(Note: This is all being written as it happened, journal entry form. Deal with it. And this isn't for you, it's for me. It might get boring.)
Part 1 -Germany/Hungary
Right, just to let you know I'm in the Vancouver national airport. I'm going to Europe. Yeah, it was a rather spur of the moment thing. I only decided to go three weeks ago. The keyboard I'm typing on is glued off to the left, so you sort of have to sway your body in order to type on it. It's quite annoying, but I can tell why they did it: It's probably so that when people like me get irrate that we don't hurl it across the airport. I have to say, someone throwing a keyboard across the entire length of the Vancouver airport would be QUITE impressive. I'd pay to see that.
I almost forgot how much I love flying, folks. The clouds are just begging to be jumped in, though I'm glad there's two panes of windows to stop me from doing so. Those clouds are deceiving. It's also sort of unnerving that there's only three sentences on the back of the seat in front of you.
''Please remain seated when taking off.''
''Use seat cushion as flotation.''
''No smoking.''
It explains why the seat cushion is so uncomfortable. Uncomfy cushion= bad flotation device.
I have to say the only thing I'm worried about going wrong on this trip is that technically I'm in the last 6 months of my passport, and you're not supposed to travel anywhere in those last six months. However, I'm a little bit rambunctious, and like to try my luck, so I figure I'll give entering foreign Countries a go. Why the hell not?
So the plane ride, well, there's not much to say about it. I sat next to this entertaining Scotsman and we argued about which termonology was correct the entire way there. 'You call Semis Lorrys?' 'Yes, but we don't have any-' 'So how can you tell me I'm wrong?!' The food was quite scary, and through out the trip we were entertained by The Simpsons and really bad episodes of the Office. Once in Frankfurt I grabbed my luggage (although, according to the carousel my suitcase just came in from Bangkok) and met Maria just on the other side of the arrival barrier. She had come to Germany two weeks previous, and was, luckily for me, fluent in German.
Within five minutes we were eating good sandwiches (a grand improvement on the Airline food) and munching away on German chocolate.
After that we validated my Eurail ticket, and caught the next train to Munich. It was conveniently leaving within 10 minutes of us arriving at the train station (don't worry, it was part of the airport) and shortly after we were on a Train ride that would arrive around 6 pm. Maria and I tried to sleep, but didn't manage. Fortunately we didn't have to change our seats at all.
This takes a little bit of an explanation, I suppose. When you have a Eurail pass it doesn't secure you a seat on the train, it just allows you to get on it. So when you get on board there is a very high probability that you're sitting in someone else's reserved seat, and they have all the authority in the world to kick you out of it. The solution for this: we had to wait until the train actually started moving before choosing our seats, and then cross our fingers at every step it made along the way. Perfectly logical.
Once in Munich we found our hostel called the Jaeger (after getting off on the wrong side of the Station) and grabbed some food from the Doner Kebob shop. Jet lag began to slowly hit me, and after checking our e-mails quickly (Maria exclaiming 'I really I should do this more often, I've only sent one so far...') we went to bed after writing up some post cards.
The next morning we woke up fairly early to trudge downstairs, eat some food in the common room area, and watched some mildly disturbing Australian cartoons. Most of the Hostels in Germany are run by Australians, oddly enough. We stepped outside only to find out it was snowing. The Germans have worse weather than Canada! Bundling our clothes extra close we got to the train station, where I bought some really cheap gloves, and were aboard our train to Hungary. The weather on the way was a variant between extremely snowing weather the bright green grassy patches. Vienna looked especially cold.
Somewhere between Munich and Vienna this couple sat beside us, Maria and I having opted for both having a window seat when we had gotten on the train. The woman couldn't speak any English, but the fellow was British and varied between really crude jokes to saying phrases that reminded Maria constantly of songs. Shortly after the Passport control people stopped by, all decked out with their batons and guns in attempts to look formidable. Maria and I handed them our passports, and they seemed to ignore the fact that I wasn't allowed in the Country and stamped my passport anyway.
