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Published: June 25th 2007
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Hello again!
Well, after perhaps the longest train ride on earth, we arrived at the bright lights of Budapest at 5am Thursday morning (though at this time they weren,t very bright at all). Exhausted after another interruption filled nights sleep, but excited to be somewhere new, we got a taxi to the door of our hostel ready to crash out on our pre-booked beds. UNFORTUNATELY when we got there, we buzzed the buzzer and an old bloke came and told us the hostel had been shut for 6 months ... ahhh! Two hours and a lot of trekking later we found a different hostel: The red bus hostel, only to be told that the bloke had lied to us and our original hostel was in fact fully open and running. NOT AMUSED.
After that shaky start we were too awake to go back to sleep, so we had an quick explore of some of Pest, before crossing the bridge to Buda - the old part of the city. Here we looked through the old town on Castle hill, which turned out to be up a lot of steps. The town is really beautiful, the buildings are all lovely,
Buda
The old section of the city but the food and drinks are complete rip offs. That,s the only thing I don,t like so much about Budapest, that the prices are closer to english (though still considerably cheaper) than the other places we,ve been so far, though I suppose that was only to be expected. We then went to meet Dave (a friend we made) and his two friends, and climbed up the HUGE hill next to where we were. Tori didn,t even moan as she was having to try so hard to breathe, it was steep. The views from the top made up for it though, and we had a nice stroll around and spoke to two californians. By this time our feet were in serious pain so we had a sit down for ages before attemping to stumble back down.
On Saturday we went to City park - a big park full of trees and grass and shade and lovely hidden away buildings. Unfortunately we managed to get stuck for a while walking in the middle of a big group of Geordie men - assumably on a stag do. After escaping from their talk of how their beer drinking went last night, we managed
to come to a river where you could hire out boats for half an hour. Brilliant we thought, that,d be lovely on such a hot day. We soon realised rowing wasn,t quite as easy as it looked, but after several major crashes and been out classed by some 8 year olds, our skills were definitely looking up. So confident were we that on the way back we decided to go through the smaller hole of the bridge, only to crash continuously for about 5 minutes before finally emerging out the other side. It was good fun though. After the park we went to watch human chess - how cool is that. It was slightly less cool than we expected as it was actually chess games being used to demonstrate historic events, however though the hungarian explanation was lost on us, we grew to love it. After a day of adventure we returned to our hostel and cooked dinner... mmm pasta. That night we went out along chain bridge, which was having a festival and then us to castle hill where the night of the museums was taking place - unfortunately we were a bit late to see this, but we
Fishermans Bastion
This lookout post was built in honour of some men who used to guard the city from this point listened to a trashy band and drank beer, we were happy.
The next day we set out on a mission to go to Statue Park, after reaching the tram stop to find we were at the wrong one, and then finding out the right on was not in use, we came across the Hungarian National Museum. We went and very educationally learnt about gengis Khan and the Mongol Empire (not very relevant to Hungary I know, but really cool). By this time we decide to give up on STatue park - we also found out it costs money (outrage), and went instead to Margerate Island, and island on the river. Here we strolled around, had an absolutely delicious lunch, I rode a bucking bronco for the first time ever (and tori fell off dramatically as soon as it moved). We also had a look around the japanese gardens there, which we nice, but small. In the evening we had a nice meal in the hostel and played some epic card and chess games, we taught Robbie the hostel man to play spoons which he got really into.
Today we are off to Eger - a town in north-east
Hungary. We have changed our plans slightly, as looking on the internet all the cheap places in Vienna and Prague are booked up for ages! So we are instead planning to go up through SLovakia to Krakow, then Bratislava and so on ...
We have really enjoyed our time in Budapest, again it has been very different to both Istanbul and Plovdiv, though as we work our way north-west it seems to get more western (as you would expect). The city itself has a lot to offer if you,re willing to pay for it, though we have also managed to have loads of good days pratically free of charge. The people are more reserved here, and a lot of the time can,t be bothered to try to help you, though I suppose thats what you get in big cities.
Take care, Miss you all Xxxx
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Polly Theedom
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Mate
Mate(s), why the hell di dyou think that you could row? You and Tori in a boat together! I'm surprised you didn't die!! Interesting bloggity blog though. Looks beautiful, and still looks like you're both having a fabulous time. Can safely say (especially after hearing that Budapest isn't stupidly cheap) I will not be coming to meet you guys at some point in your trip. COuld bore you with financial details but I don't think I need to depress you whilst you;re enjoying what looks like an entirely fantastic trip. Love you both loads and I know it's selfish but I want you back in England please. Bye. Love Polly Squiddly Woo (you see what I'm doing, mocking myself because I haven't got you guys here to do it for me)