Europe Trip, Part 4 - Budapest

During my first trip to Europe in 2004, a lot of people I talked to had the same favorite destination - Budapest. Besides Budapest being beyond beautiful (how you like that alliteration, bitches?), they said that their favorite part of it was that it was still genuine. Prague was a similar city, they said, but EVERYONE had discovered it already and it lost a lot of it's authenticity. Now that was 6 years ago, so I figured that in the meantime Budapest would have been overrun as well. But I still picked it over Prague, hoping that it might still be beyond the grasp of the masses. Luckily, I was at least partially right.

My flight was pretty early, so I arrived at the Budapest airport around noon and jumped into my prearranged shuttle. A German guy named Hans who was also on my flight was along for the ride as well, so we BS'd about sports and the usual stuff on the 40 minute ride into the city. He spoke perfect English, and had even been to Vancouver before. He wasn't a huge hockey fan, but he thought that the Russian team was overrated and that the US was going to make the finals against Canada. I laughed at his obviously stupid statement...until a week later when everything he said came true. Dammit. He must have thought the Canadian that's supposedly a diehard hockey fan is a moron. And he'd be correct.

Eventually he jumped out and the shuttle driver took me on a bit of a city tour before depositing me at my hotel. Even though his English sucked, it was cool to have a tour guide point out the various old buildings and their significance. I was already blown away by how varied and cool the city looked. One block would be ultramodern, while the next housed crumbling buildings and huge churches. I'm not a huge architecture buff, but this shit was cool.

I hadn't actually seen the Danube River yet, which splits the city in two (one side is Buda, the other side Pest. Seriously, they just combined the two to make the city name). My hotel was right on the bank of the river, apparently overlooking the gigantic Royal Palace on the other side, with the Chain Bridge about 100 feet away. I say apparently, because there was one small problem...

It was foggy. Not just your average fog. The thickest fog I've seen in a long time. If the driver didn't tell me the Royal Palace was across the river, I never would have known, because I couldn't see a damn thing. And this motherfucker is HUGE, as I'd find out the next day. Hell, the Chain Bridge is gigantic too, and I could just barely make out the entrance to the thing. I didn't even notice the fog before because we weren't near the river and the streets are very narrow. But now...this fucking shit was ruining my vacation!

My hotel was pretty sick. A priceline business hotel again, but the location and layout couldn't be beat. I had heard a lot about how hot Hungarian women were, and when I was lining up to check in, I thought I had hit the jackpot right away - the reservations girl was gorgeous. Until I got up there, and mentioned that I picked Budapest over Prague, and she told me she was Czech. What the hell? Anyway, hot is hot, I don't care where it's from, dammit. It's not like I had a shot either way.

Since it was 1pm and I didn't have a beer in my face, it was high time to correct that. I meandered around for a bit until I found a pub entrance. Through a lobby, around 2 corners and down 3 sets of stairs later, there it was. A sign on the wall listed the prices...hmm...1000 forint for a beer. At the time, a Canadian dollar equaled about 190 forint. Soo...beers were over 5 bucks. What the hell? Everything I had heard was that Budapest was cheap. Luckily someone was reading my mind...and he turned out to be probably the worst salesman of all time. A waiter came up to me reading the board and spoke in a brutally strong accent...

"Beer food cost much here. Walk two blocks north vaci utca, find much lower money"...

And walked away. Who says that in their own bar? How did he even know I spoke English? Anyway, thanks employee of the month. After taking 5 minutes to figure out what "vaci utca" was (the street I was on, apparently), and miraculously being able to follow his directions, I sat down in a pub where beers were 600 forint. Hey, I wasn't complaining.

Eventually I left the comfy confines of the pub and went exploring...or tried to. In my infinite wisdom, I decided to explore the stuff that was surrounded by fog instead of venturing further north where there was no fog. Go Kozels (that's the beer I was drinking). I wandered around all sorts of cool buildings and sick architecture for a few hours until I got tired of barely making anything out. I then got the bright idea to grab some beers from the store and sit on a bench down by the river in front of my hotel. On a non-foggy day, this is a great idea. On a foggy day however...

