We woke up at 6:00 am and got ready. When I left, my roommate was still sleeping. We were in line for breakfast right at 7:00 when they opened. Good thing too… when we sat down, a large school group of about 50 people got in line.
After breakfast, we walked to the train station and caught the 8:20 train to Budapest. The train ride was about three hours long, and the countryside was beautiful on the way. Everything was very green. Darcy used the time to perfect some yoga poses.
Train to Budapest 002
At the train station in Budapest, we were hassled by about five different people who were trying to sell us a room for the night. Before we left the station, we exchanged some Euros for some Hungarian Forints. It was kind of fun to have a bill for 10,000 Forints even though it is equivalent to maybe 50 US dollars.
Once we left the train station, we boarded the metro toward the Pest city center… or so we thought. Somehow we ended up on a train out of the city rather than in. No big deal though, we eventually figured it out.
Traveling in Budapest has probably been the most difficult of any European city so far because of the different currency with a funky exchange rate and the language. Mygar is very different than any other language we’ve encountered so far.
Once we arrived in the Pest city center, we walked around and found a nice pedestrian mall. There was an H&M on it of course. We decided to cross over into Buda and hike up Castle Hill to the Royal Palace. We could have taken the Funicular, but we would rather torture our legs.
Budapest 025
At the Royal Palace, we were rewarded with amazing views of Pest. Well worth the hike. The Dunube river valley is very beautiful!
Budapest 046
After soaking up the views, we stopped over at a café for some desert. I forget the name of the desert, but it contained bread dumplings with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. A couple guys from South Africa sat next to us and we chatted for a while. They were in town for some energy conference. I didn’t catch everything they said because of their British accents. It is interesting how two people can speak the same language, yet have such a difficult time communicating because of pronunciation.
Budapest 054
After our desert, we walked down the hill and crossed back over into Pest. By the river, we crossed a path with pedestrian and bike signs painted on it. It was a utopian image.
Budapest 068
One thing I wanted to do in Budapest is go to a public bath. We would have to take a metro to get to one, so we decided to skip it since it would eat up quite a bit of time and we wouldn’t get back to Vienna until late. In retrospect, I wish we had gone.
We spent some more time hanging out in Pest. I was able to snatch some WiFi in a park, but my battery was low and I couldn’t find a plug-in. We only had enough battery to check our email. We left for Vienna at about 6:00 pm, so we were only in Budapest for about 6 hours and some of that time was spent in transit to/from the train station. Budapest seemed like a very cool city. I will have to come back some day and visit longer.
Budapest 079
Darcy used the time on the train back to Vienna to do some sit-ups, work her triceps, and pick at her feet.
Train from Budapest 007
We got back to Vienna around 9:00. We grabbed a couple slices of pizza and a couple beers from a street vendor and ate them at a streetcar stop. I love that street vendors are set up everywhere and everyone can sell beer and you can consume it in public. It seems like many European cities are less stringent than American cities, so the public space takes on an organic quality where things just work themselves out in a balanced way. US cities are so regulated and segregated into zones that every city looks about the same. Each has the same stretch of commercial land with the same chain restaurants and retailers and the same big-ass Wal-Mart. Same, same same! We are like lemmings being fed through this big commercial machine.
Ok, enough of my tangents… After we ate our pizza and drank our beer, we did some Internet stuff then went back to the hostel. When I got to my room, my guy was sleeping again.
Click here to see all our Budapest photos.
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