We Were HUNGARY in BUDAPEST (I know...I'm really original)

About a month ago now, Lauren Parker said she wanted to go to Budapest. Blake and I thought the only reason she wanted to go was because its a funny word. While I am sure that had something to do with it, she had real reasons to go. She organized the whole trip and because not too many people really go to Budapest I guess, there were not a lot of flights there. We had to fly out of Frankfurt because Düsseldorf Weeze does not fly to Budapest. The flight was at 7:10am on Friday so we figured we could just take an overnight train to Frankfurt and get there at like 5. Wrong. The trains either got to Frankfurt at 10:15pm on Thursday night or 10am on Friday. Considering we would have missed the plain if we went on Friday, we decided we would just sleep at the airport. Wrong.

About an hour before we left the castle on Thursday, I was printing out my flight information and I decided to just double check and make sure we were flying from the same airport the train took us to. Of course not! Ryanair once again decided to call Hahn, Germany the same thing as Frankfurt, even though it is an hour and a half (And a 12 euro bus fair) outside of the city of Frankfurt. I ran around and told everyone so they were ready for what was ahead of us.

We (Me, Blake, Lauren, Lily, and Michelle) left the castle at around 5pm. We went to the grocery store before we left to get some dinner and then caught the 5:31 bus to Nijmegen. We got to Nijmegen around 6:30 and got on the train at 7:09. The train ride went very smooth (As they usually always do if you plan ahead of time). We got to Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbf (Frankfurt Airport) at 10:15 as planned. When we got to the airport, we then tried to find the bus to "Frankfurt" Hahn airport. On the way we met this guy named Cal who was from Canada (Somewhere above Montana). He was a musician and just spent a few months backpacking around Europe alone and was on his way home. He was kind of drunk, but he was funny/kind of creepy.


Canadian Cal


Cal and Blake drinking in the airport at 1am

We found where the bus left but we had missed the last bus of the night. However being tired and stupid, I read the schedule wrong (For some reason I was not registering the military time and thought they ran until midnight, but they stopped at 10 (22:00)) and we were waiting outside for about 45 minutes until we realized it was not coming. We went back inside and found some chairs to relax in and try to sleep. No one really slept that much, except for Lily...


Lily sleeping next to some random old man.

The next bus was at 2:45, so we just sat around talking to each other and Cal. We finally got our bus to Hahn. Because it was 3am, there was barely any traffic and we got to the airport by 4. Once again, "Frankfurt" Hahn is probably owned by Ryanair because that is the only airline that uses that airport. I came to realize, I think Ryanair just goes and finds land an hour or two outside of major cities, builds an airport, lies about where they are, and then sells cheap flights to get there.


"There's no way around us" That is what's printed on the back of our boarding pass...Creepy yet so true.

We sat around the airport for another hour because we weren't allowed to check in until 5:10. Finally we checked in, got through security (At which Michelle got excessively groped until she finally said to the security guard "Ok...THAT is enough"). After security we...you guessed it...sat around even more! The flight boarded and took off on time at 7:10.



Take off at sunrise is really really pretty.

I passed out on the flight, so I don't really know how it went, but Lauren said there was a lot of turbulence. We landed at around 9 in Budapest, got through customs (Which by the way, it takes me forever to get through every time. I think its because you can't see my face on my passport-It's really funny actually. Ask me to show it to you sometime). First thing we did at the airport was tried to find an ATM to get some of their ridiculous currency (They use the Hungarian Forint (HUF) which is $1=147 HUF). The entire trip we felt like we were playing monopoly because the money was so outrageous and we had no clue how much anything cost.

After the ATM, we got a cab to our hostel. At first we thought it was the sketchiest place ever. There was no clear sign about where it was. Just a dark door that we could not even find for a few minutes. We had to be buzzed in and when we got in it looked just as gross.


The sketchy door.






Yeah...The banister was broken.

