Home in London again, after a whirlwind adventure through Romania. These blogs are going to be in sections, mainly because I can’t sit still long enough to type the whole thing out in one go. My goldfish attention span, let me show you it.

Budapest, Hungary

We found a University hall that was renting its rooms out to backpackers for the summer. Ugly on the outside, the inside didn’t disappoint, our room looked like a cave. Marcelo went to check out the bathrooms. “Ok. I’ve good news and bad news. The good news is, the bathrooms are really nice. The bad news is, they seem to be multi sex and the showers are completely open. I suggest you wear a bikini”

And so I had the fear. We did find a girls bathroom about half a kilometre around the building, but the showers (no shower heads, they were like a giant taps) were open as well. Plus, I saw BOYS running in and out of there to use the bathrooms. Fastest shower ever.

Within a few hours of being in Budapest, we’d decided that trying to figure out how to pay for bus tickets was too hard and that must mean all public transport is free. We walked for miles around random touristy spots I’d seen photos of on a brochure earlier in the morning. We went around an old church building, where I found this guy hiding:

Represent yo.

We found a massive food market that had a cute little strudel stand. “I want one of those” Marcelo told me. “We’re coming back here tomorrow”. It was around about this point where I realised Marcelo goes through bigger food obsessions than I do. We did go back the next day, the markets were shut. We went back again the day after that, the markets were open, except for the strudel stall. I did not hear the end of talk about the damn strudel for DAYS.

After spotting a random club under one of the main bridges, we jumped off the bus and tried our best to fit in. 2 tequila shots and sharing a weak vodka and lemonade later, we decided to find cheaper alcohol elsewhere. “Find someone that speaks English” I ordered Marcelo. “Or Romanian. Or Swedish. Or Spanish.”
“Or German” he mumbled.
“German?! Where the hell did you pull one that out of?”
“I dunno, school. I can’t speak it fluently, but I can ask for an alcohol shop and understand directions on how to get there.”

Oh to have been born European. Then I’d have a passport that doesn’t get scrutinized for an hour at the airport and be able to speak 105 different languages as well.

We finally found a shop that sold straight vodka and found a step under a shop to drink it on. Staying classy oi. “Where is our hostel” Marcelo suddenly demanded, pulling out a map.
“Um.. here…ish”
“No, here” he said, stabbing my finger on the map. “You need to remember this so I can get too drunk to lead the way”
“Ok”, crap. Luckily, I managed to get us on a bus that went in the right direction.

We swam in a beautiful giant outdoor Bath place in the city park, and we climbed a pitch black and scary path to the top of a hill to find a citadel looking over the city. We wandered round a place called Fishermans Bastion and poked around in markets. It was a 6 hour train ride to our next stop.

More photos here