Budapest....

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We had heard nothing but good things about Budapest so we were excited to arrive. The train pulled in around 7am and we had to catch the Metro to our hostel. After ringing the hostel door bell for about 5min with no reply, we decided we'd have to kill some time. We were starving and started to look for something to eat. Of course it was too early for any cafe's to be open, except maybe the McCafe.

Mc Donald's stood there in the distance, a huge shining M beckoned us from afar. After our last Mc Donald's experience we couldn't think of anything worse, but all we could see were huge buildings and long streets, and the weight of our backpacks was forcing us to rest. Macca's it was. We walked into the empty "restaurant" dropped our bags and tried again. To our absolute amazement it was the most delicious Mc Donalds breakfast we had ever had. No words could describe how fresh and mouth watering the food was. We sat in shock, discussing and comparing our Mc Donalds experiences for the next five minutes. Soon enough the internet terminal at the back of the store caught our attention. We killed some time, and then headed back to the hostel to try again, Success!

We entered a dark and dusty lobby and headed for a reasonably safe looking elevator. A friendly yet timid, girl about our age was waiting for us at the top and ushered us inside. She asked us to have a seat and wait for another girl to arrive with the key and muttered something about a taxi. Taxi? What? "Hey Kell, did she just say we are getting a taxi somewhere?"

Our confusion and curiosity were soon put to rest with the arrival of 'the other girl'. Together they explained that the building we were currently in was their 'hostel' and we were staying in an 'apartment' which was in another part of town. At this stage i didn't know weather to be angry or happy. On the one side we had our own apartment, which meant no seedy backpackers milling around. But on the other side, we had booked the hostel partly because of its great location, and now we were being taken further out of town, making it more difficult and more expensive to get around. I decided to wait and see what the apartment had to offer before making a scene.

Our friendly, timid girl, without a name, at least a name we can remember, took us down to our awaiting cab. On leaving the room i had noticed a set of keys sitting on the table and hoped that they weren't ours. I mentioned them to the girl but she assured me she had our key. Eight minutes later we pulled up to a building and the cab driver helped us unload, behind me i heard the girl say out loud "Oh my god" - Note: Hungarian accent. In that instance my dream of an imminent shower diminished as she explained she had the wrong key. On top of that she had to catch public transport back to the hostel because i assume her boss wouldn't be happy with her making several cab rides back and forth across town, when only one was necessary. The poor thing was obviously distressed and upset so we politely let it slide and dropped our bags at the front door and sat. "I should be back in half an hour", she said. Of course half an hour is never half an hour, if someone says half an hour, you know you'll be waiting at least an hour.

An hour later i saw her in the distance, running towards us with sweat pouring off her, cheeks red and keys in her hand. The poor thing had done a public transport marathon in the late morning of a summers day. We gathered from her inexperience she was inexperienced, and in the lift up to our flat she confirmed her inexperiencedness (yes, i know thats not a word). She had been working there for about a month and this was the first time anything like it had happened. Lucky us, i thought.

The apartment made up for everything, we had a HUGE room, a kitchenette, a bathroom (with an actual bath), a balcony overlooking the park and shutters on the windows. Goodbye morning, hello afternoon!

That night a walk to the center made us realise how far away our cosy, little apartment was from town. It didn't bother us a great deal, but the hostel was in a much better location. Budapest was a city of amazing buildings, plentiful statues and ridiculous prices. We quickly realised we couldn't afford to do much, if anything. On the hunt for dinner we passed a food market which looked amazing. Going on Bart Simpson analogy, "If the lines this big, it's got to be good!", we lined up for some food. The stall we found ourselves at was full of traditional foods. Mostly meat dishes, with some tasty looking sausages.

We ordered two dishes and a sausage, there were no prices anywhere but how expensive could a market be? HUF4000 please. Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? We were handed standard market size plastic plates, of which the food covered forty percent. Disgusted and hungry i handed over the money and we found some grass to eat. Never before have i seen food leave my mouth faster then the fist bite of that "sausage". It was cold, moist and eerily squishy on the inside. As Kell put it "it looks like what would come out if you had liposuction". Kell's food was no better, it was all cold. Furious, i stormed up to the counter, pushing aside any who dare enter my path. The confrontation lasted ten seconds and i had my HUF4000 back in my pocket, and a foul taste in my mouth. The search continued, but just like Australian Idol, it was useless. Not even HUF4000 could get us anything. Once again though the golden arches shone down on from above and we gave in to temptation. It was a different Mc Donald's to our previous success but our hopes remained high. But just like any regular Maccas experience our hopes were destroyed and we were left feeling unsatisfied and sick.

In the morning we decided to do nothing that day, we just chilled out in our nice apartment and checked out our neighborhood. Half of the shops were closed because of holidays, and the neighborhood was a tad dull. So we spent the rest of the day reading and catching up on sleep. We put our bath, luxury, to good use that night with some muscle relaxing bath salts for our aching legs.

The next day we headed off for a walk around town and found ourselves at the "Labyrinth of Buda Castle", in the Castle District. This maze of tunnels (which literally goes on for miles) is located beneath Castle Hill. It contains huge, cavernous rooms, originally intended as cellars and bomb shelters. (Thanks google). This kept us busy for an hour or so and got us out of the heat. We had then planned to check out these famous 'baths' that are all over Budapest. For this we had to catch a metro across town, when we got to the metro station a guard asked us for our tickets, which we said we were yet to buy and he pointed us to the ticket booth, beyond the ticket validation machine. The train had arrived as we were buying our tickets, so we quickly got them and jumped on. Upon arrival to our destination there was another guard checking tickets. I handed him our tickets and he told us that these weren't valid. When i explained what had happened he said "yes i understand but this is not valid, you have to pay the fine, HUF6000 each". 6000 each?! Eventually the guard got fed up with our arguing and he didn't seem to respond well to English so he sent over a younger female guard. At the time i thought she would understand and let us off for sure, but she just said the same thing. "You must validate your ticket before you get on the train". After another five minutes of arguing she eventually came to a compromise, "Ok, only you pay", she said pointing towards me. Left with no other choice i had to pay 6000 forint. Bye bye dinner!

In the foulest mood ever we sat in the park above the metro station cursing the communists. We were officially over Budapest, and didn't care if we saw the baths or not, even if we saw them we wouldn't be able to afford them now. We were leaving the next day anyway so we got back on the metro, (after validating our tickets of course) and made our way back to the center. On the walk home we wandered through the main shopping district and to our surprise saw a shop called 'Aboriginal - Australian Feeling', naturally curious we walked in. Most of the clothes were reasonably priced, but had nothing to do with Australia and especially not Aboriginals. Though one shirt slogan i saw said something along the lines of 'I find my job gets in the way of my drinking' (which is both ironic and funny). Among the items being sold were Tweety Bird shirts and tacky, Hawaiian board shorts. I picked up a pair of undies which claim I'm an Aboriginal Boy Type No.1. Interesting. The shop had us in hysterics it was unbelievable. After a few small purchases with money we didn't have, i noticed one of the tags that said it was a store based in Melbourne. Well, that killed the buzz a bit but it was still hilarious. (Though in consultation with some Melbourne friends, which you won't encounter till the Venice blog, they couldn't confirm every seeing or hearing of it in Melbourne).

After that we made our way home and got some sleep. The train to Vienna was to leave at 8am.

Austria here we come.

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Photos

Budapest
Beautiful city at night!

Food Stall
Mmmmmm delicious..............

Nick In The Labyrinth
With some weird statue!

Nick With Graffiti
Guns N' Roses