our final day, BOOO
November 4
I surprise myself by how easily things freak me out. Last night I woke up around 3AM having to go to the bathroom. Our room was at one end of the hallway and the bathroom was at the other end and the thought of running all the way down the hallway to the bathroom (in case there were guys with chainsaws, axes, or other torture devices waiting for me) didn’t sound that appealing to me… so, just to see if she MIGHT be awake, I whispered Marilena’s name AND SHE RESPONDED and got out of bed and came to the bathroom with me! Oh god, I have problems I think… is it normal that I’m TWENTY YEARS OLD AND HAVE TO HAVE A BUDDY COME TO THE BATHROOM WITH ME CUZ I’M TOO SCARED TO WALK DOWN A HALLWAY BY MYSELF?!? Prolly not…
None of us slept very well that night; the wind was super strong, the beds were as hard as the floor, AND the freaking moon was in my eyes. UGH – oh well, it helped to get us going this morning: we were out by 9AM.
Okay, Hungary at 9AM is one big popsicle of a country. It was cold cold cold; people here have the whole “bundling” concept down, that’s for sure.
First we walked past the huge park by our hostel in the direction of Heroes Square. Today was some sort of national holiday/memorial/independence day (one of those but I’m not sure which one) in Hungary and the memorials set up in the piazzas on the way to the main Heroes piazza was packed with Hungarians carrying flowers to place on the monument. The memorials were actually really cool and we spent a few minutes strolling through them taking pictures until all our fingers were about ready to break off.
Heroes Square was decorated for the occasion as well. The monuments and columns were all covered in Hungarian flags with the center emblem cut out of them (which at the time we didn’t understand, but now do and will explain later).
We took a group shot in front of the statues; the guy who was taking our picture’s friend named Andreas who was wearing an AWESOME Canadian Tuxedo jumped and the pic with us… classic. The CT’s are starting to follow us everywhere…
Afterwards we got distracted by a castle and an outdoor ice skating rink behind Heroes Square. I REALLY wanted to go skating but our group was half injured and laf frozed so we decided against it. Booo… I’m for sure coming back some day and brining my brand new skates that I’m still only ever used once and going ice skating in Budapest (Pete, if you’re interested, you can come too). Hm, this really made me miss him…
The castle was really beautiful (and had a moat and everything!). Unfortunately the inside of it had an agricultural museum; we didn’t even have to discuss whether or not we wanted to go in. I’m sorry, but I have ZERO interest in the history of Hungarian agriculture and food growing techniques; call me ignorant (tee hee) but I just don’t.
Our next stop was the National Museum. It was pretty far from Heroes so we hopped on the metro. At the museum stop, we were walking off the train and were stopped by the Hungarian metro police. “Can we see your tickets?” Crap. We all pretended to scramble around in our purses looking for our non-existent tickets for a few minutes then gave in and told the four cops we’d all “lost them.” We paid the fine, which was only 10 euro, and the cops issued us a 3-day metro/bus ticket and let us go… hahaha, I can’t believe that we got rolled by the Hungarian cops for illegally riding the metro. I guess that’s what we get though for using public transportation for free for the past few days…
The National Museum was pretty cool; it inspired me to look up Hungary’s and the Soviet Union’s political history. About a week before we left on our Fall Break Eurotrip there were riots in Budapest in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hungary’s up-rise against Soviet rule. The museum had tons of pictures and paraphernalia from that day 50 years ago. We also learned that the reason the flags with the hole cut out of the center were hanging everywhere is because during the time of the revolt, the Hungarians literally cut the Russian emblem out of the flags… that’s pretty hardcore symbolism right there. So, that’s kinda what I learned in a nutshell and am really excited to look up more (I’m a big dork).
Bytheway, did I mention that we are all cheap and didn’t want to pay for the museum so we got admission tickets for the free section of it but then snuck into the not-free section through the exit? Psh, that’s where all the good stuff was anyways.
After the museum we sprinted across the huge-street-of-death to a coffee shop and chilled (well, actually, defrosted in prolly a more appropriate word) for about 3 hours. Hahaha, it was funny; my friends make me laugh. I love people that make me laugh.
