hungary?
what a crazy few days it has been for me. so i left Split on friday for the beautiful train ride through the croatian mountains up to the capital city of Zagreb. i arrived at my hostel, and was greeted by name with beer (i told him what time id be arriving). i liked Zagreb already. the hostel is called Fulir, which is croatian slang for "pimp". thats exactly what it was. i had a blast there and decided that i really like the croatian people. not only are they super friendly and very good at english, but they also enjoy the art of the all night bar hop. so my 8am departure on saturday came very early, but myself and a few other people from the hostel made our train to Budapest. i have quit encountering austrailians so much over past week, but now they have been replaced by canadians. i find canadians easier to understand and much less ridiculous looking, though they all really like to take "chinese" pictures of themselves (where someone takes a picture of you standing in front of a building by yourself with a blank stare on your face). the chinese picture taking thing really bothers me, but other than that i have enjoyed my encounter with the 10 or so canadians i have met in the past week (3 more at my hostel here in Budapest).so yesterday, i set off to do something that i havent done since i have been traveling by myself, which was to actually be by myself for a little while. i went out of my way to not introduce myself to anyone at the hostel yesterday, and set out to walk the streets solo for a little while. so im walking along, minding my own business, when i stumble upon an outdoor concert. as im walking up, i here a tune that sounds vaguely familiar... okay so i walked into the 2nd verse of a butchered version of sweet home alabama, in the middle of a random park in Budapest at 5 oclock yesterday. i took a video because it was so ridiculous. after i got my fill of them repeating the same verse for about 3 minutes i wandered on down into an outdoor skate park and made some conversation with some hungarians, who are also quite friendly. last night i finally broke down and made friends at the hostel, and then played quarters for a little while before calling it an early night.
today i woke up and met some friends at this local hungarian joint for some lunch. hungarian food is suprisingly awesome, and if i could even pronounce what i ate i would write it down. it was some sort of bread with chicken and cream sauce inside it on a salad. so delicious. after that i walked from Pest over to Buda (they are actually seperated by the danube, which by the way is flooded right now because it rained ALL night and all morning, not that im bitching). i toured the Buda castle and bounced in and out of various little street cafes and bars to avoid the rain. this is by far the coolest city i have been in and im kind of bummed i dont have about a week here. this afternoon, me and the canucks went to the hungarian hot bathes, a massive complex of pools, saunas, and springs. it was a great end to a day of walking. im back at the hostel now, and i just met 5 irish people that are staying here. i think everyone knows the high regard i have for the irish and their ability to party, so you can imagine my excitement. thats all for now, im going to caving tomorrow in Buda to squeeze through "the sandwich of death"
posted by Graham Potter @ 4:43:00 PM