However when we got up to the top floor where the hostel was...



We realized it was really nice


I couldn't get a really good picture of it, but the molding outside our window had these faces carved into it.



The view from our window


Our lamp looked like a stroopwaffel (Once again, Google it if you have not seen them yet)

The guy was really friendly and gave us advice on where to go in the city. Since we were all really exhausted and sort of out of it, we decided we would go to one of the dozen or so Turkish baths that they have in Budapest. Apparently Budapest is located at the source of all these natural springs and Turkish baths originated in Budapest, so they are a pretty big deal. The one he told us to go to was a little further away, but we decided to walk there so we could see some of the city along the way.

The city was so intriguing. It is eastern Europe, so it was like nothing we had seen so far. While at some times it was sort of dirty and grimey, it was still really pretty at the same time. It is one of those things that is really hard to describe what you liked about it, but it was just amazing.

Now starts the long list of pictures of random building and streets that I took pictures of...









After walking for a little ways, we realized we did not really know where we were going...


Everyone standing around lost.

We looked at the map and realized we were supposed to turn awhile back, so we backtracked and found the right street.



Lily, Lauren and Michelle


Again, I am not really sure what this is (We should have done a little more research, but schoolwork gets in the way of that I guess...) but I think it is some sort of monument for soldiers




This was the outside of the baths.




Still outside.



The lobby.

We went in and it was sort of confusing. There were a lot of different things you could buy, and although they were in English too, no one spoke English so we couldn't really ask for help. Here is a conversation I had with this woman at the desk...

ME: How long do we have in there?
HUNGARIAN WOMAN: 9000 Forints
ME: ...Ok.

We finally got in, and it was amazing. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures, but you might be able to google it (**********GOOGLE NAME OF BATH*****************). Like the spa in Arcen that I went to, they had all these different types of pools and hot tub type things. However Arcen was very modern and looked like any kind of normal pool we would have in America while the Hungarian one had these elaborate columns and gorgeous architecture to them. Also because the water was natural, it had sulfur in it. At the time, it smelt a little weird, but later on it made my skin feel so soft.

After about 2 hours, we left and we all felt so relaxed. We sort of just walked out and wandered. The rest of the night we just spent wandering around the city and looking at the different buildings. Because we were all exhausted, we passed out around 7:30.

The next morning the alarm went off at around 8am. Of course, no one got up. We slept in until about 9:30. After showering and eating, we decided to try and find this flea market. The guy at the hostel told us around where it was, but we didn't have exact directions.


A souvenir shop called "Budapest." After seeing this Michelle said in a sarcastic tone "Oh...THIS is Budapest...I was confused...I thought we were here the whole time...But I guess it is just this ONE little place..."


This is a video of these random gypsies/Hare Krishna on the street


Gorgeous gorgeous building. It is the Museum of the Applied Art. I don't know what that is, but it was beautiful.


Yup...That is Buda...In BUDApest!

We wandered around for about an hour or two and could not find it. We tried asking people but everyone either a) Did not know what we were talking about or b) Did not speak English. Finally we gave up and decided to just get something to eat. Everywhere we went had these Greek/Turkish looking places with humus and falafel so we decided to go to one of those. It was really good but I got mad at the woman there because she did not understand what I wanted and ended up charging me more for food that I did not want.

After lunch we decided to climb up to the cididel. Like in Salzburg, the city was built around this one big hill, on top of which was this cididel.


The citadel from very far away.

In order to get there we had to walk along the river, so we decided to walk right next to the river instead of on the sidewalk up above.


The girls climbing down


River Danube


Blake with the dead seagull we found.


He made it come back to life...sort of


I call this one "American Tourists"


We found a literal yellow brick road...

Can you tell which one of these pictures is posed...


...and which one is not...


We stumbled upon this really cool looking building. We did not know what it was so we tried to read what it said on the engraving outside the building...

