Castles and Jet Engines

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we got to the train station in budapest on time and everything was going swimmingly, we had to get a sleeper to ljubljana but the international ticket office was the worst we've ever seen, you had a get a ticket number from a machine and we got number 600 and something. but the board was saying number 950 was next which really didn't make sense.

Pete and Harrison went off to find an ATM machine, while I stood trying to figure out what we should do next. The machine ended up not giving out numbers altogether, and we decided we would try again tomorrow! While I was waiting, I bumped into a guy called Mark and his cousin, who I have been speaking to on the internet as he is going to ECA to so the same course as me in September! How very bizarre, and it was really good to see him! It's a small world....

Budapest train station itself is a bit of a headache, there's a lot of streets boarded up for building work, and it gave a bad impression straight off, but we've learnt never to judge a city by it's train station!!

we found our hostel eventually and soon a lady was taking us away to our apartment..... and basically we had a whole house to ourselves and it was still very cheap!

the next day for me (pete) was my best day so far, we woke up nice and early and looked round the castle and it took an age for us to find harrison. mainly our fault i think. it was then that harrison told us the the red bull air race was on this weekend! so we raced to the water and sat on the castle wall (very safe) and watched jet pilot do the stuff before the main event, which (sorry dad) was amazing! got lots of pictures to show of that, and after wards we saw a helicopter do flips and all sorts, which lisa said wasn't possible.

(Lisa now) I mean, just the way helicopters are designed to stay in the sky surely means they can't fly upside down?? Let alone to loop the loops and dive bomb spin type things.

Budapest was beautiful, and we discovered that we couldn't catch a sleeper to Ljubljana, so suprise surpise we ended up catching the same train as Harrison the next day. In the evening, we walked along the river bank, and had half price pizzas, with BOGOF beers. SCORE!

The following day was Hungary's national holiday (we sure can pick 'em) so that eveing there were free concerts going on along the banks of the Danube which we stopped to watch a while. We also managed to gain almost free entry earlier in the day to a folk art festival after the ticket man gave us the wrong change! We sat on sand bags and watched a quintet comprising of a saxophonist and piano accordionist amongst others.

so next day the park which we intended to have a look around was, just for that day, a parade ground showig of the might of the hungarian military. There were marching bands and lots of speeches from small men on podiums. We had a look around the park and the pools, and then were walking back down the road when a number of jets and larger aircraft flew over us in close formation.

We had just enough time before our 12:50pm train to have a quick look around the Terror House. This is in a lovely building on a street, that was used by the Nazi and Communist terror police during and after WWII. One of the best exhibitions we have been to so far, showing in chronological order the horrible events that occurred to the Hungarian people in the forties, fifties and sixties.

And entry was free due to the holiday!

we caught the train we needed to get by a whisker, and we thought that this train went straight to ljubljana.... how wrong we were!
It took us four trains and two buses, and ten hours later (with no food) we arrived in ljubljana, and feasted 😊
It would't have been so bad if we had had any idea of what was going on, except we didn't. Slovenian train guards just banged on the windows and yelled lot. Never mind, all part of the adventure right?

We found our hostel pretty easily, which is where we are now, making up for a few days loss of blogging.
About to meet Harrison for some breakfast, and then we are going to visit the caves that are about an hours bus ride away from here.

hopefully we will talk soon 😊
lisa and peter xxx

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