Good-bye Vanessa, hello Prague!

So, to take up where I ended last time - Balaton Sound.
The last days were great, all in the same atmosphere as the first few days. We lazed endlessly in the shade while listening to a house dj in the day, we danced to Fatboy Slim in the evening (what a funny guy...) as he reminded us to be "right here, right now"..
Sunday afternoon the heat was getting more and more stuffy while dark ominous clouds were rolling in and they even warned the happy festival campers in the speaker system that there was going to be a lot of rain. Or at least that was what our Hungarian neighbours kindly translated to us. So we got ready for the apocalypse, stabilizing the tent, getting the fly to the hammock into place, thanked ourselves for picking a spot on high ground and waited. And waited. After a little nap in the hammock (I didn't get a lot of sleep the previous night, having been out till first light dancing to David Guetta (who was ok, but a bit too much techno for me..) and waking up at 9, almost suffocating in my tent with the sun blazing outside) I climbed out to find blue skies above and the clouds breezing off in the distance. So no rain.
Monday morning, I wouldn't know what time but the music was still playing so maybe 4.30, 5?, a freezing cold Vanessa crawled into the tent next to me and hogged my thermarest. I was too tired to even realize until a few hours later when that hell's flood had started to come down and my neck was in an all but comfortable position. We waited out the rain, had some breakfast crouched inside the tent and had a peek out, again thanking ourselves for picking high ground - some of the tents were now standing in big muddy puddles with all the garbage heaping up during the weekend floating around in it. We packed up and were pretty thankful that the rain had waited as long as til Monday morning.
So, to summarize Balaton - shiny happy people dancing, lazy lounging, vibrating base until 6 am, langos (deep fried dough with sour cream and grated cheese on top, Hungarian specialty), 0 fresh vegetables and LOTS of Heineken beer.

Next stop Budapest, capital of Hungary. You have Buda and you have Pest the river Danube parting them. Apparently the Buda side is the oldest, Pest was built a bit later and it wasn't until 1873 that it was decided to submerge them. Thus making it one of the younger cities in Europe.
I liked Budapest a lot. The architecture is wonderful, indescribable. Vanessa and I had one full day together in Budapest and we started out what turned out to be something close to an epic tale - trying to find Vanessa a train ticket. Lines, no paying with VISA due to technical problems, not very helpful train station staff, walking block after block in search for a travel agency, people trying to butt into the front of the line... Finally the odessy was over, Vanessa had her ticket for Kosice in Slovakia.
A bit discouraged from the rain we dove into a Chinese restaurant for lunch which turned out to be excellent and really cheap! Nine dragons I think it was called - we had prawn chips, eggplant, tofu, fish and fried rice, all for an equivalence of about 20 euros. Happy and full of food we continued our walk, mainly admiring the buildings.
We were about the cross the river on the chain bridge back to the Buda side (where we rented a room from a 82 year old widow) to check out the castle up on the hill and get a good view for the sunset a few hours later, when Vanessa desperately needed the washroom. As we were just in front of the Four Seasons Hotel we decided to pop in a use their's. Wow. What a hotel. It just opened in 2004 and has been perfectly restored from when it was built around the end of the 19th century (I think..). So we used their washroom, admired the amazing chandalier and decided to have some local Hungarian wine. So we spent a few hours in a comfortable sofa drinking wine from the southern regions of Hungary, eating snacks that just kept coming and enjoying the very friendly and knowledgable staff. Finally realizing that we should get back to the real world we (a bit tipsy) stumbled out to find the sky overcast. So no sunset, but we crossed the river and took the penicular up to the top of the hill (a disappointingly short ride of 1 minute) to find the bridge, the Four Seasons, the Parlament all lighting up. The view was amazing and it was nice walking around on the cobble stones admiring the old buildings without a million tourists tripping on our feet.
So we had a great last day together, Vanessa and I, with a nice balance of a bargain lunch and luxury afternoon-wine... Saying good-bye Wednesday morning was, as always, difficult. I had a great five days of company!

But the show must go on, so on my own again I stepped on the train to Prague. 7 hours watching the Hungarian, Slovakian and Czechian landscape go by actually went a lot quicker than I thought it would. The first three hours I spent with Judith and her son Marcus, 2 years. Judith works as a guide in Bratislava and is originally from Finland - and I regret not being able to make a stop in Bratislava this time, from what she told me it sounds beautiful.
In Prague I found a great little hostel called Sir Toby's - I make the warmest recommendations for anyone who wants to stay in Prague for a few days. The staff is super friendly and helpful (among them a guy from Lebanon who has lived in Kalix, up north in Sweden, for 20 years..), the rooms very cozy, the facilities nice and fresh and the beds comfortable. Every person that I've talked to here is friendly and open and tonight I've made plans to go for drinks with a couple of Irish guys.
After having checked in I took a trip into town to look at the castle, this too on a hill with a marvelous view of the city, and the Charles bridge. It's beautiful, but very very touristy. Families with kids or couples everywhere, menues in seven different languages, hello I'll draw your picture for special price, please buy these very nice (cough) souvenirs... But today I walked around in the old town trying to avoid the biggest streets and it's so nice. I could spend days just looking at all the building, statues, patterns, alleyways...

I should really get back to exploring Prague, concering how little time I have here.. Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Berlin and Monday morning it's back to reality...

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