For the rest of the afternoon we went souvenir shopping on Vaci Utca. At first the cold was a little bit discouraging (to say the least) and I was pretty sure we were going to last for only about 30 minutes, but then we spotted H&M and we all got a little bit warmer on the inside! H&M was our first stop and we were in there for about an hour. We all bought a few things; um, how can you resist? God, I love H&M.
After that we continued our stroll down Vaci on a mission to find Budapest shirts, presents for dad’s, mittens and hats, and presents for friends at home. Check to all except one. We found a fabulous little soucenir store down a sketchy dark alley and were in there for about 20 minutes. I wasn’t planning on buying anything until I found a little, painted, wooden, guy (very Hungarian looking) on a corkscrew… best part? He was wearing an all-pink suit!
I’ve gotten Steph a present from every country that I’ve visited and thought this little dude would be a perfect addition to her gift. I picked it up and was walking around with it still browsing when I realized that a young guy that worked in the store was watching me… he wasn’t, liek, sexually watching me, but more suspiciously watching me. Everytime I looked up, there he was looking at me as if I was planning on stealing something? In the end I got so psyched out that I vetoed buying the corkscrew (even though it was perfect), put it back in the basket with the others, and we left.
About five minutes later, we returned to the same store cuz Kate decided that she wanted something from it afterall. I was still sketched out by the hawk-dude and decided to wait outside with Amelia. As we were waiting, the sun set (um, it was about 5PM) and it started snowing… oh yea, it also dropped about 10 degrees so into the store we went. WELL, I decided that since I was there I wanted to buy the pink corkscrew after all and was really confused when the basket with all the corkscrew guys was gone. Ehhh, then I noticed the contents of the basket were dumped onto the counter and lined up as if all the merchandise was being COUNTED! They really thought I stole the corkscrew! I was totally freaked out, ran out of the store, and never plan on returning again. I think this country hates me.
We shopped in the freezing snow for about 2 more hours and couldn’t find another pink one ANYWHERE. No joke. Kate and I were being souvenir store whores and went into every single one and couldn’t find a guy in a pink suit ANYWHERE! Booo, sorry Steph! He woulda been perfect for our night back at SCU this winter…
Then it was back to the hostel for a brief siesta/period of defrostation before we headed out to dinner. Around 7, we headed out to catch the bus downtown.
Okay. All those times that I wrote about how it was “freezing” compare NOTHING to how mother-fucking-cold it was that night. The bus didn’t come for about 20 minutes and by the time it did I was shaking and wet from being snowed on. It had to be about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Total. I was tempted to leave my friends and spend my evening in the underground begging for dinner with the homeless people cuz then at least I wouldn’t be frozen.
On the bus, Marilena and I started to seriously re-think our trip to Hamburg three weekend from now… if you don’t know where Hamburg is, google it now. It’s right up there with the North Pole. I dunno, are Chris and the boys on his German volleyball team worth being completely miserable and frozen for three days? Updates on our decision to come…
For dinner that night we made it to the all-you-can-eat-Hungarian-restaurant that we’d gotten a flyer about the day before. I felt like it was a mixture of Coco’s and my elementary school cafeteria; but it didn’t matter… I was fine for a last meal. I ate about 10 euro worth of vegetables and drank about 50 euro worth of wine and champagne. I sampled some of the “Diabetic Cake,” yes this was its real name, but it tasted like play-dough and I couldn’t manage to eat any more of it after the first bit.
Other than the boring family next to us staring at us the whole time, our waiter being totally retarded, the awkward (but ballsy) boy that came up to talk to us then wouldn’t leave us alone, and the fact that the four of us ate AND drank waaaay too much, it was a great time. We even took advantage of the smoking-is-allowed-in-restaurants-in-Hungary concept. Heh.