I have a horse shoe up my ass.
We got out at the Hungary train station, not really realizing how much time had actually passed, and wandered over to the first logical place we could see: The Information Kiosk. After playing the dumb tourist and getting a map, the man behind the front desk diligently pointed us in the wrong direction. 25 minutes later as the city was starting to get dark we discovered we were lost.
As Maria says 'You just wait, we'll end up in Buda instead of Pest and be like-' (together) 'Oh well fuck.'
After successfully getting lost we stumbled across a cab waiting out in front of a pub, and managed to get him to give us a ride to the road where the Hostel was located. As it was a foot walk way and the sign is literally the size of a small box of soda crackers we walked past it three times before noticing it. Hesitantly we pressed the entrance button, and then, after being admitted through two other doors found the Hostel. Now, we were so cool when we got there that we purposely avoided the already drunk Australian boys by watching Sin City and playing Sha-Hi (Maria, don't kill me if I spelt that wrong.) much to their displeasure.
Out of all the Hostels I stayed at in Europe, the Budapest Bubble is by far my favourite. You get free internet here, as well as a comfy and homey atmosphere, so it ends up feeling like you're staying at a good friends house instead of housing unit. A young girl named Olga, who's 27 runs it with the help of Clare, an energetic Aussie with a fantastic personality. And now for pictures of us in the Bubble.
For dinner that night we went to this place Olga recommended called the Blue Rose and had this fantastic pork dish. The food was so incredible and we were so ecstatic that we ended up buying flowers for her from one of the creepy flower venders on the street.
The next day we woke up at around 9 am with ideas to do something, but no plan to follow. We met this really nice Aussie girl named Ellen and ended up talking to her for a good hour. She was leaving that day, but demanded that the two of us go to the public baths for her because she had been unable to do so and she wanted to live vicariously through us. We deemed this a good plan, and soon with our trusty map in hand set off to find the Deak ter Metro station.
We messed this up a lot.
In Budapest there are no side walks at major intersections, instead you go underneath the road in these tunnels. It's quite handy. However, if you want to get tickets to the Metro you have to go under in the tunnel, come up the tunnel that leads you to the bus station Island, and then get the correct ticket from the Kiosk. It wouldn't take our money, and we began fumbling with our change (Forints, they're evil, I swear it) before some nice guy came and helped us out and then told us the correct Metro to get on so we wouldn't have to figure out it. We wandered back into the tunnels, and after getting to the wrong platform went through a series of stair cases and the like before we found the correct Metro line that was the farthest away possible. We set off to the Budapest Gardens. There we found some incredibly awesome gigantic pretzels, and entered the Széchenyi Baths.
They're most easily compared to Hotsprings, but much fancier and surrounded with ancient architecture. It was quite the experience. They have these jets that come out of nowhere and make your flesh feel like jello. It's very scary to watch the old people.
After this we nominated to wander through the Gardens and Budapest for a bit before attempting to find the Metro. We managed to find this place called Heroes Square, took appropriate pictures, stared in awe for a while, and then caught the Metro to the farthest point of Pest near the river.
Our intention was to visit Buda that day, but it seemed more or less difficult as we had managed to locate ourselves near the car bridge with the thirty foot wall instead the foot passenger bridge.
We took this as a sign and began to browse the streets, buying a couple of scarfs. We ended up going to this Restaurant called the Casablanca which is based completely off the film, and ordered food. Now, in Hungary they give you an insane amount of food. We learned this last night when we got our meals from the Blue Rose. Apparently we didn't learn it well enough. Here we each ordered a Hungarian Goulash, Maria ordered a turkey sandwich, and I ordered some form of shrimp appetizer thinking it's lunch, we can share, and we'll be good until dinner. The Waiter looked at us like we were crazy, but said nothing due to his limited English, and we were soon presented with two massive bowls of Hungarian Goulash.
