Where to begin? The airport? Yeah, the airport. I get my luggage and exchange some of my cash for Forints. I try and contact my couchsurf host with the wifi and my phone but I can't seem to use the payphones correctly. I go and buy a train ticket and end up using the attendant's phone to call my host. I'll meet here when I get off the train/metro. Kindness of strangers and having a sad face can work wonders. I have to take a bus to a train to a tram to get to the apartment. I take the bus to the last stop, it's always helpful when you're in a new place and you only need to take something to the last stop. I get on the train and my eyes keep darting back and forth between the station name and the directions on my phone to make sure I get off at the right stop. Hungarian is not a super easy language. I get to the station and wait for my host to meet me, I'm pretty hard to miss with my giant green backpack, red hair all over my face and my bright yellow backpack. Eventually my host and one of her flatmates arrive and we get back to her flat. She lives in a beautiful old apartment building, pictures are on film and will be posted when developed, probably when I get to Berlin.
I finally have a good wifi connection and can call up and cancel my cards. Time to stop worrying and just enjoy myself, I have enough cash to last me at least a few days if not a week. So we go out to lunch to this buffet, about $7 for all you can eat. Fried everything, all kinds of beans, pickles, I'm in heaven. Deep fried cauliflower. Say no more. After stuffing our faces we start the tour part. We go to the chain bridge, the castle district in Buda, St. Stephen's Basilica and lots of walking around. Now for some pictures!
Day two. Part two. I do some cooking in the morning, cutting up the butternut squash with my swiss army knife because the Ikea knives they had weren't exactly doing it. (I'm not gonna make that pun.) I manage to get it down. Sweet. Soon after this was all the credit card and western union BS. Later that evening. Of day two. The 24th of December. We're finishing up making dinner and starting to drink. Mmm... Ballantines Whiskey... There is something made that I've never heard of, Coxinha. Fried dumplings with the dough made from mashed potatoes, milk, butter, flour, eggs and some other things. Dipped in egg then some kind of batter and fried until its the best thing I've ever had deep fried.... God Bless Brazil. I couldn't eat any that night but I had some a few days later filled with my lentils. So good. Also, only about 13 people were there, not the expected 20 so there was enough of everything, even seats. One of the guests also brought a giant plate of some kind of egg salad sandwiches that I couldn't stop eating. So good but so bad. So much sulfur... Any who, it was really fun and I got to meet even more awesome Brazilians. Eventually people left but we still stayed in the living room till like 2 or 3 am. I taught my host(ess?) how to use different modes on her camera. I even got to bring out my tripod so we could take a group photo. Yes. I brought my tripod. My first christmas too!
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| Castle District, view from the top |
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| Basilica |
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Castle District and a scale model
Church, penguin not to scale
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After a really long day of seeing all the sights and walking around we need to go to Ikea to pick up a coat rack as Christmas is soon and we'll be having a big dinner and we need somewhere to put all the jackets. Ikea is a wonderland in any country, so many beds and couches to try out. The next day involves me sorting out all the BS of losing cards and trying to get enough cash until I get a new card sent out to me. Luckily there is Western Union and a global assistance program. So I spent the first half of the day on the phone with people. We found a place that does Western Union and the customer service rep, lets call him Gregory, called them up to see if they pay out in forints or dollars. He called them up and their reply- "No English". Welcome to Eastern Europe, or at least Budapest. So now it's my turn to walk over there and ask in person. I do and they tell me "No WIFI, can't do transfer." I grumble back across the street and call up Gregory again. There are some more places within walking distance so I go to one and after about twenty minutes of her angrily muttering at the computer and the phone, I get some much needed cash. I won't go into it more than I have but this was a very time consuming and frustrating ordeal. And to the ass who has my cards, thanks for the inconvenience.
