All things vampire... and more!: Road Trip to Budapest 2016

Dec 31, 2016

Road Trip to Budapest 2016

Neusiedl am See

I'm incorrigible. Every time I return from a journey I say to myself that I'll write a blog post immediately but look at this. This was in the summer and yet I'm writing this on New Year's Eve.
This year my friends and I couldn't make our schedules meet for longer than five days so we decided to hit the road and get abroad but not that far. Once we got on the highway connecting Vienna and Budapest, it was so easy.


4 iconic things: Buda castle, the Danube, old tram and the Joker ;-)

We made a stop in the half or our journey - in Austria in Neusiedl am See - to refresh ourselves and to stare into water for a bit. I must admit we could have stayed a bit longer were it not for one member of our party who started to burn in the sun. It was hot but still... Weird.

We arrived to Budapest in the afternoon and found our hostel in the centre as well as cheap parking space quite easily. Our first walk was along the Danube and then we searched for a place to eat some traditional food. We found a restaurant and placed our orders. When the food arrived, the waiter warned us of hot pepper on the food. I thought he was talking of the dry stuff which the food was dusted with so I tried to blow it away. But my friend took a bite of fresh veggies on the side (where there were a couple of slices of green

This dude reminded us of Karl Marx so we called him thus.
What's very funny about it is the cross in his hand. Get it?
No? Then I'm sorry. This is a nerdy joke for social scineces
majors...

pepper) and started choking. We didn't know whether to call the ambulance or not. He became red. He couldn't talk. This proceeded for ten minutes. I tried the pepper too because I couldn't believe it would coax such a reaction out of someone (it was no jalapeño) and half of my tongue was on fire first and then I lost sensation in it. So I can only tell you how only half of my leco tasted. :-)

The next day we embarked on a trip up the hill. There is a Hungarian statue of liberty watching over Budapest so we went there. It was 30° at 8 am already and the storm clouds which threatened to spill over made sure the humidity was unbearable once we started sweating our way up. When we

Liberty Statue on Gellért Hill

got there, there was a group of Asian tourists in the first photo spot and they were just getting their cameras out of their bags which meant they arrived seconds before us. While we were drenched with sweat and were happy they came first in big numbers (so that we could take a breather and look less shiny in pictures), they were perfect. No sweat stains on their clothes, no runny make-up. Nothing. They were photo ready. Just how?! What country were they from that they found this exercise in humid hot conditions normal and didn't break a sweat? We found out later that there was a bus stop at the top so their group cheated. :-D=

Later we went to see Buda castle, which is biiiig and again on the top of the

You know I have a thing for these ;-)=

hill. But there were escalators. And an art exhibition so our souls were fed. Later we emerged at a different end of the castle and saw an awesome funicular. We waited for it to go up to take pictures and one of my friends decided to have an ice-cream while we waited. It was the only thing she had and we didn't so that must have been what caused her diarrhoea later. That sucked but only slowed us down a little.

We went to see the Parliament building (it's stunning) and the The Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial. After seeing St. Stephen's Basilica we went on a souvenir hunt and came across a big water fountain or whatever it was and were more than happy to dip our feet in it.

Our last day started by seeing the synagogue and trying to find the Hungarian National Museum. We got lost for a bit and walked in a different direction (yay for maps where there aren't the little streets) but we found it and learned something of the Hungarian history.

At Buda castle

Then we went to see the Central Market Hall to get the feeling where various things were because we wanted to buy the fresh goods upon our departure the next morning. It was packed with people, chilly peppers, wreaths of garlic, sausages and other very odour-emitting products. Last souvenir hunt followed.

There was a beheaded snake under the fountain below "Karl"

Early in the morning of the next day we went to the market to buy stuff for our families and went home. We didn't see everything in Budapest, far from it. But what we saw we liked. It was beautiful and I see why people had problem saying if it's Prague, Vienna or Budapest which is the most beautiful city in Europe. I can't honestly tell.
Now let me tell you a story of our departure. As I was mentioning earlier, there were storm clouds everywhere making the air not so lung-friendly. And in the morning of our last day, the sky was dark and we knew it would start raining any minute. The check-out was at 8:00 and we waited ... and waited ... and waited for the dude to come in and open the reception to give us our deposit and documents back. He came about half an hour late. As we were dragging our luggage (now full of meat treats and wine) to the parking lot (about 2km away), very heavy raindrops started to fall. It was so dark suddenly that we didn't even see the corner where to turn. Needless to say that before we reached the car which now seemed very far, the rain seemed to "fall" up from the ground. The dirt surface of the parking lot made sure we got mud on our legs. Thoroughly wet and dirty we went home.