! the city is vast. After speaking to the lady behind the international desk, we discover the train to Zagreb had departed 30 mins ago. And the next train was in 14 hours. As we had payed for that nights stay in budapest we headed back to the hostel to stay the night, we would have to get up at 4am to catch the 6am train to Zagreb which would get in about 1pm. 

We got back to the hostel banging on the door, Richard was not in. The key was not at reception. We were stuck outside our room, Richard thinks we are long gone never to be seen again. We have no weed, it was a bit of a nightmare! This young chap, about our age come over to us and starts cnversing. it turns out he is a student at this university and lives in these halls of residence. We tell him the situation and he invites us in his room where we chill out. It was much like my room at university. He tells us that he can sort a room out for us tonight. We end up bring some matresses down from the floor above, and put them in his kitchen where josh and I end up spending the night, it turned out it was more comfortable then our actual room, richard had no idea! Some more students came to join us, the girls were stunning!! Our new friend invites us out with him to a lkae where we can drink and smoke. We get some cheap wine and head down there. Me josh and our new friend are sitting on a bench with wine talking politics and history, economics and science with our eastern european counterpart. Josh and I were stunned at how friendly and charming this fella was to tourists he had just met. We were both asking ourselves would we do the same in his positin, the answer was probably not! This guy was aiming to be the future prime minister of Hungry, and he probably will be. Not many people go to university in Hungry. Although not the maddest night we had on our tour, it was equally memorable and probably one of the most cultured and interesting nights of the trip. We went back to the hostel nicely drunk to sleep on this guys kitchen floor to wake up at 4am. It was Josh's birthday.

Rise and shine, We get the first tram to the station and get on your train to Zagreb, from here we had no plans other then head south.