HUNGARY budapest (buy your subway tickets!)
mary, charice and i (friends from my hostel in beograd) booked our accommodation at the “aboriginal hostel” on the pest side, which was amusing to us since they are from australia. looking at the list of hostels on the web, they basically chose this one based on its name. so of course we get there and along with a painted map of australia on the wall, there are artifacts like the boomerang. . .and turns out the hostel is run by hungarians. haha. we look in the guest book and there are entries like, “made us feel at home.” because, you know, all aussies have their places decorated with aboriginal artifacts.
after taking photos of buildings (churches, parliament buildings…all kinda the same by now) we get some tourist maps with suggested places. we picked the statue park since it looks really interesting and historical. but after missing the ’statue park’ bus and having to hop on trams and local buses to get there, we were sodisappointed. ok so it was supposed to be “eastern europe´s most exciting outdoor museum,” with soviet-era statues that were moved from budapest´s streets to this park. ya right. we had fun since we ended up climbing around and posing like the statues for our photos, but i would never describe it as “exciting.” there were probably a total of 12 statues in a field of dead grass and pathways…all scattered around a parka bit smaller than a football field. none of the statues moved either. so exciting? not really. basically, the marketing team did an amazing job.
man the subway patrol here are anal! what happened to the “honor system” that most cities use? (haha…) we managed to ride the trams and buses for free, but the subways were another story. it was a little exciting game since i only bought tickets half the time and you never knew when they were going to ask for your ticket. i have never been anywhere where the regulation is so strict! you buy your ticket, validate it, and then have it checked by officers not only as you are going towards the platform, but AFTER you get off at the exit. we even had three officers approach us as we stepped off the train on to the platform…we had no idea what they were saying, and since they had their hands out we thought they wanted money. so of course we try brushing past them muttering “no” and then realized they wanted to check our validation. close call, but we were legit that time!
i almost forgot about the turkish baths! there are atleast ten places you can go to in budapest, but we chose the most famous and biggest one called the szechenyi bath. go big or go home, right? the place is really amazing, with a neo-baroque building housing the indoor baths and sauna, and big outdoor pools that are so gorgeous it looks like you are swimming in a fountain! some baths smelled really bad because of the sulfur, but then you could just move on when you couldn’t't take the smell. i think it was the most relaxing day i have had in a long time!
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