Crazy and cold, guess where I am

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I was fortunate enough to have a Hungarian friend and decided to celebrate New Years in Hungary. I will not do that again. When I landed the Captain announced that it was minus 10!! Minus 10!! Yes that's right, I said minus 10!! Do you understand that it was minus 10!! I thought your blood would freeze at minus 10!!

I arrived in town and just wanted to get to my hostel as fast as I could. I had some weird lady try to offer me a place to stay and then offer to escort me to my accommodation and I couldn't get rid of her sooner - anyone seen Taken? Reminded me of that!

I did manage to brave the cold that afternoon for a short walk around the city centre because the sun was actually out and got a lovely photo of the Parliament.

The next day, before I caught up with my mates, I walked around their City Park. There is an old castle and courtyard area that is very lovely. And it has a moat. The moat is also frozen! SO I followed all the little kids and walked all over the moat, it is very low and basically was a frozen puddle but was something that I had never experienced before. And it's frozen water so close to snow (which I still hadn't seen then). I met up with my friend Norbert and went to a Hungarian Bath. I thought thermal heated baths, spas and saunas were a great idea until they told me that they were outside. So you get changed, run out into subzero temperatures and then jump in the beautifully warm water then freeze running back inside to get dressed!! Werid concept but it was great. Sadly I didn't get any photos of the baths (mainly because of my Christmas belly) so you'll have to take my work that they were beautiful.

The rest of my time spent in Budapest involved New years eve and a lot of pubs and more beer and wine. And good hungarian food too! I didn't have my camera with me on NYE and I thought I'd lost it so the next night we took a few photos.

I do have to warn you if youdo ever plan to go to Hungary. They have a local drink called Unicum. It is similiar to Jagermeister but vicious. Doesn't taste as bad, but just as lethal. NYE I was drunk before 6pm and didn't think I'd make the count down. Norbert was looking after me and everytime the girls would give me a drink, he'd take it away. this lasted for a few hours until I sobered up a little.

We went to a club where Dr Alban played (yes you know him, "sing hallelujah" from the 90s, told you you knew him) and counted down midnight. On the way home we got a burger and after about 2 blocks I was eating a frozen burger!! This place is ridiculously cold. The one benefit was on NY day I awoke to snow, my first ever snow!! I was very happy.

The rest of my time is Hungary really was drunken shenanigans and I've attached a few photos.

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