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Published: December 15th 2007
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We thought yesterdays early morning was bad enough, but this morning was stupidly early. We awoke at half past six and consumed large amounts of breakfast before arriving at the train station for seven forty. I had all the timings planned out, however our large breakfast must have slowed us down because we had to run to catch the train. We were both pretty shattered and collapsed in a carriage of our own and dozed on and off for the next couple of hours.
We spread ourselves out on the chairs and pulled the curtains across so that no one passing by could see us. We both actually managed to sleep which was highly unusual. Occasionally the ticket inspector popped his head inside to check our tickets, but besides that no one bothered us in the slightest. Approximately half way through the journey I stuck my head past the curtains and figured we were pretty much at the border. I know that I looked pretty rough and that the impromptu sleep on the train made me look particularly bad, but I did think it was in bad taste that they got another person to check my passport picture. We can't
all look perfect all the time.
Once we were both awake, Rob realised that he was hungry which instantly meant that neither of us were sleeping again. I finished off the book that I was reading, however Rob says that Captain Corelli's Mandolin wasn't worth the effort. (I happened to enjoy it) The definate highlight of our journey was eating an apple we'd bought a few days earlier. The journey really was that uneventful.
Nine hours later and the Deli train station in Budapest is not what you want to see. We got off the train and began our search for both the metro and a cash machine and we couldn't find either. We asked in the tourist information and they pointed us in the correct direction. We tried both of our bank cards in the only machine around and neither of them worked. Our only option was to change our remaining Euros at a nearby cash converter. They ripped us off entirely because we only wanted to change ten Euros, but there was nothing we could do and we really did need money to get to the centre of Budapest. The metro was easy to navigate once you realised that you had to validate your tickets by stamping them in an orange box that isn't obviously located. The metro here is actually not that cheap at just under one pound for a journey. In most metro systems we have been in, you buy one ticket and that enables any changes of lines until you come up from the underground itself. In Budapest we discovered that you use one ticket per journey and that if you try and do otherwise you will get caught out. We were unaware of this and were stopped by a guard who made us purchase a new ticket off him.
Our hostel was easily found and all too soon we were wishing that we had never found it. Alfa Hostel felt a bit like a rundown brothel. Our room was a cupboard with a wooden plank as a matress and only one single duvet between the two of us. The whole flat was situated in a stale haze of smoke which unfortunately did not aggravate our eyes enough to avoid seeing the middle aged men sprawling about in the "common room". Once we had been shown the necessary facilities and we had assured the man that we would pay once we found a cash machine, we retreated to our room to discuss our gameplan. Ordinarily we would put up with a hostel like this howver the prospect of a full week in it was less than pleasant. We looked a few hostels up on the internet and decided that we would take a walk up to our second choice hostel and see if they still had room for us.
We left the hostel and walked down a road near ours to locate a vegetarian restaurant that we had read about. We found it and it sounded fantastic except we still had the small problem of having no local currency on us. We walked down a main road looking for any cash machine and we really struggled to find one. Eventually we reached a major road and went to the first cash machine we saw; it rejected both cards again. Another cash machine was further down the road which actually worked. Once here we decided that we should walk to the Riverside Hostel as it was getting late and we didn't want to disturb them. We set off in one direction until we reached Oktogon Square at which Rob declared that we had walked the wrong way down the road. Still very smitten with Budapest we gave little thought to it and turned and walked back down the other way. We walked quite a long distance down the road until Rob decided we should check the guidebook as we hadn't reached the station which was supposed to be very near. After a while consulting the map and checking road names Rob realised that we actually wanted to be back in the other direction where we were originally. It was quite late by this point and we were both slightly weary from all the walking, also by this point the road had become slightly less interesting due to the number of times we had walked it.
The Riverside hostel looked lovely and had a really friendly member of staff who assured us that there was a room free and we were welcome to turn up tomorrow. She recommended a few restaurants nearby however we both wanted to be walking towards our hostel and not away from it, so we opted to head back to the first vegetarian we had spotted. It was around half nine when we arrived at the restaurant and despite it having a closing time of ten, the staff still served us. We both had delicious meals and which were vastly appreciated and we vowed to return to the restaurant when we would have more time to peruse the menu.
Back at the hostel the common room was occupied by the big old men from earlier and they had been joined by a particularly rough looking female. We opted to avoid being in the same room and instead we sat in our room and watched a dreadful old American movie until it was a reasonable time to turn in.
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