Thursday evening passed about as quickly as molasses in wintertime. We got out of class, had lunch (where we once again gathered a years supply of bread for our journey), packed and waited. I checked my e-mail and my Facebook page back and forth at an attempt to pass the time, but the time seemed to move just as slowly.
I changed my Facebook status to “Budapest and Vienna for the weekend” Wednesday evening. Thursday morning I received a message from Nicholas that read “No Prague this weekend?” Confused, I messaged him back and said that I hope he was kidding and that I was excited about our trip to Prague this coming weekend.
What I wished was a joke on his part, I soon realized was not. I messed up the travel plans big time. This made the time go by even slower. I was so upset. I have waited for 4 years to see him, it was finally going to happen, and it turns out I am the worst travel major known to mankind. He and his friends went to Prague this weekend while I was in Budapest and Vienna with my friends. Next weekend, the 8 of us girls will be staying the same exact hostel. At least I got that part of the plan right =)
Forging ahead, Ashley, Christina, Deirdre, Elsa, Linda, Jeanne, Julia and I got on a late-night bus and then a train, which brought us to Munich. This is where we waited for about an hour for our night train to arrive. We were not worried about the night train because our experience with the night train to Roma was quite pleasant. We spoke too quickly! This train displayed to us the importance of liking your job. The man that was in charge of giving us our sheets and taking our passports was miserable! WOOF!
Not only was he miserable, but the 8 of us did not all make our reservations at the same time, so Jeanne and I were in a 6-man sleeper car with 4 randoms. We were both in the middle “bunk”, so we just did everything we could to get in our beds and get to sleep… That was the plan, anyhow. It felt as though I was snuggling up on a wooden floor with a pillow that consisted of 5 napkins crumpled up. A wad of toilet paper might be a better way to describe the thing that they expected us to use as a pillow…Not Charmin TP, either…this was that kind that cheap restaurants use in order to cut costs and make the customers with they never had to pee.
Continuing to forge ahead, we finally got comfortable snuggling with our pocket books as if they were teddy bears (as to not get robbed), and attempted to catch some zzz’s. Though my deaf ear comes in quite handy most of the time…Mabel (my deaf ear) couldn’t seem to tone out the ungoverned sounds coming from the large man that was sleeping above me.
We woke up abruptly as the unhappy train-worker-man tugged on our sheets and yelled to us that “wakey time was at 7”. I don’t really know why “wakey time” was at 7 because we didn’t have to be up for 2 hours! As he tugged the sheets from under me, I accidentally kicked the head of the woman that slept below me. Though I was barely clothed, Mr. Train man didn’t seem to care. He tugged the sheets from beneath me and I had to get dressed quickly, though the woman that I kicked didn’t seem to want to move. It’s an interesting thing, getting dressed scrunched up in a ball with a German man yelling at you and a Hungarian woman glaring at you with a devilish gaze while the train car sways back and forth.
When we arrived in Budapest we were a bit taken back, if you will. Let’s just say that none of us did proper research on Hungary and/or Budapest. We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Looking for the subway was our first hurtle. We walked briskly through the dirty train station and across the street as we noted the unhappy faces of the Hungarian citizens. We found the subway station, took the long escalator underground, where we attempted to buy a ticket for the train. Apparently Budapest is not on the Euro. I was under the impression that one of the stipulations in joining the EU was accepting its monetary unit. Seeing that they joined in 2004, I thought they would have since switched their money over. Nope! We had to go back up the escalator, back over the tracks, and to the original train station where we could transfer our Euros into Hungarian Forint. 200 Forint is equal to 1 USD. Not a bad exchange rate!!! Maybe Budapest wouldn’t be so bad after-all. Cheap is always good.
When the train arrived, we were all taken aback by its appearance. Having been in Rome the previous weekend, we were a bit unprepared as to what some other European cities entailed in regards to cleanliness and beauty. The train looked like it was from the 1950s. We all felt like we were in a bad movie, and it seemed to be getting worse.
