Budapest, Day One w/ a Side of Vienna

Now Andrea has the pictures up on her Facebook account, I think now would be the best time to tell you about Budapest. The story from beginning to ending, the story as a whole, not just the bad stuff, which I think has definitely given you a bad impression of what was a truly unbelievable trip. I do like sharing the now funny, at the time not so much, incidents, I feel they give the complete picture of our adventure here in Europe and what would life be if everything always went your way. In my opinion, boring, it is important to have ups and downs. What would a rollercoaster be without up and downs? Boring.

So, I think I told you everything went as planned upon my arrival in Budapest; Andrea was standing there, right on the platform, waiting for me. It was perfect. Then Andrea was able to navigate us through the metro system to our hostel with only minor wrong turns. We were at our beautiful hostel with our heavy bags off our shoulders in no time.

As for my time in Vienna, it was what they call, “short and sweet.” Arrived there at 5:30 am and jumped right onto the Metro, which I could navigate pretty well from our previous. I was even able to help two lost travelers find their way to their hostel. So, I traveled with these two lost travelers to the main train station, the station I would be departing for Budapest from, departing from them I put my heavy bags in a locker for what would be the next few hours. Without the wait of my bags I walked just a short distance to the hostel Andrea and I had previously stayed at. It was close to the station, I knew they had internet access, and I thought I would be able to get a cup of coffee and relax until it was time to pick up my long-term visa. However, I was denied by a worker who had not been working at the hostel when we had stayed previously. He was not rude, but he told me I could do as I had planned. He told me to try to find a café around the corner on the main street. Luckily, I did. It was a nice little café, not crowded, as it was still about six in the morning. I worked a Latte and sat down, I wouldn’t think, but pleasantly, they did not have Internet access at this café. I was forced to work on the edits I had made to my book. Plus, the staff was friendly and showed no signs of being angered by the fact I was sitting at a table with all my notes sprawled across the table and Andrea’s computer being diligently worked. My Latte on the other hand was being drunk in anything but a diligent manner. They didn’t seem to mind though. As the hour past and the clocked turned to about 7:15 or so I noticed the café was filling up quickly and I was occupying a table with any products purchased from the fine establishment sitting in front of me. They had been so considerate and friendly to me I decided to pack and leave despite the fact I had nowhere to be for over an hour. I exited the café and jumped on a Tram heading in the direction of the Czech Consulate. I was hoping maybe they opened earlier than I had been told, but no. The posted hours on the locked gates were clear and I had to figure out something to do to kill time. I remember the Queen’s Winter Palace was just about a ten minute walk away. I walked over to it. It was completely empty of tourists; there were some early morning joggers and runners weaving their way through the precious gardens of the palace, but no tourists. I am a tourist, but in my own smug viewpoint, I love to be around locals and not tourists. None of the cafes or restaurants at the palace had opened yet, but outside of the closed café were nice tables to sit at, to write at. I actually got a chance to write a poem I will be posting shortly, completely inspired by sitting in the early morning chill in front of one of the most spectacular building I have seen in my life (See Andrea’s pictures of the Winter Palace in Vienna). And after those short, but unbelievable moments I was able to pick up my visa with no difficulties and head back to the train station. I talked to Andrea over the phone, decided to try to move up my train ticket, but was denied kind of rudely or maybe it was just their lack of English. “No changes, no refunds, must go on that train.” Okay. I sat around the train station for a couple hours, doing nothing, and was off.

Like I already said, Andrea met me on the platform and we were at our hostel in Budapest in no time. The hostel was very nice; I would definitely recommend it to anyone traveling to Budapest is on a tight budget and does not mind sharing a room. When the picture of shared rooms comes to many of people’s minds, it is not a pretty one. However, in most cases those pictures, which people possess, are clearly distorted. I too, once thought I would never be able to enjoy a room I share with strangers, but every experience we have had so far has been much more pleasant than one would expect. Take this hostel in Budapest for example; we shared a room with four other travelers. The one negative I can think of is that you and whomever you are traveling with will have to sleep separately; the shared rooms only have single beds. Conclusively, even if they had king size beds, it may be a little weird to cuddle up to your love one with other people, strangers, in the room. Yes, it may be nice to have cuddle time, but the price you pay for it compared to understanding the fact you in a city you have never been too and, probably, never will be again, makes the whole hostel experience well worth the few sacrifices. Our hostel in Budapest was extremely well-managed. They had staff available 24 hours a day, coming in late at night, no problem, a sense of security, no problem. They had lockers to store our valuables, not that I was worried about any of the other guests stealing, but just in case. They had free coffee or tea in the morning and full kitchen, which we never, but should have taken advantage of, that is the kitchen I mean. I drank plenty of tea, staying up and writing while Andrea slept. You get the picture, I recommend and like hostels as a whole and the one we stayed at in Budapest was especially nice. If you are ever in Budapest and want the name of a good hostel, give me a call, I will try to remember the name or I will ask Andrea she seems to never forget anything unlike me.
So, the first night, Andrea had planned a whole itinerary planned for the entire weekend, which when visiting places you have never been is crucial, even if you don’t follow it to a tee like us. The plan for the first night was to get down to the Danube River and be sitting in an already selected café for sunset, thanks to me that didn’t happen. I needed to shower and just sit for a moment I had slept approximately three hours in the last 36. We didn’t leave the hostel until it was already dark, around six, six thirty.

