Budapest is one of those places where people intend to stay for a night or two and end up staying for ages, and no where is this phenomenon more pronounced than at the 'Aboriginal Hostel'. We booked 3 nights and stayed a total of 6, nothing compared to this one German guy who booked 2 nights there, 8 weeks ago, and was finally going home.
I don't know what made us stay and ditch going to Ljubljiana (capital of Slovenia). Maybe it was the cosy atmosphere, maybe it was the tv with millions of movies, all I know is we're leaving Hungary refreshed and ready to finish the trip with a bang in Austria and Italy.
I was particularly excited upon arrival in Budapest. I'd been told that there was an official Gold's Gym there - the famous chain of gyms based in California I've always wanted to visit. I woke up early our first day there, put on my Gold's Gym singlet, packed my Gold's Gym teeshirt to change into afterwards, borrowed Gavin's camera and headed out on the half an hour commute. I took a few photos of the sign outside and prepared to enter. That's when I saw the sign. 'Gym Lite'. They knocked it down to build some atrocity called 'Gym Lite' which wasn't even finished yet. Those b******s! Luckily we were going to a place called the House of Terror that day, which sounded like a perfect way to lift my spirits after the morning's disappointment.
All jokes aside the House of Terror was a museum based in the building which was once the headquarters for first the Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian Nazi party during WW2 I'd never heard of) and the communist political prison after the war. It was a visually interesting exhibit let down only by it's lack of English explanations for such confusing displays as a room containing a maze made of soft wax bricks and an elevator that took five minutes to descend one level while an archival recording in Hungarian played through a speaker. Longest elevator ride ever.
We also paid a visit to one of Hungary's many thermal baths (Szechyny I think?) - room after room, indoor and outdoor, of pools and saunas at different temperatures all housed in an eleborately decorated mansion-like building with lovely marble sculptures like a swan biting a woman's nipple much to her apparent enjoyment.. After changing into swimmers I realised I had left my wallet by the ticket booth, and hurrying back I was informed that the ticket lady had found it and it could be given back to me as soon as she was finished in the bathroom. 20 minutes later I was still waiting. Someone needs to get some more fiber in their diet..
One protracted bowel movement later I got my wallet back and hit the pools. Originally I didn't know the water was naturally heated in an underground spring and so is rich in minerals like sulfur. I mistakenly ended up blaming the faint egg-like smell on the Hungarian locals using the pools instead of the pools themselves. Sorry Hungary - you aren't as smelly as I secretly thought you were.
Despite our vow not to sight-see in Budapest as a break from culture sd all that stuffy stuff we found ourselves on a bike tour of the city. Old habits die hard it seems. The tour wasnt all that interesting, but after a quite grueling climb for a bike tour we enjoyed a great view of Pest from the hills of Buda. Yep, Budapest is the named as it is because one side of the river is called Buda and the other is called Pest. It's so hard to avoid learning things. I also found out why Hungary is called Hungary by foreigners when locals call it Magyar. When the Hungarians arrived hundreds of years ago from central Asia they were considered like the Huns and so came the name Hungarians. The ride was enjoyable, and a good warm up for the afternoon when we played 2 hours of intense four-man laser tag bout which I am proud to say I won. That was meant to be a warmup for paintball the next day, but the company went into liquidation overnight and so it follows that we couldn't get a booking. I felt a bit bad for Ben who had returned to Budapest for one day on my invitation to paintball, buy he's a big boy.. He can handle it.
Beside bowling, that's all the proper activities I achieved in Budapest before getting sick. Again. No problem though, it gave me time to finally watch Gladiator (I don't see what the hype is about. It's Russel Crowe at the end of the day..), and like 20 zombie movies. I also found a read a great book called "Would You Eat Your Cat?", which believeit or not is about philosophy.
As far as nightlife goes we spent most nights watching movies, or at this awesome bar called Szimpla, although I did drag my sick and mucosy self to a club one night, which was awesome.
I know this doesn't flow logically from what I just said, but in Eastern Europe you don't buy eggs by the dozen - you get packs of 10! How cutting-edge! One day our eggs will move to the metric system too, and a glorious day that will be.
A last thought - how good is Hungarian goulash?! It kicks Czech goulash's ass!!! In fact i'm making some in my hostel in Vienna right now, so I better get back to it.
Aidan out!!