We made our way to the street where our hostel was after a few strange encounters with Budapestians (?). When we arrived at the address, we had to walk through this sketchy little doorway where this old woman was stocking watches with this haggard-looking old fellow. We made it though and were presented with a beautiful building that was full of potential, but looked like it had not seen a power hose in decades.
Confused, Christina pressed a buzzer near the door in hopes that it would call upstairs. The voice of a quiet little woman was on the other end and she buzzed us in. The rod-iron gate opened and revealed a beautiful, yet dirty, spiral staircase up to the room. The dark cavernous hallway seemed like the icing on the cake to this already gloomy day.
Inside this little hippie-girl that had a strangely placed uni-brow welcomed us. The hostel looked like it was from the movie Across the Universe. She showed us to our room and gave us a pile of strangely colored, patterned sheets that didn’t even really fit on the awkwardly shaped beds or the blankets (if you can call them that). They were quite a bit like the pillows I mentioned from the train car.
The 8 of us freshened up and ventured off into Budapest. What was there to do? We didn’t really know, but we were going to find out! That day the weather wasn’t ideal for walking around. Mother nature couldn’t decide if it wanted sun, clouds, rain, sleet, snow, or freezing rain. This confusion made our spirits even more exhausted.
We went for a stroll along the Danube and around Pest. Buda and Pest are two different parts of the city known as Budapest, each residing on opposite sides of the river. We were staying in Pest. The architecture was very beautiful but we couldn’t understand why everything seemed so dirty and why everyone was so sad/mad looking. The weather wasn’t helping. If I had only brought my Patagonia, my whole experience could have been improved!
We crossed the “Chain Link” bridge (don’t know why it was called that b/c there was not one chain-link to be found!), and went into Buda. This part of the city was much prettier. There was a nice art museum, but we weren’t in any mood to pay for it, or look at art in the first place. The Sistine Chapel in Rome burnt our interest in paintings out for a while! We basically went in for warmth and shelter.
Jeanne heard of a museum that she really wanted to go to, so we were on our way to that when we discovered a Hungarian market that tickled all of our fancies! It was an authentic outdoor Hungarian market! We excitedly got in line for some food at a stand that looked legitimate. I have no idea what it is that we ate, but Lord was it good! It was very inexpensive, too! We all huddled up at the picnic table and drank hot wine as to warm up our freezing bodies. As the snow hit our freezing bodies, we were wondering how this day could get any more random. An ode to the wonderful world of traveling, if you will. This was undoubtedly the best meal I have had thus far on my European Adventure and whoever invented hot wine is a real star in my book!
We shopped around a little after the snow started to come down thicker and wetter, and I bought a yummy Hungarian dessert. It was called sweet bread. It is dough that is rolled in sugar and cooked over a fire like a pig would be cooked at a pig roast. The sugar caramelized and the dough on the inside got warm-a very yummy treat. I was pleased to have the help of my 7 traveling companions as well as two other groups of people that I just had to share with the goodness of the dessert.
We exchanged some money and were off to the House of Terror (where Jeanne wanted to go). It is a museum now, but it was witness to two shameful and tragic periods in Hungary’s 20th century history. In 1944, during the gruesome domination of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party the building, known as the “House of Loyalty,” was the party headquarters of the Hungarian Nazis. Then between 1945 and 1956, the notorious communist terror organizations, the AVO and its successor, the AVH, took up residence there. This was the headquarters of their executioners.
The museum was very modern and very vivid. The faces of the thousands of people that were executed covered the walls. Their outfits, their bibles, their stories, and the video’s of their deaths were all displayed in an eerie way that was very eye opening. In the basement, the cells and beating rooms were just as they were 60 years ago. This museum gave us an explanation as to why Hungary is the way that it is now. Many of the people we saw on the streets were probably alive during all of this- all of them affected by the communist party seeing that it ended less than 20 years ago. 1/10th of the population was exterminated.
