There were no bed bugs during our last night at Wombat's City Hostel. Still, it was a little difficult to sleep. I was picturing those little buggers gnawing on me all night.
We had not yet bought our transportation to Budapest, but I looked it up ahead of time. I had a pretty good idea about how the system worked. After checking-out of Wombat's City Hostel (good riddance) and saying goodbye to our new friend Esmee, we headed to the train station.
Along the way, we picked up some breakfast from a nearby bakery.
I was barely able to pay for my train ticket. I felt like a true college student traveler, digging into my pockets and paying for the train ticket with my leftover change. That was a close one. Almost got stuck in Vienna, oh darn.
I found my platform, sat down, ate my cinnamon roll, and watched the trains go by. So many people are always coming and going places. I always wonder what for.
Our train was really nice! Next to our seats was a group of older Viennese men drinking beer after beer. It looked like they were on vacation too.
This was the last impression I was going to have of the Viennese, and it was a quite different one than my first. Very simply, they love to enjoy themselves.
I thought about Vienna on my trip. I was surprised about how modern the city was. It was certainly modern with their prices, at least. The claim that the city is rooted in its music culture is very accurate. There were music stores on every block and advertisements for classical concerts every night. Many of the churches were even used as concert halls in the evenings. This I found to be particularly cool.
I definitely enjoyed my stay in Vienna.
We arrived in Budapest just a little past 2 in the afternoon. I could already tell that Budapest was going to be very interesting. The train station was beautiful but was also very dirty. I think that this description goes for all of Budapest.
Getting to the hostel was a little difficult. We took the correct bus, but we took it the wrong direction. This gave us an interesting look into the outer parts of Budapest. My first impression of Budapest was that it was very dirty and poor. The sad thing is that this is actually a reasonable interpretation.
I would later discover that Budapest has more positives than negatives, and like Naples, somehow embraces the negatives into its charm.
After asking a Hungarian girl for directions to our hostel, I immediately started to change my opinions. She was very nice and patient with us and she got us to where we needed to be, Big Fish Hostel. She even took the time to whip out her iPhone to help us out.
This hostel was exactly what I needed after our stay in Wombat's. It was located in an older looking building next to a beautiful theater. The stairwell was open to the air. As soon as we walked in the door, we were asked to take our shoes off. This alone I found to be very welcoming. It was like walking into my own home. They only had 4 or 5 rooms and a few bathrooms. There was a kitchen with free tea and coffee. Everything was decorated like I would decorate my own bedroom.
Best of all, the receptionist was amazing. I was going to love this place.
As we were checking in, she gave me a key and said that this would unlock the door to the hostel and that it....
Oh shit! Key. Keys. Where were my keys?
This marked the realization of my biggest blunder of Spring break. I had left my keys somewhere between Budapest and Prague. I was trying to remember where I had left them. I was so upset with myself. I got into a funk.
It was too bad. Spring break was going so well, flawlessly if you don't count the bed bugs. And then this.
Walking to lunch was not cheering me up very much.
If there are two things in this world that will always cheer me up, they are cheap, delicious beer and cheap, delicious food. Luckily, the hole-in-the-wall restaurant we found had just that.
I had something with paprika in it. I know this because it was the only word on the menu that I could understand and because it was in the name of every dish. Budapest loves paprika.
I was feeling much better about my situation, also a little tipsy. My keys had to be somewhere.
I decided to be proactive about it and I e-mailed the two hostels I had stayed at. I narrowed it down to two possibilities. Either I left them at Sir Toby's when I was checking out or I left them at Wombat's when I was violently awoken by bed bugs and had to change rooms.
With the e-mails sent, there was little else I could do. Time to go enjoy the evening in Budapest.
We walked down the streets to the far North side of the city where there was a park and an old castle, Vajdahunyad Castle. During our walk, the streets of Budapest started to become a little more comfortable. Nobody seemed to be stressed out. Sure, everything looked dirty and a little grimy, but somehow it was inviting, like a hand-me-down sweater.
The castle was enclosed by a very nice park. There were a few people hanging out and enjoying the end of the day.
It was a little disappointing to see that they had drained the moat and nearby artificial lake. Apparently, they use the lake for ice skating in the winter, and it looked like they were performing some maintenance on it.
On the West side of the castle there was a bronze statue dedicated to anonymous. He was the author of some early twelfth-century, Hungarian historical records who singed his name as 'the anonymous notary of King Bela.' So, he is shown with a golden pen in hand his hand.
Budapest had some really cool statues. They all symbolized something and there was usually some sort of superstition surrounding them.
There was a street that I wanted to walk down on the way back to our hostel. It ran towards the river, away from Hero's Square. Hero's Square seemed like the cool place to hang-out. Teenagers were everywhere skateboarding, BMX-ing or just chilling.
The street I was looking for was called Andrassy Street. Located on it were a bunch of embassies and some really nice apartments. The architecture was impressive.
We struck a conversation with another Hungarian. He had spent a couple years in New York. It was easy to talk to the Hungarians. Most of them have no choice but to learn English, mostly because Hungarian is an impossibly difficult language.
The fact that everyone in Europe is taught English is something that has bothered me ever since I've come here. Why is it that our language is forced upon everyone? Why has our language been designated as the international language?
At first, it seems a little unfair. Many young Europeans know a good amount of English. Very few young Americans could carry even a brief conversation in another language. Did we force the rest of the world to learn English? This is what I believed at first. But now, I think that this explanation is actually quite self-centered.
Instead, it seems that the globalization of Europe has necessitated an international standard for communication. English was probably the best choice because of Britain's political position and because of America's role in the globalization process. This helps to remove the guilt of not knowing another language. Still, I feel bad not knowing one sometimes.
I digress. After a couple of drinks and some conversation with the locals, we headed back to the hostel and asked the receptionist where we could find some music. He gave us a recommendation and we headed out.
Hungary was probably the first country in Central Europe to ban smoking in all public buildings. But, you wouldn't believe me if you stepped into this place. It was difficult to see your hand in front of your face.
We went down stairs looking for the music. Instead, we saw that everyone in the basement was quietly staring at one guy. This guy was speaking very loudly and passionately. Everyone was hanging on his every word. Was this the concert? We asked the bar tender what was going on. She said that this guy runs the concerts and that the concert is in the other room. There was nobody in that room except the band. The room with the loud guy was more appealing. We asked her what he was talking about. Just a lot of politics she told us.
Even though I didn't know exactly what he was saying, it was still very interesting to sit in and listen. Hungarian was a nice enough language and this guy was simply fun to watch.
We ordered some food and hung out for a while, occasionally talking some politics of our own. Then we headed back to the hostel and crashed. That's where we met our roommates, American students studying in Prague. They were spending their weekend in Budapest as well. They were all very nice.
A little chit chat and it was time to go to sleep. We were going to catch a 10 o'clock free tour in the morning. I was pretty excited!
