Day 7: Budapest, Hungary
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2008
1
7
61
Trip End
May 17, 2009
Budapest, Hungary
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
All I know is that those trains themselves are as old as anything I have ever seen and not one inch of them were not covered with some graffiti. However, believe it or not they are very reliable. The metro is way underground and every time we got off, we had to take some sort of escalator. I don't know about the stats, but they were so steep that it made we wonder if they were the steepest and longest escalators in the world. I didn't realize how far down we were until I got onto one of those but we finally got to our stop and we looked for our hostel.
We knew before we left the US that out hostel was not going to be pretty from the outside, but it was not only not pretty but it was also dark and kind of scary at first. By the time we found it, it was really dark. The entryway were really dark and frankly, it needed some renovation (which is the kind word for it by the way) and I was wondering how sketch this place really was, after all who has NOT heard a story about a nightmare hostel. (I don't see any hands so I am assuming you all have). We are greeted at the door by nothing less than what you envision when you think Eastern European. He is probably around forty, smoking a cig and is filthy. However, if you looked at him very closely you could see that he could be very handsome. He had very kind eyes and was very laid back and friendly. Hope thought he was hot and really wanted to get her hands on him so she could clean him up. I totally concur that he could have been a real looker if he wanted to be. But I digress, we asked him if we should go ahead and pay for the nights that we were going to be there (because all of our previous hostels wanted to be paid in advance) and he said, "N-oh, we wait for Rudy. Nice guy, pay him." We asked him if Rudy was his real name and he said (with a slight smile on his face) "n-oh, just call him Rudy." (Imagine an accent and you will understand the voice I am trying to portray.) We never got his name and so for the whole time we just called him "our friend."
We were starved and it was around 9 and we asked "our friend" where a good place to eat was. "Not good to go out this late and nothing near." He said. "I'll order you a pizza. What you want?" We told him pepperoni and cheese, but when it finally came it was a pepperoni that was unknown to us and thin slices of ham all over it. Grease was dripping off of it and it was delicious.
I now have to say that when we went up the stairs, it was one of the nicest hostels that we had stayed in the whole trip. Everything was brand new and renovated in the modern style with tile and chrome everywhere. A huge big screen was hanging on the wall that was looking into the sitting room, which always had the Olympics on it and we were thrilled, however it had one horrible flaw.... No air conditioning. It must be a Budapest thing because as days went on, we found that air was something of a luxury but with weather that was over 100 degrees, it was not pleasant that first night. I personally got up several times simply to spray cold water on my face and neck, it was miserable. One other thing that was not so nice was that we were across from the hospital. The windows had to be opened to let some air in so we heard sirens all night and they are not like American sirens, they can't decide if they want to go off or not. So they had several short screeches (if you will) and one long one. It sounded like something was wanting to die and I wanted nothing more than to be the one to kill it.
