Wine fountain. We actually found a wine fountain.

---

I'm not sure why I keep doing blogs right after I step off overnight trains, but here's my best attempt at summarizing the week's adventures, anyway. Enjoy!

Budapest was freaking great. We ended up spending 8 days there, earning us free tshirts from our hostel and respect from all. We hung out with the most amaaazing people, some of whom will now be joining us for our weeklong vacation from backpacking in our timeshare in Austria... fast approaching, actually. Anyway, we somehow managed to stay for our first four days without even entering Pest (the modern, hep part of town) which I think may be some sort of record. After the marzipan extravaganza of the last blog, we went to these lush Turkish baths and just sort of wallowed in our own sloth (that expression looks really gross. i'm leaving it.) Anyway, these pools were in the most beautiful buildings, and one of them was a nude bath. Needless to say, we weren't nude. But we did go twice 😊

Once we finally got our act together, went to these crazy Labyriths near to Budapest castle and... words cannot describe how weird they were. These caverns were filled with African-looking cave paintings, creepy chanting-monk music, blank-faced statues (for climbing on, I pressume, as that's what we did) and... get this... a wine fountain. WINE FOUNTAIN! And it was free! And not even that gross! Oh man.

The next day, we went to the Terror Museum, which is actually sort of an inappropriately cheesy name for a museum about Nazi and Soviet oppression of Hungary. Our friend Hunter and I got in trouble from the guards for accidentally sitting on an exibit... Whoops. That afternoon, we went on a caving trip to explore the caves underneath Budapest. And honestly? This may have been one of the most physically difficult things I have ever done in my life. Seriously. We had to wiggle on our stomachs through these tiny passage ways that were barely big enough to squeeze our shoulders through. At one point, Pia got so stuck that a girl had to pull her out the other end by her feet (she panicked, but didn't cry!). I never thought I'd be so glad to see the sun again. Bitching aside, it was really cool and totally rewarding. And I have the bruises to prove it.

The next day, we were lazy and just watched movies and went to the baths again, but at night went out to this crazy hiphop club called Cult-a-plex, where we grooved to Hungarian rap -- just as weird as it sounds. It was accompanied by this amazing trumpet player, who happened to only have one arm. Pia also invented a new dance move, a sort of Hari-Krishna-climbs-a-tree kind of thing. Its totally cool. Buy her some Jaeger and get her to show you when you get a chance (sorry Pia).

Next day, we made our way to this really cool park outside the city that contains a whole bunch of the old soviet statues that were removed from the city after the fall of communism, aptly called "Statue Park". Naturally, we climbed on those too, and made a thorough mockery of the whole thing with a series of hilarious (but probably not overly hilarious) photos. Awesome.

The day before yesterday a bunch of us went vintage shopping and tried to find Budapests main flea market, but instead stumbled upon, you guessed it, a wine festival! We dont even have to try anymore... the wine just finds us. Anyroad, we got some wine and rented a bicycle built for six and cruised around the park, only slightly out of control. We tried to go to the opera that night, but due to our lack of forethought, arrived too late to buy tickets. Instead we partied in the hostel, and at 2 in the morning were convinced to go out... Iłm not quite sure what was up, but every club we tried to go to was closed... We wandered the streets of Budapest until 4 am when we finally found a bar, which weirdly refused to play both Like a Prazer and Heya, the jerks. Then there was more dancing, more singing, and no sleep.

This takes me to our last day in Budapest, which was sad, meloncholy, bleak, and so forth... we really didnt want to go. However, we summoned up all our courage and energy and took an overnight train to Krakow. And now... we,re in Krakow! We both have colds, but are holding up quite well. Today will likely be an administrative day, full of laundry and figuring out of plans and mental preparation for tomorrow, when we go to Auschwitz. Should be intense.

Hope everyone is doing well wherever they are... keep on keepin' on and take care.

Love,

Liz

---

Comments

[anonymous]

Don't mock me...
Whatever, my dancing was awesome and you're all totally jealous you missed it. Or something. It's pretty sad when you start leaving comments on your own blog. Huh. - Pia

[Nate]

Props to Pia
Ok, I'll weigh in just so that this isn't Pia and Liz just talking amongst themselves to say that Pia's dancing was pretty good; she showed those hungarian freestylers a thing or two and impressed some Mexicans, apparently.