Someone who will remain nameless translated that to be "Budapest Museum of Egypt"


Yes...It definitely is the Museum of Egypt...Or the Budapest University of Technology and Economics...

We snuck inside and it was beautiful


The ceiling in the lobby


The lobby...

And then...

The SKETCH basement


Me in the basement (Thanks to Lily's photography skills.






After the "Egyptian Museum" we went back to finding the citadel. At the bottom of the hill there was this guy on the street selling pretzels and hot wine. Ever since our Sound of Music tour guide told us about this in Salzburg over a month ago, we have been wanting to try it. We all bought a cup of it and made our way up the hill. I was laughing about how it was legal for not only some random guy to sell wine on the street, but also for us to just walk around with it on the street.


Me and Blake with our wine


Blake climbing up a hill with his wine in hand








All of us posing in front of the gorgeous scenery

And of course...


The shakey face!




Halfway up the hill, we found this AWESOME playground with these huge slides, that of course we all went down.








And we kept going...











The sun started to set







The statue at the top that looked like a bottle opener




We looked around for a little bit at the top and then made our way down and then walked around for a little bit more.


Szt. Istvan Basilica


My initials are SAS. I found my center


The opera house


I was confused...I thought the Moulin Rouge was in Paris...Silly me...


There were actually a lot of theatres in Budapest, but we did not know this until late at night.


They really do not try and hide their microphones in Hungary...

After walking around, we went to the movie theatre that is right next door to our hostel. We saw the movie Shortbus which came out in the US last year. It is really weird and raunchy, but was actually a really good movie. The movie was in English, but had Hungarian subtitles. After the movie we went to be to try and get ready for the long day ahead of us.

We woke up at 6am the next morning (Sunday). We got a cab at 7 to go take us to the airport. We checked in at 7:30 and went to go through security/customs. Of course when we are really early there is NO wait at all. There was absolutely no one at security. The security guards looked really bored and got excited to actually see people. We went through customs and no one even looked twice at my passport and just let me go by. So of course, we had 2 hours to jsut sit in the airport. The plane boarded and left at 9:30. We knew from that point on, we had to rush to catch each of our connections in order to get home. In order to do this, we made sure to get the last row of the plane so we could be the first ones off. When the plane landed, we got an assembly line to get all of our bags out of the overhead storage and ran off the plane. We went through customs again (My passport is getting pretty filled with stamps which is wonderful) and got our luggage. We then grabbed a quick bite to eat and got on the bus to the real Frankfurt airport. Luckily the 12 o'clock bus got to Frankfurt early at around 1:15 so we had about a half hour instead of 15 minutes to find the train at 1:45. We still ran through the airport just to be safe. We found the platform and got on the train.

We couldn't find seats so we just sat in seats that were reserved by people getting on in Koln (Cologne), Germany. When we got to Koln, we got up and tried to find seats that were not taken. In this time we split up and Blake and Lily found out from someone that we were on the wrong train. Apparently the trains split in Koln and we were on the one going toward Brussels instead of Amsterdam. Lily and Blake went running up the aisle of the train and told us we needed to switch trains. There were these annoying Germans who were just standing in the aisle and would not move. Whenever Lily tries to talk to someone who doesn't speak English, she will sometimes slip into a British accent for some reason, so she tried to get the Germans to move by speaking in this British accent and saying "Excuse me but we really need to get by." They still would not move, so we literally pushed our way through. We sprinted down the platform and got on the right train. We all slept and/or read on the train and it was fine. Then we had to switch trains again at Arnhem. We had exactly 5 minutes to get from platform 9 to platform 3. Again we bolted from the train, ran up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, down another flight and were the last people to get on the train. That train took only 20 minutes to get to Nijmegen where we had another 5 minutes to catch the bus, which we ran to catch. We ended up getting back to Well around 6 and spent the rest of the night recuperating.

Once again, it was an amazing weekend with a bitch of time traveling. Oh well, I live in a castle.