Basically I sat there, drinking beer out of a paper bag, listening to my ipod, and staring at...nothing. Fog. You couldn't make out anything at all.

REALLY REALLY FUCKING FOGGY.

The few people that walked by kinda looked off in the distance where I was staring, like they might be missing something. And then back at me with looks of pity and confusion. Come to think of it, that's usually how women look at me. Anyway, it was kinda dumb. After sitting there for an hour or so, I turned around and saw...my hotel bar. Right behind me. With people sitting against the glass, drinking beer that wasn't in a paper bag, looking at me like I was dumb. Touche.

It was gettin dark and I was a bit of a burnout, so I grabbed some food in the restaurant and retired to my room for the night. Hungarian TV was pretty amusing...it was a lot of American shows dubbed into Hungarian. That might sound dull as hell, till Jersey Shore comes on. I'd never seen it before then, and lemme tell ya, Jersey Shore in Hungarian after a few paper bag beers is some funny ass shit.

I ended up crashing early, and woke up earlier. Around 6:30am. On a sunday. At home, this is a terrible time to be awake and I hate the world that early. In Budapest however, it would mean I'd likely have the city to myself for a while, which is always my goal when traveling. See, I like traveling, I just hate people. Anyway, I walked over to my curtains, closed my eyes, and opened them both at the same time....NO FOG! I could see across building after cool building. I got ready uber-quick and headed out to experience fogless Budapest. And it ruled.

I walked the 100 feet or so up to the Chain Bridge, and crossed over. A few lonely cars passed me, but I pretty much had the bridge to myself. I'm intensely afraid of heights, but it wasn't too high so we got along fine. On the other side, I took in the massive scale of Castle Hill. There's a funicular that takes people to the top, but it wasn't even open yet...that's how early it was. I decided to walk down the Danube towards the Parliament Buildings.

Holy crap, they're fucking insanely cool. I'd seen pics before, but pictures never, ever compare to standing right there, staring at something with your own eyes. I just sat on a bench (sans brown bag beer), and took it all in for a while. Out of all the things I saw and did on this trip, Budapest at 7:15am all by myself, staring at one of the grandest structures in the world...that took the cake for me. Best moment of the trip.

I do find it kinda funny that I'm telling y'all that pictures never compare to the real thing...then showing you a picture. Hey, it's better than nuthin, right?

After some breakfast and chillin, I headed off in the other direction to check out more of the city. I eventually stumbled across the Jewish Quarter, and knew it immediately. How? The rest of the city is old, but nice. The Jewish Quarter? Graffiti'd to shit and falling apart at the seams. I'd heard this beforehand, but it was kinda surprising to see the state of disrepair it's in. At least the Jewish Museum was pretty cool.

After that was up to Heroes Square, which is the coolest part of the city to me. It's a huge park area, surrounded with cool buildings and lotsa (cheap) bars and restaurants and stuff. I spent most of the day up in that area. Overall, the city is a ton of fun to walk around, because there's so much to see. I only scratched the surface in 2 days. I totally wanna go back.

There's really not much to tell after that. Chilled out for the rest of the day, got a good night's sleep, and went to the airport to head to Brussels. The airport was amusing...some stupid American was totally aghast that he couldn't pay his bar tab in American dollars. "Who doesn't take American? That's ridiculous! No, I don't have anything else, why would I NEED anything else?" And Americans wonder why they have a bad rep. Why the fuck would he think American dollars would be acceptable in Budapest, Hungary? He actually had to go to the airport currency exchange, which probably gouged the shit out of him. Serves the dipshit right. Oh, and my waitress looked just like Kaila. Like, it could have been her twin. Yes, you Kaila. I know you're reading this.

So, that was Budapest. Definitely on the "return to" list. Next up was Brussels, Belgium...certainly an interesting stop. One of the strangest, that's for sure. Stay tuned.