Advertisement
Published: July 18th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Thursday, July 11, 2013 – I had to get up at 4:50am today. I wanted to take the tram at 5:15am, and thought I had planned it right, until I got downstairs and discovered I was locked in. So I had to go get the sleeping reception guy and by the time he let me out – which was still quite quick – I watched the tram go by. But that was ok as I had planned to still have extra time. I got the tram at 5:27 and still got there in less than 10 minutes. I only had to wait a few minutes before the track was announced and then I found my seat. A backwards window seat. Not bad, though looking forwards at some point would be a nice change. I spent the 3.5 hours planning a bit and talking to a woman from Slovakia who lives in England. There was also another woman and her grandkids. It was not a bad ride.
At the train station in Budapest, it was a little hard to find what I needed, as the station is under construction. But I managed to get in line at the info office, where
I kept getting skipped over for a while. Super annoying. I found an ATM, got some money, and then found a place to buy a transport ticket. The denominations of money here are so big that it is hard for me to think about what I am spending. One dollar is about 220 forint or something, so no matter what you buy, it seems to be expensive. I have trouble figuring this out no matter how I look at it. Anyway, after that, I found trolleybus 78, which would take me to the studio apartment I rented. As I was waiting at the last stop light before exiting, I saw someone waving at me from outside. At first I thought it was quite weird, and then I realized it was the the girl I was meeting to get the keys from. Kind of funny. She was with her mom, and she showed me around the apartment and then I had the day to myself. It was quite nice. Since I have been in Budapest earlier this year, I felt quite comfortable here and this apartment was in much the same location as the last, so it all felt familiar. I
decided to have a day to relax with no sight seeing, which was a novelty. Instead I went to see a movie that started in the middle of the day. It was great. On my walk there I picked up a sandwich to eat in the theater, and then walked through this large mall to get to the theater. I don’t normally miss malls, but the American in me really responded to this one. I was constantly dazzled, from Starbucks all the way to Friday’s. We don’t have anything like this in Switzerland. I saw The Lone Ranger, which I really enjoyed. Apparently it is not doing well at the box office, but I had fun with it. I went back to the apartment and did a 20 minute workout, the first of the summer, which was nice. I skyped a bit and did who knows what, a bunch of nothing. Then I made some plans with my friend David who lives in Budapest. He decided to make me dinner the next day, for my birthday. So for this night, I treated myself to an early birthday feast at Friday’s. I didn’t even need to see the menu as I
have always gotten the chicken fingers, since I was 16 or so. I know it’s unhealthy, but it was fun and memories all tied together. I stopped at the supermarket on my way home and picked up a few groceries for the apartment.
Friday July 12 – See Esztergom entry
Saturday July 13 – Today I stayed in and relaxed in the morning, updated and finally posted some of this blog, did another workout, and skyped a bit in the morning. Jeroen and I have started talking about getting another cat, specifically Elisa. Her owner has developed allergies and we are thinking about trying to incorporate her into our glaring, or clowder, if you prefer. (These are the correct terms for a group of cats. Seriously.) Jeroen will meet her on Monday. I met David at 1:00pm, and he helped me search for a connection to Ljubljana for next week. We went for some lunch at Vietnamese right next to my place, and then we walked around Margaret island where I camera stalked a bride. We ended up with a pizza dinner followed by artisanal ice cream – I had two scoops, lavender lemon and raspberry mint. Amazing.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 7; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0367s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb