Sensei Steve's Hungarian Drunktacular 2005 - Days 1 and 2
Wait what? I thought you were in Japan. Well I told you it would be anachronistic. I spent 4 amazing days in Budapest last year and I randomly found a huge write-up of it on my computer, as it was a personal high water mark for me in my travels, I'm going to share it, and you know what, you know you're going to read it anyway. It is also the first city I've visited in a foreign country completely on my own, not in a hostel, no friends, no family, and I managed pretty damn well.
So as my time in Prague finally ended it was time to go to Budapest, Hungary by train. I kind of almost gathered that the 7 hour train ride departed from Prague sometime around 4PM maybe, and maybe everyday, maybe. So I went and bought a ticket at main station, Havli Nadrazi, unfortunately the train didn’t leave from that station. So a quick fifteen minute ride on the metro(subway) lugging around my ginormous 7-ton suitcase, laptop, and backpack, naturally there were no escalators at those stations, and I was on the train. I ended up making conversation with a pair of kids from Ireland and England for a couple hours before I fell asleep. When I woke up there was a Slovakian girl in the car, so we talked a little bit and I got her e-mail, she lives in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and I think I’ll be putting in a brief appearance there before I come home.
I get to Budapest, which is really like two cities, Buda and Pest, the two sides of the city are separated by the Danube river. I take a cab to my hotel at midnight for about 15 dollars, which was fine, since;
A: I had no clue where the hotel was,
B: I don’t know how to ask where it is since I don’t speak Hungarian,
C It’s midnight and nothing’s open anyway, and
D I’m hoisting a Hungarian college tuition worth of Electronics.
Most people in that situation, traveling alone, would probably get to the hotel and hunker down for the night, try and figure out tomorrow’s plans, and go to bed so they can wake up early to explore what appears to be an amazing city. Well, I guess I’m not most people, I went to the concierge told him to call me a cab, and told the cab to take me to a club. After about a ten dollar ride the driver drops me off on what appears to just be an abandoned fair ground in a place called Citadella.
So I see people stumbling around, which is good because it means there’s alcohol nearby. As I continue walking, up a fairly steep graded hill I begin to hear music, and as I round a turn I see the club. Two outdoor bars are straddling a dance floor in an outdoor club, which in itself is pretty awesome, because most of the time clubs are really just large basements in the middle of a city where you sweat through your expensive clothes and get overcharged for drinks; but here you get the benefit of a cool breeze as you get overcharged for drinks. But the best part of this little place was that when I turned away from the dance floor, drink in hand of course, and looked over the railing, I realized I was standing 1000 feet above the entire city of Budapest looking straight down on the Danube. It was just stunning to see this carpet of lights running down the length of the river and reflecting in the water, a 1200 year old fortress glowing from green spotlights overlooking massive suspension bridges, and an orange lit Byzantine church that has a design closely resembling Westminster in London; and I would have never seen it if I was planning out some tourist adventure, I was just being a hormonal, somewhat functional alcoholic. So if we’re keeping score, (Beer 6 : Tour Guides 2). I stayed out at the club, wandered around the area, and generally frolicked around until about 4:30, when this phenomenal view was replaced with an unbelievable sunrise – don’t worry I didn’t have my camera on me. As I walked down to where the cabs were, a sea of girls kept stealing all the cabs, so I wandered down the hill a ways and figured I’d catch one on the way up. So as I’m sitting on the side of a hill looking like a lost puppy waiting for a cab two Hungarian guys walk by and jibberjabber something Hungarian at me, and I respond with, “sorry, English,” to which they respond by smiling and yelling, “Oh, English, come on my friend.” I figured eh, why not, so I started walking down the hill with them, one guy turns out to speak pretty good English from working on Parkinson’s awareness projects in England and Australia with his mom, and the other guy named Peter was just too drunk to function, Paul was 35 and owned a chain of Karate Dojo’s in Hungary, and his friend was celebrating