No Reservations Needed

---

I decided today would be a sleep in day since it had been a bit of a late night before. I finally got myself together (no free breakfast at the loft :-( and went to the Great Market Hall which was a 2 minute walk from the Hostel. You walk in and it is just fruit and veggie overload, yay! (It’s basically vendor after vendor in a big, spacious building). I walked around deciding what I wanted when I came upon a crepe and langos vendor. Langos is a traditional Hungarian fast food and I was told I should have one before I left. (note to self, should have had the crepe). A langos is basically fried dough, that’s then covered in sour cream and cheese (sounds soooo healthy). I had ham and tomatoes added to it to make it just a little better, but it still was very disgusting looking. I managed to get it all down and keep it that way (who knows how!) I was feeling very guilty so I bought bananas and raspberries as well (yum!). I needed to then go to the train station to reserve my ticket to go to Vienna the next day.

Dave had told me the night before that it was his day off the next day and he would like to take me for a tour of the city (I guess that’s what losing at arm-wrestling does to a guy), I hadn’t done a tour yet and was going to do one in the morning, so I decided to put that one off to go with Dave. I got to the train station with enough time to reserve my ticket then walk to the Aboriginal, but the train station in Budapest is horrible for buying and reserving tickets! I took a number (just like the DMV I swear) and realized it was going to be a while. Luckily I had some Hungarian Forint coins on me and I had saved the Hostels phone number, just in case I couldn’t find it when I first got to Budapest. I called the front desk from a payphone and told them to tell Dave I would be very late and if he didn’t feel like waiting around for me I didn’t blame him!

I ended up waiting for about an hour and a half before my number was called (I even fell asleep in the chair while waiting!) only to get to the counter and tell the woman I wanted to reserve my ticket, and she said I didn’t need to reserve a seat, that my Eurail pass would be enough! (ahhhhh!) (At least it’s that and not that the train was booked full).
I then walked back to the Aboriginal only to find that Dave was still asleep (was supposed to meet him at 2:00 and its now 3:30) Chris (the manager) asked me if I wanted him to wake him, I said no, no, just tell him I stopped by and I said goodbye!

I went back to the Loft hostel where I was planning on charging my netbook, finding a local café, and getting a coffee and catch up on my blogs. But as it is the way when you travel alone, it’s hard to ever be alone! I said I was going out to a café and several people joined me, which is nice, but it doesn’t get my blogs written (but gives me more to write about). So Emma, an American - Destry, and another American - Casey went with us. Destry and Casey both had just arrived (each traveling on their own) and were happy to meet some people (been there and know the feeling, so I was happy they tagged along). We ended up walking to a café for some actual dinner, I had been craving vegetables and when I saw that you could order a whole plate of grilled veggies, I was in heaven! It was one of the best meals I have had yet!( A few days earlier I was at a restaurant with Emma, Eylane, and Dan and I had ordered a vegetable platter. What I was actually served was horrid, it was 3 giant heaping piles of rice, a serving of fried onion rings, a serving of fried pepper rings, and a tiny little eggplant. I was so disappointed; the Hungarians really love their fried foods!)

Our waiter was very attentive as well, and it really made the whole experience. We then all walked back to the hostel to get ready since a bunch of us had decided to do a short night cruise down the Danube to see everything lit up. It turned out to not be quite like we had thought but it was good, we got on the boat and had to pay for a full day’s ticket (useless for me since I was leaving the next morning) and instead of it being only an hour long it was about 30 minutes since it took a while to board everyone. But after saying that, everything was beautifully lit up and quite a sight to see. There was an explanation of what we were seeing first in Hungarian, then in English, and the English voice was so annoying! We just wanted her to stop! (I think at one point they did fast forward the recording since it felt like we were speeding down the river on the boat).

Upon getting back to the hostel I found that 3 American girls had booked into the dorm I was staying in (it was a 6 bed and now it was a room booked completely with Americans! I left the US to get away from you people! 😉 But it’s understandable, it’s now officially high season and the only time when American students can travel). The hostel had made traditional Hungarian goulash so I grabbed a bowl of that and it was yummy! It had beef, and carrots, and potatoes, and it was warm (it was a bit chilly out on the water so to have a nice little warm meal before bed was nice).

I was exhausted and just wanted to get my info from the internet about my next hostel in Vienna, but the internet wasn’t working so I figured I would just do it in the morning. I then went ahead and got most of my stuff together to leave in the morning. Even though I never got to do a walking tour, the boat ride was a great way to say goodbye to this cool city!

B

---

Photos

In Heaven
Great Market Hall

All that is Evil
Langos

Dan and Emma
Waiting for our boat cruise

One of the buildings we saw from the boat
Sorry its blurry but its the best one of all of them!