We walked down to the river and walked right smack dap into the Parliament. Now our plan was to be on the other side of the river and gaze at the Parliament as the sun made its impression on this gorgeous stark white building (See Andrea’s Facebook). It didn’t happen as planned though, and in my mind it was a good thing. It was out of nowhere, completely unexpected, that we were at once standing in front of this immaculate structure. It’s towering spires; there must have been at least hundred of them lining the roof perfectly symmetrical to one another. We walked along the side of it to the river where we found a statute, probably not in any guide book, but I just loved (Once again, see Andrea’s Facebook). Andrea got a goofy picture of me with the statute. After spending a good while just enjoying the view on the river and taking way too many pictures we walked across a bridge to Buda, which is the older side of Budapest, Pest being the newer, more modern side. Now this is one place where Prague definitely has an upper hand on Budapest. In Budapest, all the bridges have been made very modern and in Prague they have kept the beauty of their ancient bridges through restoration.

In Buda we climbed to the top of Castle Hill. I was not too happy about the climb and whined too much about it, but once at the top, the complaints stopped, the view was breathtaking. Castle Hill isn’t quite what I expected, that is not to say anything bad, and it was better then what I had expected. It is actually a small village within these castle walls. Complete with a school, small mom and pop grocery stores, a theater, restaurants, and more. We walked around the little town on top of Castle Hill for a while looking for the café we had supposed to have been sitting at about an hour and half ago watching the sunset. We could not find it for a while, but getting lost and wandering aimlessly in a place filled with some many things to see and such beauty never becomes an irritation. Eventually, we did end up finding the café and it was closed. No matter, we were in the streets of one of the most wonderful places either of us had ever been, our spirits could not be dampened. I was complaining a bit about being hungry, though. I had not ate a proper full meal since I had left Prague. On Andrea’s itinerary she had marked for us a few different choices for dinner on the first night, one of them being the “best” pizza in Budapest.

We headed down the opposite side of the hill to much more modern part of Buda, I know, I said Buda was the old part of Budapest, but this one area of it was as close as you get to see in Europe to an American city like Chicago or San Francisco, and this how most of Pest looked. In this area there was a huge mall, much to the like of Somerset, for a visual comparison. We walked past the mall for the time being and sought out the pizza place to eat. Walking to the pizza place we walked through a masterfully designed park, there were still kids out with their mothers or fathers playing on what seemed like endless playgrounds. Arriving at the pizza place we found more kids, not much older, probably fifteen or sixteen, and they were drinking heavily and smoking. It is strange to me that in Europe kids can go from swinging on a swing set to drinking and smoking in just a matter of a few short years, but it is the way it is. We actually sat down in a booth of maybe 8 to 12 of these young kids, loud, and obviously drunk already even though it was only about eight at night. We ordered our pizza and as we waited I tried to convince Andrea, as we had overheard the kids speaking some English, to let me using the little video camera I had to pretend I was an American film maker making a movie about English-speaking kids in Europe. Andrea did not find either as interesting or funny in a sad sort of way as I, and she would not let me get these kids drunken on video. It was probably for the better, the owner of the pizza place may have become suspicious, thinking we would get him in trouble for showing under aged kids were being served alcohol in his establishment, or the kids could have been completely unresponsive to my inquiries. I did miss what would have been an interesting video to watch, but because of Andrea’s insistence that I not go over to them, I did not miss out on the pizza. The pizza was great, we just got a mushroom pizza, but it was damn good. They served with pizza sauce on it and then extra, very good, pizza sauce on the side for dipping.

After the pizza, I was exhausted and Andrea has been on a mission to still find boots and “skinny” jeans. So, I suggested we go to the huge mall we had found then jump onto the metro, which was right next to the mall. And that is exactly what we did. Unfortunately, Andrea still was unable to find either of the items she has been so long longing for, but I was able to have us on the metro about an hour later and we were home and in bed by around 10, 10-thirty.