On our trek home I realized I was wasted cuz it seemed only half as cold outside as it did on the trip there. Also I called Pete. I've been missing him ever since Halloween and I knew the whole ice skating rink that morning pushed it to the point where i had to call him. Meeh, it was really nice to hear his voice... we hardly talk anymore and when we do it's really formal conversation. I miss the old way with my favorite person. A lot. Anways, falling asleep that night was easy – aaah, what a fabulous last day of fall break
I surprise myself by how easily things freak me out. Last night I woke up around 3AM having to go to the bathroom. Our room was at one end of the hallway and the bathroom was at the other end and the thought of running all the way down the hallway to the bathroom (in case there were guys with chainsaws, axes, or other torture devices waiting for me) didn’t sound that appealing to me… so, just to see if she MIGHT be awake, I whispered Marilena’s name AND SHE RESPONDED and got out of bed and came to the bathroom with me! Oh god, I have problems I think… is it normal that I’m TWENTY YEARS OLD AND HAVE TO HAVE A BUDDY COME TO THE BATHROOM WITH ME CUZ I’M TOO SCARED TO WALK DOWN A HALLWAY BY MYSELF?!? Prolly not…
None of us slept very well that night; the wind was super strong, the beds were as hard as the floor, AND the freaking moon was in my eyes. UGH – oh well, it helped to get us going this morning: we were out by 9AM.
Okay, Hungary at 9AM is one big popsicle of a country. It was cold cold cold; people here have the whole “bundling” concept down, that’s for sure.
First we walked past the huge park by our hostel in the direction of Heroes Square. Today was some sort of national holiday/memorial/independence day (one of those but I’m not sure which one) in Hungary and the memorials set up in the piazzas on the way to the main Heroes piazza was packed with Hungarians carrying flowers to place on the monument. The memorials were actually really cool and we spent a few minutes strolling through them taking pictures until all our fingers were about ready to break off.
Heroes Square was decorated for the occasion as well. The monuments and columns were all covered in Hungarian flags with the center emblem cut out of them (which at the time we didn’t understand, but now do and will explain later).
We took a group shot in front of the statues; the guy who was taking our picture’s friend named Andreas who was wearing an AWESOME Canadian Tuxedo jumped and the pic with us… classic. The CT’s are starting to follow us everywhere…
Afterwards we got distracted by a castle and an outdoor ice skating rink behind Heroes Square. I REALLY wanted to go skating but our group was half injured and laf frozed so we decided against it. Booo… I’m for sure coming back some day and brining my brand new skates that I’m still only ever used once and going ice skating in Budapest (Pete, if you’re interested, you can come too). Hm, this really made me miss him…
The castle was really beautiful (and had a moat and everything!). Unfortunately the inside of it had an agricultural museum; we didn’t even have to discuss whether or not we wanted to go in. I’m sorry, but I have ZERO interest in the history of Hungarian agriculture and food growing techniques; call me ignorant (tee hee) but I just don’t.
Our next stop was the National Museum. It was pretty far from Heroes so we hopped on the metro. At the museum stop, we were walking off the train and were stopped by the Hungarian metro police. “Can we see your tickets?” Crap. We all pretended to scramble around in our purses looking for our non-existent tickets for a few minutes then gave in and told the four cops we’d all “lost them.” We paid the fine, which was only 10 euro, and the cops issued us a 3-day metro/bus ticket and let us go… hahaha, I can’t believe that we got rolled by the Hungarian cops for illegally riding the metro. I guess that’s what we get though for using public transportation for free for the past few days…
The National Museum was pretty cool; it inspired me to look up Hungary’s and the Soviet Union’s political history. About a week before we left on our Fall Break Eurotrip there were riots in Budapest in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hungary’s up-rise against Soviet rule. The museum had tons of pictures and paraphernalia from that day 50 years ago. We also learned that the reason the flags with the hole cut out of the center were hanging everywhere is because during the time of the revolt, the Hungarians literally cut the Russian emblem out of the flags… that’s pretty hardcore symbolism right there. So, that’s kinda what I learned in a nutshell and am really excited to look up more (I’m a big dork).
Bytheway, did I mention that we are all cheap and didn’t want to pay for the museum so we got admission tickets for the free section of it but then snuck into the not-free section through the exit? Psh, that’s where all the good stuff was anyways.
After the museum we sprinted across the huge-street-of-death to a coffee shop and chilled (well, actually, defrosted in prolly a more appropriate word) for about 3 hours. Hahaha, it was funny; my friends make me laugh. I love people that make me laugh.