his name day, it’s like a birthday except everyone with the same name celebrates it on a certain day, and as such was in bad shape. So we went down to a little corner store which was either opening up or didn’t close, because it was close to 6 AM, and bought some beers and sat around in a Park chit chatting. Peter not drinking so much as vomiting, and was very worried about how badly his fiancé would beat him whenever he got home. Eventually, they got in a cab to go home and I figured since I had only seen the city at night through cab windows I would be perfectly capable of finding my way back to wherever the hell my hotel was, it was a few hours past dawn so I started walking, in what would be the first of four days in a row of trying to get back to the hotel long after dawn. So as it turned out I only took one wrong turn and the cab only took about 5 minutes to get me back to the hotel. But the sheisty son of a bitch wanted to charge me more than the cab driver who drove me 20 minutes from the train station to the hotel did. So sitting in a cab in front of the hotel at 7 AM, still drunk I’m arguing with a Hungarian cab driver, who didn’t turn his meter on, about the price of a cab ride, I told him there’s absolutely no way that the fair was right, and he tried to explain to me that the fair was based on kilometers, not time, and I told him that unless the cab was moving the speed of light there’s no way we covered that much distance, and when I began to explain that we would have returned before we left and I would be younger so I’d have more time to make money which I still wouldn’t use to pay for the cab he got flustered and graciously accepted 1000 forints, down from 4000, so I’m not entirely sure what I did, but it was damn good negotiating on my part, especially since I hadn’t bothered to tell him I didn’t even have the original amount in my wallet to begin with. I then fell into my bed and slept until about 6:30 PM the next day.
Since I got up so late I put off trying to figure out the bus system to get into town, I just called another cab, but before I got in the cab we agreed on a decent price, and he then dropped me off at an ATM so I could actually pay him. I strolled around downtime Budapest for a little while and decided I would not stop at a restaurant to eat unless it looked like it actually served Hungarian food and wasn’t one of the ten million burger joints for scumbag tourists with no sense of adventure, but after two hours I just gave up and went to one anyway, but I was damned if I was going to eat a hamburger, I had pork medallions wrapped in bacon with mashed potatoes and some kind of sauce on the side with two beers for about 15 dollars. God f-in bless Eastern Europe. Afterwards I was wandering around looking for a decent bar, as it was starting to get dark out, and an attractive Brindian (British-Indian) gal came up to me and asked if I knew where any good bars were, she was with another girl and two other British guys, so I joined them on their quest for a large wooden structure filled with alcohol. By quest I mean jaunt down the block, where we found an outrageously expensive, yet crappy bar, but they had outdoor tables so we sat down for a half liter of god aweful Hungarian beer, made each other’s acquiantence, and moved on. All 4 Brits were medical students at Leeds, and oddly enough the two pairs met randomly in town, not even knowing they were traveling at the same time. So we left that bar in search of a club, and after stumbling around for a couple hours couldn’t find one, so we stopped for ice cream, considered our options and pressed on into the night. We then snuck to the girls hostel, because it had a bar, and a cheap bar upstairs. The bar was called the Mellow mood, where we inhaled cheap shots of Hungarian schnopps and vodka, and spent the better part of two hours making ridiculous toasts to anyone, and anything that popped into our heads. We would have a toast to filling our passports, to traveling, to one night stands in hostels, ad infinitum. We gave up around 2:30 or so, went to a 24 hour corner store, loaded up on beer and junk food and starting trolling around the city looking for a nice spot to sit and chat in Hungary. We ended up sitting in this sprawling outdoor courtyard in front an a gorgeous 11th century Bassillica called St. Stephens. I remember scrawled across this black mass of marble and stone were the words I am the way and the light, in English. I was happy the words rang so true for having a good time outside of a church, although in our present state, being in the Church would have been a lot of fun too.
