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Published: August 13th 2007
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Budapest 1
Transylvania castle July 24, 2007
Jump and Run!! Budapest by Justin
Our trip to Budapest started normal enough. We arrived, found lodging, got settled and set out on a walk to get to know our surroundings. We stayed on the Pest side of the Danube River. It was very nice. The city is very beautiful and has an elegant cosmopolitan energy. After almost 5 weeks of traveling, we are feeling pretty confident in new European settings. We noted that Budapest seems more expensive than the last several places we visited but to be expected in a big city. After traveling in Eastern Europe for so many weeks we had gotten use to things being a little less expensive.
On our first full day in Budapest, we decided to “take the waters” like the locals. Budapest is known for its Turkish baths. We got some practice in Eger Hungary. We spent two full days in Eger. It is very charming and quite fun. We dined outside our hotel one night listening to a sweet man play traditional music on his violin. Will danced in the square and had a blast. Hungarians love to relax and often spend their days
Budapest 2
The statue of Anonymous taking long mineral baths. Hungary has them all over. We tried out the thermal baths in Eger at a huge complex. It was very fun…we even learned the communist style entry procedure that if messed up leads to stern ladies shouting at you in Hungarian. Since we understand not one word…they often yelled louder. By the time we got to Budapest…we were experts in the entry procedure. We spent a totally relaxing afternoon at the Szechenyi Baths in the city park. It was great fun…the boys loved it as did Scott and I. Totally relaxed we set out on the metro to our hotel….the fun ends here…
As we departed from the metro station there were station agents posted outside the turnstile checking tickets. No problem….we did this on the way to the park…we bought the same tickets...right! Wrong!! The station agents were the Hungarian version of Cruella deVille and the Queen from Snow White. They TOLD us in no uncertain terms that we bought the wrong tickets and now had to pay a fine. We offered to pay the difference in price which was the equivalent of .30 US cents. They said again in their wicked witch of
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Relaxing after "Taking the Waters" the West voices that no we had to pay a fine. I said Ok...write us the ticket. She said NO…CASH..NOW…but we do not have much cash now I said….get and come back we will hold your children.. Ok….now I was mad. No you won’t. AS this was going on, Scott tried to determine the amount of said fine. It was fluctuating from $25 USD to $100. So finally I said we aren’t paying call the police. I said the police and the US consulate general will figure this out. Of course Cruella and mean Queen were trying to rip us off. They had no intention of calling the police…they offered a lower fine. I said no…call the police. Just then both my kids started to cry. Will was whaling so loud that it was wrecking the scam that mean Queen and Cruella were trying to pull off. I loved it…to further their aggravation…two American tourist were photographing it with their cell phones. That gave me the idea to snap a few photos of my own…so you have my kids screaming, Scott completely aggravated, and me snapping pictures. That really made them mad. They then told me if I didn’t stop
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Mean Queen and Cruella they would take my camera. The kids screamed more….they said they needed out passports…that’s it…a scam!! Poor Scott couldn’t take it…he PAID THEM!!! I couldn’t believe it. They took our tickets and wouldn’t give us a receipt. We were scammed! I promptly reported them to my hotel. For the first time on the whole trip we stayed at a chain hotel. The front desk guy was appalled and walked down to the train station and reported them to the manager. My pictures had their badge id numbers so there is hope that they may be caught…still we are out $50.
We tried to move past the unpleasantness the next day by taking a nice walking tour of Buda…the other side of the river. It was lovely though most landmarks we came to discover were re-built after WWII…still we had nice views and a good walk. We were on our way back to our hotel heading toward the bridge and while crossing the street toward the bridge we stepped on the sidewalks ignoring orange cones and Hungarian signs and stepped in hot tar. We didn’t really get it until Scott yelled “Holy Sh*t “and hopped away. We just looked at
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At the Market him and then realized we were standing in newly paved sidewalks with hot tar. We burst out laughing and walked off. The fun didn’t end…we were back in Pest walking toward our hotel. Scott is leading the way in the crosswalk and Justin shouts…”Watch-Out Dad!” as a car pulled around the corner. Scott jumped up and then ran…limbs flailing in all direction like out of a cartoon. We just laughed more…till we wet ourselves. You had to see it to believe it. Poor Scott!!
Finally back at our hotel…Scott is buying to beer to recover from the Jump and Run…and we arrived to our hotel room to find the door wide open. Justin goes and finds our stuff still there, thank god. We know we locked it before leaving as Justin has become the lock-it-up police after our spring break in Seattle. (Car got broken into) Happy nothing was stolen we went to close the hotel door and found it wouldn’t close because there was a screwdriver holding it open on the floor. OMG…back down to the desk holding the screw driver thinking…what the hell!! The desk clerk now told me he would investigate it and get back to
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Another castle...check out Will's face...before hot tar! me but he was sure he never saw the screwdriver before. As it turned out…the maintenance guy was in our bathroom fixing the light bulb and a fire drill started and he left and never came back leaving our room open for 6 hours…we were told with a shrug upon checking out.
At that point we were done with Budapest…we needed to just leave Hungary. We sped away towards Croatia and didn’t look back.
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