After a 3 hour train delay and a lot of Milky Way spread eaten off a plastic spoon, I rolled into a beautiful, blue skied Budapest. In jeans and a T-shirt I was sweating a lot but the droplets down my spine were happily welcomed in exchange for the warm feeling on my skin. I arrived at the hostel, relatively hassle free except for climbing the 5 flights of stairs with my 20kilo backpack and then realising there was a lift #doh!
I was welcomed into Carpe Noctem Vitae by a lovely American girl called Hoops. She was so welcoming and friendly and signed me up for a pub crawl, pointed out all the sights of a budapest on my map and hooked me up with a ticket for the thermal baths which I set off to immediately. I put in my iPod and soaked up the warmth happily singing along and realised how much happier I am when it is sunny! I relaxed by the water at the largest and coolest outdoor pool and just relaxed, finished Life of Pi and tanned all afternoon with a few dives into the cool refreshing mineral water.
My stomach made me leave but otherwise I would have been content to stay for 4 more hours, as I walked back the sun began to set but the warmth remained and I got back in time for 'family dinner' cooked by the hostel, burgers and chips- of course with no bun! I was already heading off on a pub crawl that night so I sat outside and chatted with some fellow crawlers and then set off! At stop number one I sat around a table which was a very quiet bunch of people... By stop 2 I moved on a found a more fun group including Anna who worked at the hostel and her friend from home, Mims- these girls were to become my Budapest buddies! The pub crawl was very quiet and chilled out so by bar 5 and after some corn chips and salsa, the three of us headed home and took some very stressed French boys back to the hostel who couldn't cope with the directions, walk to the end, turn right and then right again....
After a lazy start to the morning, I decided it was time to go & explore the sights of Budapest, the castle and Citadel (a giant hill) on the other side of the water. I set off on another solo adventure but promised mims and Anna I'd be back at 3.30 for cocktails before the bath party which was on that night. I strolled down the octagon headed to the water and then crossed paths with Peter and his friend who's name I can't remember, Melbourne biys who I had met in Berlin. They had just started a free walking tour which also want to the castle so I decided to tag along and have some company. Throughout the painful and ridiculously long dialogue from our Hungarian tour guide, we chatted about our travels since Berlin, saw the main sights and of course soaked up the sun. Once we crossed to the other side of town the view was incredible, up a few stairs and there was incredible panorama view of the city. Luckily Tyler had found pan aroma mode in my camera in Vienna so I snapped away. At the conclusion of the tour I was so incredibly hungry so the boys and I stopped for some traditional goulash before I literally ran away from them to get back in time for cocktails with the girls. It was a little Mexican restaurant chain not a cocktail bar like I had expected but they served cheap and strong frozen margraritas as well as yummy tacos and nachos that we shared. 4-6pm was happy hour so we made the most of it and then stumbled back to the hostel via a bottle shop, like we needed it...
As a giant pack we walked down the road to the bath party and had a giant pre drinks in the park with about 30 of us from vitae. I had heard wild things about these bath parties and I was very apprehensive and scared while we waited in the line, but I bumped into Peter and Alex my buddies from Berlin and soon forgot my worries and even managed to sneak in half a bottle of vodka by holding it behind my back while getting my bags searched.. Not very thorough hunters those Hungarians. On entry we were ordered to take off our clothes and GET IN THE POOL so I obliged, bought a drink and jumped into the warm water. It didn't seem dirty at all, none of the horror stories, just a DJ, lights and 30 people swimming around having a good time. I was glad people exaggerated... About 2 hours later unfortunately, all the horror stories came to life. Use your imagination, anything you could do was being done.. Mims, Anna and I stayed in a huddle in the middle of the pool I'm relative safety and avoided the edges at all costs! Despite som disgusting antics going on around us, the vitae gang still made it a fun night and w stayed in the water until close at 3am. It somehow took us 2 hours to make the 15min journey back to our hostel via a kebab shop of course, and I then had a 45min shower to wash off the grime and feel semi clean again.
The perks of having an underwater camera were revealed the next morning when I showed everyone shameful or hilarious photos of their actions at the bath party and after that we were all feeling very lazy so mims and I took the helm and walked to the park with a few of the boys in tow for a tan at the park! It was a lovely afternoon in the sun just chatting and relaxing and we all decided at about 2.30 it was time to move and feed, so we went to probably the worst Hungarian restaurant in the world and I had the worst salad ever- lettuce, feta cheese and a hot pepper on top. Delightful. Tonight's escapade with the hostel was jäger train. This meant each participant received 5 jäger bombs each which has to be consumed within an hour that were all stacked up and simultaneously knocked over with a pool cue. I got a front row seat for the spectacle and a great view of the 500 shot glasses falling into their cups. From here we headed to retox the craziest dirtiest party hostel in all of Budapest/Europe and partied all night long- I even crawled on their dirty floor, did turbulence shots, was DJing, cheered on dave drinking dregs (a bucket of mixed alcohol, dirt, and leftover food) and danced like crazy! I was taken home in a big pack of people very ready for bed and crashed straight away. Also, I finally achieved my trip long goal of getting my ear pierced! At retox, in the kitchen, by the bartender.. But I had a hole in my flesh so I was happy!
Today again was another slow start. Budapest was party central and my body needed extra sleep to even attempt to keep up! All I was craving was heathy food, so I summoned up the strength finally to make it to the supermarket and get rice cakes, tuna, avocado and strawberries, heaven! I headed off with the biys to kick the footy and have a drink (again!) at Grandeo and attempted to convince mims to come caving with me later that afternoon, it didn't work sadly but after a few lazy hours in the sun I decided to be active and caught the bus to the caves! After dressing up in my big overall suit, helmet and head torch, a group of 10 of us headed down into the cave. It was so much fun scrambling and squeezing through tiny gaps, commando crawling, sliding down rocks on your bum and climbing up slippery rock walls. I felt as though Europe hadn't completely stolen my fitness because I wasn't puffing half as much as everyone else which was a comforting thought. It was a long exploration down in the dark and by the time I emerged it was already 8pm so I rushed back in time for a shower and then open mic night, a much more relaxed vibe which was nice for my last night. Soon the performance level deteriorated and with that the nught got more fun. I drew the line st 2 ciders but danced around with the girls and cheered on Anna who was brave enough to perform. It was great! I headed back to bed and said my farewells to my girls who I promised to come and visit in Norwich when I head back to England. In the morning, flight time to Venice! My dreams of Italy were finally becoming reality.
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