Dachau to Budapest and the end

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The next day on the way to Vienna we stopped in at Dachau concentration camp. Not a good combination, an Oktoberfest hangover with a concentration camp, but it sobers you up in a hurry that’s for sure. Dachau was eerie, made worse by a thick fog that came in that morning, and the movie they show there it truly shocking. I won’t go on too much about it because my feelings and emotions are similar to that expressed after visiting Mauthausen, but again, an experience everyone needs to undergo at some stage to truly appreciate the horrific nature of the holocaust.

So Vienna was relatively uneventful, so after that it was one bus ride, 6 hands of asshole, 2 magic tricks, 3 rounds of guessing countries (like Waziristan)and discussions of fat people and Jerry Springer, and before you knew it we were in Budapest. The first night everyone was geared up, we had dinner at this cool traditional place which was awesome until Corrina found a maggot in her dessert, which kinda killed the mood, but then it was off to some clubs. By the time we found the club more than half the crew had bailed out and the rest of us were too sober for a pumping underground electronic club, although the DJ was really cool. So one way to fix that situation, a round of traditional Hungarian shots, which were vile!!! Sasha actually threw up at the bar (it was actually the neatest most ladylike spew I’d ever seen ha ha ha) but the rest of us managed to keep them down somehow. The night got better after that, I actually ended up running into Seattle that I met in Berlin, amazing the people you run into over again. So I got home around 8am, went to Maccas for breakfast the stumbled back in at 9am, slept till 9:30 and was up again ready for a 3 hour walking tour :-(. This guide was better, but honestly I was just wandering in a daze. We finished at the bathhouses which were really hot, it was actually really cool, first time in hot springs and all. It is so weird getting into a pool where the water was 37 degrees, and it doesn’t taste like chlorine or salt, just fresh, like a bath. So after a bit of getting lost on the way home I got back just in time for a 45 minute power nap before dinner.

Dinner that night was amazing, and everyone came back to the pub next door to the hostel (where beers were like 1.50 euro) and we stayed there all night playing drinking games. Not to mention an epic game of fuse ball that I’ll never forget (we kicked ass by the way :-) ). And there were a few sad goodbyes for the ones leaving early in the morning.

Most of us went to breaky in the morning and did our goodbyes then. I will say, I was with these guys for 6 nights but I feel like I got along with all of them, and got to know all of them, better that the crew on 37 days of Contiki. Not sure why, just amazing people I guess. I will miss all the Fanatics crew so much and really do genuinely want to try and catch up with them when I can.

A couple of girls stayed another night, as did I, so we did a communist walking tour that afternoon, which was led by locals that were there at the time and remember communism, and well they were sort of pro-communism in a way. But Hungary had what they called “happy” communism where they could actually have western luxuries as long as it was only at home. Their private life was indeed their ‘private’ life.It was a really great tour that I would recommend to everyone to do, a real insight into Hungary during the communist revolution. We finished the tour in this weird yet awesome pub called Instant, an old housing commune converted into a hostel. So Sally and Corrina caught up with us there and we went to check out one of the local dives where wine was 20 cents and beers were 80 cents, but it was sooooo seedy, good fun though. Then it was on to Frici papa, and what a mission. After 4 sets of different and wrong directions, I feltlike I was on candid camera. But we eventually found it 10 mins after the kitchen closed. So we ended up on the footpath that night eating kebabs (with chips :-) ). That was a really good night for me and Sal, we just talked for ages, and well I actually kinda miss her.

Ok, keywards for Budapest:

O Central hostel

Hide the mars bar

Teen mums

Tiffany and Gazza’s jumper

Mission to the train station for cheap tickets

Writings on the wall at the train station

Mine! Whoooosssss????????

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