For the rest of the afternoon we went souvenir shopping on Vaci Utca. At first the cold was a little bit discouraging (to say the least) and I was pretty sure we were going to last for only about 30 minutes, but then we spotted H&M and we all got a little bit warmer on the inside! H&M was our first stop and we were in there for about an hour. We all bought a few things; um, how can you resist? God, I love H&M.
After that we continued our stroll down Vaci on a mission to find Budapest shirts, presents for dad’s, mittens and hats, and presents for friends at home. Check to all except one. We found a fabulous little soucenir store down a sketchy dark alley and were in there for about 20 minutes. I wasn’t planning on buying anything until I found a little, painted, wooden, guy (very Hungarian looking) on a corkscrew… best part? He was wearing an all-pink suit!
I’ve gotten Steph a present from every country that I’ve visited and thought this little dude would be a perfect addition to her gift. I picked it up and was walking around with it still browsing when I realized that a young guy that worked in the store was watching me… he wasn’t, liek, sexually watching me, but more suspiciously watching me. Everytime I looked up, there he was looking at me as if I was planning on stealing something? In the end I got so psyched out that I vetoed buying the corkscrew (even though it was perfect), put it back in the basket with the others, and we left.
About five minutes later, we returned to the same store cuz Kate decided that she wanted something from it afterall. I was still sketched out by the hawk-dude and decided to wait outside with Amelia. As we were waiting, the sun set (um, it was about 5PM) and it started snowing… oh yea, it also dropped about 10 degrees so into the store we went. WELL, I decided that since I was there I wanted to buy the pink corkscrew after all and was really confused when the basket with all the corkscrew guys was gone. Ehhh, then I noticed the contents of the basket were dumped onto the counter and lined up as if all the merchandise was being COUNTED! They really thought I stole the corkscrew! I was totally freaked out, ran out of the store, and never plan on returning again. I think this country hates me.
We shopped in the freezing snow for about 2 more hours and couldn’t find another pink one ANYWHERE. No joke. Kate and I were being souvenir store whores and went into every single one and couldn’t find a guy in a pink suit ANYWHERE! Booo, sorry Steph! He woulda been perfect for our night back at SCU this winter…
Then it was back to the hostel for a brief siesta/period of defrostation before we headed out to dinner. Around 7, we headed out to catch the bus downtown.
Okay. All those times that I wrote about how it was “freezing” compare NOTHING to how mother-fucking-cold it was that night. The bus didn’t come for about 20 minutes and by the time it did I was shaking and wet from being snowed on. It had to be about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Total. I was tempted to leave my friends and spend my evening in the underground begging for dinner with the homeless people cuz then at least I wouldn’t be frozen.
On the bus, Marilena and I started to seriously re-think our trip to Hamburg three weekend from now… if you don’t know where Hamburg is, google it now. It’s right up there with the North Pole. I dunno, are Chris and the boys on his German volleyball team worth being completely miserable and frozen for three days? Updates on our decision to come…
For dinner that night we made it to the all-you-can-eat-Hungarian-restaurant that we’d gotten a flyer about the day before. I felt like it was a mixture of Coco’s and my elementary school cafeteria; but it didn’t matter… I was fine for a last meal. I ate about 10 euro worth of vegetables and drank about 50 euro worth of wine and champagne. I sampled some of the “Diabetic Cake,” yes this was its real name, but it tasted like play-dough and I couldn’t manage to eat any more of it after the first bit.
Other than the boring family next to us staring at us the whole time, our waiter being totally retarded, the awkward (but ballsy) boy that came up to talk to us then wouldn’t leave us alone, and the fact that the four of us ate AND drank waaaay too much, it was a great time. We even took advantage of the smoking-is-allowed-in-restaurants-in-Hungary concept. Heh.
On our trek home I realized I was wasted cuz it seemed only half as cold outside as it did on the trip there. Also I called Pete. I've been missing him ever since Halloween and I knew the whole ice skating rink that morning pushed it to the point where i had to call him. Meeh, it was really nice to hear his voice... we hardly talk anymore and when we do it's really formal conversation. I miss the old way with my favorite person. A lot. Anways, falling asleep that night was easy – aaah, what a fabulous last day of fall break
posted by tera a firenze at 12:56 AM
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