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Published: August 5th 2008
Four nights with Bori in Budapest: Bori, our couchsurfing.com host, picked us up at the train station. We walked back to her apartment (it took about 15 minutes), where she showed us our room and the rest of the house. It was a courtyard complex, that was very cute. Her father was staying at their summer house and her mom, Kati, would be arriving later that afternoon. We rested a little while, then went with Bori to a Turkish cafe. I had this eggplant yogurt dish that was so good, I had to go back the day before we left to get some more.
On our second day, Bori showed us around Budapest, so we would be able to be on our own the next couple of days. We walked, rode all the different modes of public transportation and walked some more. We go to see a big marketplace, Hero Square, the top of Buda side hill and a couple of pedestrian streets with shopping and cafe's. We really liked that Budapest was so inexpensive. It was almost as cheap as Turkey, but the infrastructure was a lot better. The subway trains are very fast.
The third day Tricia
Our digs
The complex where our couchsurfing.com host lives.and I navigated on our own (not so hard) and found our way out of the city to the Communist Statue Park. We spent a couple of hours there and it was totally empty. Near the end of our time there, we were asked by a young guy if we would take his picture. I recognized his accent and asked him where he was from. He said Boston, so I asked him if he knew Johnny Cupcakes. He said he did and we got to talking and when I asked him if he was staying in a hostel, he asked me if I had ever heard of couchsurfing? It was funny. I told him we were couchsurfing too and we proceeded to compare hour hosts/couches. We were definitely the luckier ones. Bori was amazing. Mike, the couchsurfer from Boston, turned out to be a couchsurfing.com ambassador and was setting up local get togethers for the Budapest surfers. Unfortunately, our host, Bori, was taking us to the Baths at the same time as the get together, so we couldn't attend. We did make arrangements to hang out with Mike the next day when we went to the town of Szentendre.
Tricia and Bori
On a bus headed up the hill on the Buda side On our last day in Budapest we hooked up with Mike and took the train to the Danube river town of Szentendre. We walked around the typical tourist type village and had some ice cream and coffee. It was so hot that day. I think it went up to about 90 degrees. Record breaking. And, of course, no a/c anywhere. Bori and her mom took us to the baths later that evening and it was so nice. I thought after all the heat of the day, that I wouldn't want to get in the hot baths, but by the time we got into the place, the temperature had cooled down quite a bit and the hot baths felt wonderful.
Our last morning in Budapest, Bori surprised us with care packages of snacks to take with us. We were so happy. Everything was delicious. I saved one of the candy bars for my hike on the West Highland Way in Scotland. Bori also made arrangements for an airport shuttle. I really love couchsurfing. It is so helpful to have a local available and I have met such great people.
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