Around dawn we agree to meet the next day at 2 PM at this very recognizable suspension bridge and go to a Hungarian Bath. I walked across the bridge as the sun was coming up, it’s parabolic arch comes almost directly over the Danube, and it’s quite striking (no pictures). That morning I made the two hour walk all the way back to my hotel without taking a single wrong turn.
So as my time in Prague finally ended it was time to go to Budapest, Hungary by train. I kind of almost gathered that the 7 hour train ride departed from Prague sometime around 4PM maybe, and maybe everyday, maybe. So I went and bought a ticket at main station, Havli Nadrazi, unfortunately the train didn’t leave from that station. So a quick fifteen minute ride on the metro(subway) lugging around my ginormous 7-ton suitcase, laptop, and backpack, naturally there were no escalators at those stations, and I was on the train. I ended up making conversation with a pair of kids from Ireland and England for a couple hours before I fell asleep. When I woke up there was a Slovakian girl in the car, so we talked a little bit and I got her e-mail, she lives in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and I think I’ll be putting in a brief appearance there before I come home.
I get to Budapest, which is really like two cities, Buda and Pest, the two sides of the city are separated by the Danube river. I take a cab to my hotel at midnight for about 15 dollars, which was fine, since;
A: I had no clue where the hotel was,
B: I don’t know how to ask where it is since I don’t speak Hungarian,
C It’s midnight and nothing’s open anyway, and
D I’m hoisting a Hungarian college tuition worth of Electronics.
Most people in that situation, traveling alone, would probably get to the hotel and hunker down for the night, try and figure out tomorrow’s plans, and go to bed so they can wake up early to explore what appears to be an amazing city. Well, I guess I’m not most people, I went to the concierge told him to call me a cab, and told the cab to take me to a club. After about a ten dollar ride the driver drops me off on what appears to just be an abandoned fair ground in a place called Citadella.
So I see people stumbling around, which is good because it means there’s alcohol nearby. As I continue walking, up a fairly steep graded hill I begin to hear music, and as I round a turn I see the club. Two outdoor bars are straddling a dance floor in an outdoor club, which in itself is pretty awesome, because most of the time clubs are really just large basements in the middle of a city where you sweat through your expensive clothes and get overcharged for drinks; but here you get the benefit of a cool breeze as you get overcharged for drinks. But the best part of this little place was that when I turned away from the dance floor, drink in hand of course, and looked over the railing, I realized I was standing 1000 feet above the entire city of Budapest looking straight down on the Danube. It was just stunning to see this carpet of lights running down the length of the river and reflecting in the water, a 1200 year old fortress glowing from green spotlights overlooking massive suspension bridges, and an orange lit Byzantine church that has a design closely resembling Westminster in London; and I would have never seen it if I was planning out some tourist adventure, I was just being a hormonal, somewhat functional alcoholic. So if we’re keeping score, (Beer 6 : Tour Guides 2). I stayed out at the club, wandered around the area, and generally frolicked around until about 4:30, when this phenomenal view was replaced with an unbelievable sunrise – don’t worry I didn’t have my camera on me. As I walked down to where the cabs were, a sea of girls kept stealing all the cabs, so I wandered down the hill a ways and figured I’d catch one on the way up. So as I’m sitting on the side of a hill looking like a lost puppy waiting for a cab two Hungarian guys walk by and jibberjabber something Hungarian at me, and I respond with, “sorry, English,” to which they respond by smiling and yelling, “Oh, English, come on my friend.” I figured eh, why not, so I started walking down the hill with them, one guy turns out to speak pretty good English from working on Parkinson’s awareness projects in England and Australia with his mom, and the other guy named Peter was just too drunk to function, Paul was 35 and owned a chain of Karate Dojo’s in Hungary, and his friend was celebrating his name day, it’s like a birthday except everyone with the same name celebrates it on a certain day, and as such was in bad shape. So we went down to a little corner store which was either opening up or didn’t close, because it was close to 6 AM, and bought some beers and sat around