After the museum, we found a much more beautiful part of the city. The sun began to sine, and our moods were strangely lifted. I had to pee really badly (surprise!), so Dee, Linda and I found a bathroom. It was the strangest bathroom I have ever seen! It was under-ground and was covered in metal bars. After a walk down a narrow, dimly lit hallway, we found a little old woman that collected our150 forint for the use of the “facilities”.
We went back to the hostel for some R&R and some much-needed preparation for the evening festivities. Ryan Sullivan (from Nichols) happens to be studying there, so I got in contact with him with the help of Elsa’s phone. We met him out at a bar named Paris Texas later in the evening. We grabbed a few drinks there and then went to this club that was the strangest club I have ever been to. We went there with a group of his friends that were all very nice. This club had about 50 rooms of varying sizes and vibes, if you will. The first room we were in had the feeling of a dark deli; the next was a small room with a random bathtub, then a big room with one chair. It just kept getting stranger, but the people were fine and we felt safe. I was very grateful that we knew someone with good recommendations. Ryan was really sweet to do that =)
I thought about my options. The best one I came up with was a quick dash. Even though I had my mountain pack on, I was sure that I could out-run this fat Hungarian cop. After all, he was being very insensitive to my budget and me! Christina, who was coaching me through this situation, didn’t think that was a good idea. At this point I was balling and not being very nice to mean cop man. Perhaps I wasn’t thinking rationally, but I can think of many other things that I would rather spend 30 dollars on. The situation ended with my paying of the fine and Linda yelling with distaste “Train your employees!”
And so we left Budapest a bit bitter.
Ah Vienna. A breath of fresh air! Even the train station was pretty. There was a very strange man that resembled the man that lived under the bridge in Dennis the Menace that was following us, but we just went on our marry way and ignored him.
Our hostel was just a short walk from the train station. It was a “Wombat” hostel. Very cool! There are a few around Europe and were made by two men that spent an extraordinary amount of time traveling around the world and became sick of the disgusting hostels. They decided that they would reinvent the concept of a hostel, and out came the Wombat Hostels. (Look them up if you’re intrigued…they are pretty neat!)
We got settled and headed out into the city. We were starving, so we asked the guy at the front desk for an authentic Austrian suggestion. He gave us the name and address of the place. It was bit of a walk, but we got to see a lot of the city. Downtown Vienna was almost like a toned-down NYC.
The restaurant was far, but a very good suggestion! It was a Brewery and had a very cool vibe. It was only 4:30 at this point, so their lunch menu (cheap) was still in place. I got a delicious Beef-based soup, a unique salad, and a huge rack of ribs, all for under 10 Euro! We were so stuffed! Almost too stuffed and cold to see the sites, but we realized that to skip out on seeing the sites would be ridiculous. Though I felt as if I had a set of twins in my belly and nothing to keep warm with, I put on a smile and went to see some of the palaces and such things. We didn’t really get to see a lot, which I was disappointed about. We learned from this experience that seeing two cities in 2 days is a bit difficult.
It was too cold to go out, though we really wanted to go to the Bermuda Triangle. There was a bar on the first floor of the hostel to which we all received a free drink, so we all went downstairs, played a few rounds of Kings and called it a night.
The beds at the Hostel were very comfortable and even had our own bathroom! We woke up, packed up, and received an amazing breakfast for 3.50 Euro! Not a bad deal at all! We loved the Wombat!!
Today, I have spent 7 hours on the train so far. We have 4 more to go before we arrive at our beautiful town of Vitznau =). Tomorrow I think I am going to Weggis to book a train to and from Croatia (to see Nicholas and see beaches!!) for 2 weekends from now. I believe that it is a 27-hour train ride…we’ll see how I do traveling for 27 hours alone through Eastern Europe. That should be an interesting blog entry!
Auf Weidershen!
Though over the past 3 nights I have had about 10 hours of sleep in total, I had to get up at 5:30 to shower and venture off to Mt. Titlis. 
.jpg)