We somehow made our way through it and felt pretty damn good about ourselves, and then they brought out the next of the food. They didn't bring Maria one sandwich. They brought Maria FOUR sandwiches. My appetizer could have been a meal. We stared at each other bewildered and then ate precisely one quarter of the food there, before checking around and sneaking the rest of the sandwiches into our bags.
The Hostel was beckoning us back, and after paying we made our way in the direction of the Museum, picking up some pine apple juice along the way.
The plan was to go with Clare to a rock concert that night, so when we got in at 6 pm we had roughly 2 hours to sleep. I had a power nap while Maria powered through Deathly Hallows in two hours (and finished it, too.) It never ceases to amaze me how fast that girl can read.
Clare had told us that the plan was to meet some people from the another Hostel, and then go to the rock concert. The people from the other Hostel weren't very eventful, and watched Curb Your Enthusiasm (an awful show. I don't recommend it.). After an hour we wandered over to where the concert was only to find out we had mistaken the date and it was in fact the next night instead of that night. One of the guys that had come to see the rock show ended up ditching out, and it left Maria and I with Clare and a fellow named Mike from Georgia, USA.
We all had a bunch of laughs, hanging out, and around 12 at night went to an Irish pub to try and find a pool table just to see how good the claims we all were making (save Maria) would hold up. They didn't have one, and through out the night Mike got more and more drunk and became more and more arrogant. He didn't leave the best impression with Maria and I, and after we stopped in at a Doner Kebob shop at 2:30 in the morning for food (Maria paid) we went back to our hostel and fell into a much welcomed sleep.
The Doner Kebob Shop at 2:30 am.
October the 23rd is a National Holiday in Hungary from when they gained their independence from the Soviet Union. Maria and I slept in to the ungodly hour of 10:30 am, and left the Hostel around noon with intentions to finally go and visit the Buda side of BudaPest. On every street corner there were these massive projector screens with enormous amplifiers hanging from cranes. Speeches were bellowing out from them, and in between speeches there were these inspirational songs echoing through out the city. It was raining, which left Maria and I huddled underneath her bright yellow children's umbrella with a print of a tiger on the front.
We first stopped off at the Blue Rose for lunch, surprised it was open on a holiday, and ate some fantastic food (picture below) before leaving a 4000 forint tip, because we didn't know we were allowed to tip. I'd become a food critic to give this Restaurant an awesome review.
We received many a snicker as we passed, and ended up taking a Gondola up to on the Buda side. From here we had a magnificent view of Pest, including the Parliament building. We were, however, cheap, so we took the stairs on the way down and tried to get back to our Hostel around 3 pm. This would prove no such luck.
The streets were absolutely packed with people yelling at the over head speeches and projector screen in anger. Maria immediately put away her umbrella and grabbed onto the strap on the back of my bag as I attempted to muscle my way through the crowd. It took us about 45 minutes to an hour to get through the crowd when it would have only taken us 3 minutes walking. When we got back to our Hostel we found the door open, and in the corridor to the court yard there was about 40 policeman all decked out in riot gear. Using our key we stumbled into the Bubble and exclaimed 'There are policemen out there!' Olga: 'Yes, they're there to protect you!' Us: 'Oh, well that's a pleasant thought.'
We watched the rioting from a safe distance from that point after getting changed out of our soaking clothes and hanging them so they could dry. Sipping pine apple juice we watched the march, getting criticized by an ornery neighbor who told us 'We'd better watch it or they'll come over here and break our windows!'. Such a pleasant lady, that one.
By 8:30 pm the crowd had cleared up and the three of us (Maria, Clare and I) set out once more to go see our Hungarian Metal concert. The first band wasn't that bad and had a half decent guitarist, but the second sucked all living hell. Some creepy guy named Peter came and tried to talk to us, and was generally awkward and left before long. Maria ended up leaving by 11:30 because we disliked the second band so much, but Clare stayed because she had a friend in the last band and thus an obligation. We stopped off at the Kebob shop and then slept, having to catch a train early the next morning.