in a Park chit chatting. Peter not drinking so much as vomiting, and was very worried about how badly his fiancé would beat him whenever he got home. Eventually, they got in a cab to go home and I figured since I had only seen the city at night through cab windows I would be perfectly capable of finding my way back to wherever the hell my hotel was, it was a few hours past dawn so I started walking, in what would be the first of four days in a row of trying to get back to the hotel long after dawn. So as it turned out I only took one wrong turn and the cab only took about 5 minutes to get me back to the hotel. But the sheisty son of a bitch wanted to charge me more than the cab driver who drove me 20 minutes from the train station to the hotel did. So sitting in a cab in front of the hotel at 7 AM, still drunk I’m arguing with a Hungarian cab driver, who didn’t turn his meter on, about the price of a cab ride, I told him there’s absolutely no way that the fair was right, and he tried to explain to me that the fair was based on kilometers, not time, and I told him that unless the cab was moving the speed of light there’s no way we covered that much distance, and when I began to explain that we would have returned before we left and I would be younger so I’d have more time to make money which I still wouldn’t use to pay for the cab he got flustered and graciously accepted 1000 forints, down from 4000, so I’m not entirely sure what I did, but it was damn good negotiating on my part, especially since I hadn’t bothered to tell him I didn’t even have the original amount in my wallet to begin with. I then fell into my bed and slept until about 6:30 PM the next day.
Since I got up so late I put off trying to figure out the bus system to get into town, I just called another cab, but before I got in the cab we agreed on a decent price, and he then dropped me off at an ATM so I could actually pay him. I strolled around downtime Budapest for a little while and decided I would not stop at a restaurant to eat unless it looked like it actually served Hungarian food and wasn’t one of the ten million burger joints for scumbag tourists with no sense of adventure, but after two hours I just gave up and went to one anyway, but I was damned if I was going to eat a hamburger, I had pork medallions wrapped in bacon with mashed potatoes and some kind of sauce on the side with two beers for about 15 dollars. God f-in bless Eastern Europe. Afterwards I was wandering around looking for a decent bar, as it was starting to get dark out, and an attractive Brindian (British-Indian) gal came up to me and asked if I knew where any good bars were, she was with another girl and two other British guys, so I joined them on their quest for a large wooden structure filled with alcohol. By quest I mean jaunt down the block, where we found an outrageously expensive, yet crappy bar, but they had outdoor tables so we sat down for a half liter of god aweful Hungarian beer, made each other’s acquiantence, and moved on. All 4 Brits were medical students at Leeds, and oddly enough the two pairs met randomly in town, not even knowing they were traveling at the same time. So we left that bar in search of a club, and after stumbling around for a couple hours couldn’t find one, so we stopped for ice cream, considered our options and pressed on into the night. We then snuck to the girls hostel, because it had a bar, and a cheap bar upstairs. The bar was called the Mellow mood, where we inhaled cheap shots of Hungarian schnopps and vodka, and spent the better part of two hours making ridiculous toasts to anyone, and anything that popped into our heads. We would have a toast to filling our passports, to traveling, to one night stands in hostels, ad infinitum. We gave up around 2:30 or so, went to a 24 hour corner store, loaded up on beer and junk food and starting trolling around the city looking for a nice spot to sit and chat in Hungary. We ended up sitting in this sprawling outdoor courtyard in front an a gorgeous 11th century Bassillica called St. Stephens. I remember scrawled across this black mass of marble and stone were the words I am the way and the light, in English. I was happy the words rang so true for having a good time outside of a church, although in our present state, being in the Church would have been a lot of fun too.
Around dawn we agree to meet the next day at 2 PM at this very recognizable suspension bridge and go to a Hungarian Bath. I walked across the bridge as the sun was coming up, it’s parabolic arch comes almost directly over the Danube, and it’s quite striking (no pictures). That morning I made the two hour walk all the way back to my hotel without taking a single wrong turn.
posted by Just1Wheat at
7:49 AM
