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Published: July 11th 2010
On the Road
The traffic jam prior to BudapestDay 7 Vienna to Budapest
Travel day again. This time it was meant to be a much shorter day on the coach though. We didn’t have to be ready to go until 0900, and were expecting to be in Budapest between 1500-1600.
We got off to a slow start though, as we unfortunately had a case of lost property in the form of some jewellery of one of the girls. Unfortunate and upsetting for her, but not much that can be done about it.
The crossing of the border was unremarkable, though again slight problems with the road tax. They just don’t like to make it easy for us. Oh well.
About 38km from the city, one of the girls jumped put of her seat, literally, and asked to pull in to the next
service stop. This was, coincidentally, about 500m up the road. Since we were stopped everyone made use of the break even though there were a few looks clearly indicating that as we were only about half an hour from being there, why stop?
Rather fortunate really as about 2 minutes after getting on our way again, we were stuck in a traffic jam.
A big one. For an hour. In this time we managed to eat a watermelon, listen to LJ’s lame jokes, and tease Sean about his day in Bratislava yesterday.
Somehow, he actually managed to do the impossible and oh so clichéd and slip on a banana peel. Something that would only happen to Sean. He managed to slip on the banana peel, and land on someone’s car, had someone else open the tram door and smash him in the head, and of course he started the day by falling out of his top bunk. So, thinking his head might be a bit sore, the next time he got in the coach about 3 of us called out to him to watch his head. He looked up at us, smiled, and then stood up. And promptly hit his head. Something he has managed to do every day since the trip started. Heather offered to home school him for his first term of school (he’s starting his final year in September, and Heather is a teacher in Ireland) if he comes with us all the way to Sydney, just for the comedy value.
We are losing him in Kathmandu, as
Budapest
View from the Citadel at night well as Jana (who has to go back to Germany to start her work/training) and Richard and Aisleen (who are travelling in China a bit before catching a later OzBus to Sydney. But on the plus side, we pick up a girl in Istanbul, and possibly 3 people in Kathmandu.
Anyway, back to the bus. After sitting for an hour in the traffic jam, with doors wide open as there is no air conditioning on the bus, we finally got moving again. From what we could see, there had been an accident. It looked like at least 3-4 cars and a small truck were involved, but hard to tell by that stage. A clean run into the city then, and our hostel is walking distance to the river on the Pest side (and by walking distance I mean my definition of it, not LJ's, so about 20 minutes). Very good location. And we still managed to make it there by 1600.
As it was far too hot to go wandering around at that time, we all sat in the courtyard and finished off the watermelon and pineapples. A good start to the evening. A few of us took
Watching the game, Budapest
Heather, Norma, AJ at Champs Bar to the streets after that to see what was around the area and pick up some dinner.
At 2100 we met up and were taken into town on the bus, making stops at Heroes Square and then the Citadel on the Buda side of the river. The views were magnificent and there were even fireworks put on (just for us, I’m sure) but there were also rather sizable mosquitoes. Okay, okay, they were bloody huge!!! Fortunately for me I didn’t react too badly and the bites went away after an hour but some of the guys must have been really tasty because they were literally covered with the things like a blanket. At least if they were biting someone else, they were mainly leaving me alone!
After a quick drink in the rather quiet bar, we were all in bed by midnight. The heat really takes it out of you. A guy at the bar told us that Europe was in the midst of a heatwave at the moment. Typical, hey? Must have known I was coming...
Day 8 Budapest
Does anyone think it strange that I still woke up in time for breakfast at 0830, even though I wasn’t planning on going with everyone else when they left at 0900? Well I did, so I headed off for a walk towards the river. I do like Budapest, especially on a Sunday morning! Nice and quiet but still very BIG. There seem to be a lot more empty shops and abandoned buildings that the last time I was here, apparently they were hit hard by the ‘recession’.
I made it down to the river, took a bit of a walk along it, and then went back to the hostel where I had a very healthy and nutritious lunch consisting of a chocolate bar. I'm sure my mother is very proud of me...
When the other's got back from their trip to momento park, I ended up walking back to the river again with Norma for another look, and because she wasn't sure where it was. I had 3 different people ask me directions, convinced it was out and to the left at the main road. I don't know where they got that idea, because it is in the complete opposite direction!
On our way back we ran into the guys who had visited the Turkish baths (and yes, I am aware that we are not in Trurkey yet) and we stopped at Tesco's (never mind Turkey, you would think we were in the UK with all the Tesco's and Burger King's here!) for some wine and nibbles before heading back to the hostel for a bit of 'lunch'. Some very nice Hungarian white wine later, it was time to find an internet cafe - no wifi here! They do have funny keyboards though...
The game is on tonight, Spain vs. Holland. I will of course be cheering for Spain this time, as Thomas will no doubt be very enthusiastic about his team. A couple of the guys put money on Holland, which shouldmake it interesting. LJ was going to try and get a table reserved at Champs, which is a very big and very popular sports bar not too far from the hostel. I don’t think much of his chances though! He did just mention that he managed to reserved us some bar stools though! Guess we will see how it goes. Another big travel day tomorrow, so it won't be too late a night (what, you think I've said that before? Never!)
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