Hungary for budapest

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Before you all gag at the lameness of my title - firstly i am lame and therefore feel justified in using the pun, and secondly a 'hungary in hungary' reference was in every guidebook had so i felt i had to use it!

Our train to budapest was rather quiet and clean compared to a couple we'd been on already - it was nice not having an adrenaline rush after a near missed train and not dry retching after visiting the gross toilets. We got off at budapest and again the shifty characters just seemed to appear again! While waiting to get some money out, ann had the classic eastern european experience of the bank running out of money...yes its true! A trapse through the construction filled streets of budapest eventually led us to an atm with money and you could just see the smile on ann's face as she realised this was the kind of eastern europe she wanted to see!

The hostel was in the pest side and as we figured out the map we wondered past an olympic tent - set up for a 24 hours during the olympics, complete with beer, food and ice-cream - this was definately going to be a stop during the next few days. The walk to the hostel was a bit strange, a playground with a security gaurd, phone boxes with shattered window, multiple empty beer bottles on the street and lots of ppl just loitering. No wonder this hostel was cheap huh?! We got to the hostel after the 3 flights of stairs (always the stairs...especially after a trek with a heavy pack in searing sunshine...always!) and while it was quite dirty it had free internet and breakie which made up for it slightly. What was a little creepy was this croatian man that while being friendly enough had no real appreciation of personal space and just held onto your hand a little bit too long during a handshake. He also very enthusiastically probed what we were up to this arvo - and in particular which thermal bath we were going to....i was deliberatly vague with the answer and we hoped we wouldnt catch up with him with just speedos on later that day! We were also a lil worried he'd hang around the room and steal all our stuff. He did neither in the end and we felt a lil silly with our paranoia of scary looking eastern european men - but best to be on the side of caution as my mother would say!

We did visit the olympic tent and managed to watch the opening ceremony all the while revelling in the fact that we were in budapest watching a sporting event that most ppl around the world would be tuned into. So cool. It got to the country march and as we couldnt figure out what order the countries were coming out in and australia might be at least an hour away we began the walk to the thermal baths. 10 points for someone who tells me what order the countries did come out in!

The walk was long and hot and we were so happy when we reached the cool, hotel like interior of the baths. Then began the most confusing journey to a swimming pool i've ever had. We went to the baths and were promptly told, go and change and then come back, so a 5 min walk though KGB like torture tunnels got us to the change room where we were told our ticket was only for the swimming pool, slightly flabergasted we were so hot and bothered by this stage we just thought it had been our mistake and we'd enjoy the pool. Except when we did pry some more about the baths we were told come on in by the thermal bath ladies....so confused...but eventually yes we made to the famous hungarian thermal baths. And that's where we spent the afternoon, swapping from the relaxing but extremely hot 38 degree bath to the lovely 36 degree bath and when we did pluck up the courage swapping from the ice pool back into the thermal baths....such a rush! In btn games of charades, i spy and sessions of mindfullness (we were there for a long time...there is only so much you can do in a bath!) we were grossed out by the nudity of eastern european women. So much nudity! Young, old and some just plain wrong...all present and proud. It was certainly a loss of our innocence that day! While we could have stayed there the whole night we eventually left feeling clean, relaxed and happy. Highly recommend a day there if anyone makes it to budapest.

Dinner that night was very close to the dodgy streets of our hostel where out of no where was a fantastic strip of pumping restaurants. It was touristy but it was probably our best meal of eastern europe. It had been a good day!

The next day we woke to thunderstorms and lightning and wondered why we'd spent the sunny day in the baths! Instead we were going to do a walking tour - which we postponed till the afternoon as the rain kept splattering. Nevermind though, as we had the House of Terror to visit (and yes it was as cool as the name sounds!). The museum was about the 2 occupations of hungary - the nazi regime and the communist era. Very interesting and spooky with its great audio visual displays and propaganda material as well as stories from hungarian people who suffered under both occupations. It was crazy that it was only 18 years ago that hungary became a democracy - that soviet communism reigned for so long and people were oppressed and spied on and tortured when we were growing up in a normal democracy...crazy. It was very cool and made us keen for the walking tour to explain more about hungary's sordid past.

The walking tour - wasnt nearly as good a history lesson as the House of terror and Csongi our tourguide had the script down pretty well - didnt seem to know basic things about the city like - how much is a bus ticket, and at times seemed more interested in going to the pub for a beer and smoke after the tour than giving the tour at all. It was good though to see all of the city - although walking tour was stretched to metro tour for part of it...one tip to travellers - walking tours can be hit and miss - pick the big cities with lots of history and reputable companies i guess - tough though because it really is dependant on the tour guide to make it great.

Dinner that night was at a real, dirty, laminated table cloth, dont ask what's in the food kind of restaurant - with massive plates of goulash and hungarian noodles - so, so good! Last night's fancy dinner was great but there's real satisfaction in sitting with locals and enjoying some real hungarian food.

We had a morning left before our epic night train to croatia so we made the most of it and hit the Statue park. The park was way out in the middle of nowhere and housed all the communist statues that had been paraded proudly only a decade before. With the indespensible guide book we made our way around at the huge propaganda plaques and statues and again wondered how people were brainwashed for so long. It was really interesting, as was the museum with videos on how a good KGB officer should break into someone's house and spy on them and other such spy videos - hilarious! While ann protested we did take stupid pics of us imitating the statues - oh cmon there's no harm in defaming history right?! The other highlight was Stalin's boots - once a grand statue, with the uprising in 1957 protesters cut the statue at the knees and all that is left are stalin's massive boots - a symbol of freedom for all the victims of the times. Awesome.

A mad dash to the train station and a 'hilarious in hindsight' splurge of all our remaining hungarian dollars on all sorts of food that we didnt really need but would rather have than worthless hungarian florients and an even more hilarious in hindsight jumping on the train, not finding our carriage, been told to get off the train by the conductor minutes before the train was scheduled to leave to run to our carriage about 3 carriages away with all our groceries we'd bought. Hah - funny now, yes!

The little 6 seat carriage we stayed was pretty awesome - it had 2 danish med students and a scary looking but very nice irish guy. We chatted for ages before we all uncomfortably tried to sleep - no luck there even with trusty serapax. It was especially bad for danielle who took a punt and slept on the carriage floor before deathly cold forced her back onto the uncomfortable seats in the crowded room.

Sixteen hours on a train is horrible, dont do it, unless you end up in beautiful croatia, then and only then is it worth it! Stay tuned for the final installment!

Schmoo

p.s. Currently doing my elective in cambridge - it rocks my socks! And trips to dublin and spain for the tomato festival have been great - will update when i finally finish these blogs! So many blogs, so little time!

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Photos

Budapest by dusk
Crossing the bridge to pest after the baths

House of Terror
The only pic i have as it felt a lil dangerous betraying the staff of the house of terror,,

Sights of budapest
On the walking/metro tour

Me and Danielle at a Church
Its a famous church - but meh a church all the same. What was funny was that there was a wedding going on as we were walking through on our tour...hmmm

The bridge
From Fisherman's point

The statue park
Please vote on the most realistic impersonation

Ann with statue
Not happy but still willing after my persistent nagging for her to imitate this statue - gold!

Stalin's boots
Gold