Budapest

Continued from Vienna 27Jul06

Written in Prague, 1Aug06:
By evening we were working our way through the public transportation system in Budapest, which I later learned is the oldest Metro in Europe! We waited ages for a connecting bus (the Metro stop in front of our hotel was closed for construction) that took us only 3 blocks to our hotel! Ooops!

At the hotel, we were greeted by unbelievable poshness, and... Cindy! She had just made it in a few minutes before us and we all were sticky and gross and tired. After luxurious showers we all felt a bit better and decided we'd better find dinner at about 11p. While people were walking everywhere, we couldn't find anything serving food until we met a "political" pimp that, once we turned down the sex shows, gave us great advice and pointed us toward an Arabian restaurant in a basement that seemed to never close! We ordered a from a menu with no English, so the waiter suggested a kebab platter that was second only to the unbelievably well-made Mojitos! So we ate and watched belly dancers flirt with patrons while a DJ and live singer kept the music pumping. Aside from the fact that it was a thousand degrees in there, we could have stayed all night! The girls even got up at the end of the night and joined in the dancing!

We stumbled home exhausted and decided to sleep in the next day! Our first full day in Budapest was fairly chill. Breakfast at Cafe Anna, the girls went shopping (I even bought a new shirt!); I had a bath. Cindy and I bought a buncha groceries - Nutella, bread, Sangria, etc... and we snacked at the hotel, then hit the POOL! On the 8th floor was a warm pool and a warmer spa, plus a sauna and scented steam room. We met a British bloke that joined us in the steam room and we tried to make plans to meet up later, but we overslept. We grabbed a late dinner (I learned apparently "Ovari" is Hungarian for "mushroom" which I hate, wheee!) and made our way to bed.