Let's change the mood, shall we. Day two, Later that evening Christmas is almost upon us and we need to do some serious shopping. There are supposed to be 20 people coming over, there are barely 10 chairs... So we go to the supermarket in the evening in search of food. I know this meal isn't exactly geared for vegetarians so my own meal I must make. I decide to go with one of my favorite one pot dishes, lentils with onions, yams, mushrooms and goat cheese. Well we get to the supermarket and as far as produce there isn't much left. Two yams the size of a baby's forearm but plenty of butternut squash and I'm not really sure which one the goat cheese is but I see something with a goat on the cover and it says chevre, good enough. Then there is also the matter of drinks. They don't really have dark beers so I just go for a bottle of whiskey. All together it didn't cost me that much. During this shopping trip I also got to meet some of the other couchsurfers and people who live in the apartment. There were 4 people couchsurfing including myself but since some of the flatmates weren't in town there were enough beds for all of us. We get back eventually, trams and buses go everywhere and like some other cities almost nobody checks if you bought a ticket or not. Almost. Was that foreshadowing? Maybe. Maybe, yes. I just realized I'm messing up the order of events in this post but it doesn't matter and I'm too lazy to correct it. Just gonna leave it a mystery as to what actually happened when.
Day two. Part two. I do some cooking in the morning, cutting up the butternut squash with my swiss army knife because the Ikea knives they had weren't exactly doing it. (I'm not gonna make that pun.) I manage to get it down. Sweet. Soon after this was all the credit card and western union BS. Later that evening. Of day two. The 24th of December. We're finishing up making dinner and starting to drink. Mmm... Ballantines Whiskey... There is something made that I've never heard of, Coxinha. Fried dumplings with the dough made from mashed potatoes, milk, butter, flour, eggs and some other things. Dipped in egg then some kind of batter and fried until its the best thing I've ever had deep fried.... God Bless Brazil. I couldn't eat any that night but I had some a few days later filled with my lentils. So good. Also, only about 13 people were there, not the expected 20 so there was enough of everything, even seats. One of the guests also brought a giant plate of some kind of egg salad sandwiches that I couldn't stop eating. So good but so bad. So much sulfur... Any who, it was really fun and I got to meet even more awesome Brazilians. Eventually people left but we still stayed in the living room till like 2 or 3 am. I taught my host(ess?) how to use different modes on her camera. I even got to bring out my tripod so we could take a group photo. Yes. I brought my tripod. My first christmas too!
Day three. I'm on a long train ride from Vienna to Prague now so I'm just doing everything I can. I wake up kinda late, leftovers for breakfast. I go to Heroes Square with one of the couchsurfers and we try to go to one of the public baths but they were all sold out of lockers and we brought all our stuff so... Maybe some other time. We passed by some things of interest on our way back. The terror house and Jafar's.
For dinner, we're going to one of the friend's apartments and afterwards we're hitting up the club. The dinner consisted of Christmas leftovers, as there were a lot of them... More drinking ensued, some people drank what I would consider a little too much but to them its normal. A while later I end up going to this giant 4 story maze of a club/bar, I only took one picture. I went with 2 of the couchsurfers while everyone stayed behind to keep drinking. We passed by our apartment on the way there and I was so tempted to just go to sleep but as you may have already guessed, I did not go to sleep. I danced for the next 3 hours. My legs. They were tired. We get back to the apartment at around 4 in the morning. Some of the people take the tram I just walk. It was a good thing too as there were people checking for tickets on the tram. HA! Foreshadowing! There is a tiny bit more which I'll finish up later but here's this for now.
For dinner, we're going to one of the friend's apartments and afterwards we're hitting up the club. The dinner consisted of Christmas leftovers, as there were a lot of them... More drinking ensued, some people drank what I would consider a little too much but to them its normal. A while later I end up going to this giant 4 story maze of a club/bar, I only took one picture. I went with 2 of the couchsurfers while everyone stayed behind to keep drinking. We passed by our apartment on the way there and I was so tempted to just go to sleep but as you may have already guessed, I did not go to sleep. I danced for the next 3 hours. My legs. They were tired. We get back to the apartment at around 4 in the morning. Some of the people take the tram I just walk. It was a good thing too as there were people checking for tickets on the tram. HA! Foreshadowing! There is a tiny bit more which I'll finish up later but here's this for now.
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