Budapest

Last week we went to Budapest. It was a really fun trip. 10 of us piled onto a bus and took the 7 hour trip to Hungary. We stopped in Brno, the second biggest city in the czech republic, Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and then finally arrived in Budapest. We arrived with zero HUFs in our wallets so we were immediately faced with a challenge in a new city. After negotiating with two cab drivers they finally agreed to take us to our hostel. Little did they know that we had no money to pay them with. We told them "bankomat" and stopped at an atm. After all of us piled out of the cab to take out money, the hungarian cab drivers started to get pretty annoyed. While they were cursing at us in Hungarian, we rushed back into the cabs hoping they wouldnt drive away with all of our luggage. After another fight or two with the drivers, we finally arrived at Colors Hostel.

10 of us in one hostel room made for 8. It was quite an experience. We dropped off all of our bags and went out in search of a low key beer garden. We took the night easy in preparation for the big day we had in front of us. Thursday morning we woke up and set out to Sziget music festival. Sziget is one of the biggest music and cultural festivals in Europe. It is held every year in August in Budapest, Hungary. It it located on a small island in the middle of the Danube river. We spent the day enjoying the scene and listening to good music.

There were several stages and we saw two concerts, the Ting Tings and Bloc Party. I was pleasantly surprised with the Ting Tings performance. I had heard some of their songs, Thats Not My Name and Shut Up and Let Me Go, but thats about it. I was not expecting much from them. For about 45 minutes they bounced around the stage exuding amazing energy into the crowd. Bloc Party played later in the evening. They also put on a good show, but the rampant outbreak of mosh pits detracted from the concert. Two of my friends went crowd surfing and enjoyed the concert from atop the crowd.

The next day was filled with relaxation while all the girls soaked in the famous public bath houses. The bath house was filled with different kinds of pools: inside, outside, hot, cold, mineral salts. We spent a majority of the day pool-hopping and enjoying the soak. That night we experienced a bit of the Budapest ngihtlife. After walking and walking and walking, Farah, our faithful map carrier, took us to a cool bar. We spent a good time there and bounced around a couple different bars in the area. It was our last night in Budapest so we had to do it right.

The next morning we unhappily woke up in order to check out of our hostel. I hadn't yet seen any of the sights of Budapest and could hear my mom in the back of my head saying, "you went to Budapest and didnt go sightseeing?" So I recruited some friends to walk around the city and take pictures of the sights. We walked up the Danube river and saw the Academy of Natural Science (I think) and Parliament. This is a picture of the front of Parliament. It is a massive and intricate building. After getting the required sightseeing pictures, I stopped at a cafe to wait for the rest of the group before we headed back to the bus stop to return to Prague.