After staying up all night the previous night at an indoor
tropical resort on the outskirts of Berlin, we dropped our rental car off and
hopped on a Budapest-bound plane.
Monday, February 7th
Up, up and away.
We weren't in the air for fifteen minutes and Jake was already
begging for a another sweet, sweet booger.
Soooo tempting.
Need sleep.
Eastward bound over snowy Bratislava.
Coming into Budapest: The river that you can see is the Danube
that divides the "Buda" part of the city on the west
from the
"Pest" part of the city on the east.
As we got lower, you could easily pick out all the cookie-cutter
Soviet-era public housing buildings.
Immigration line.
First order of business: Brandon took us to his friend Adrian's
apartment (which is radly located in the XIII
District of Budapest) where we'd be staying. Adrien had
converted half of his huge apartment into a hostel that was
closed for the winter. Adrian was staying at his mother's house
in another part of Budapest and told us that we could stay
there for free. Thanks so much, Adrian!
Hey look, a little old Hungarian lady in the courtyard.
The second order of business was for me to go to the pharmacist
and get jock itch cream for the Grizz. Any guy that's traveled
a lot knows that sooner or later, you're gonna have yourself
some jock itch! Grant had been suffering for a few days but
was letting it persist because his fear that the pharmacist
wouldn't understand the phrase "jock itch" and he'd
be forced to pantomime out "I have itchy balls" and
end up looking like a masturabatory chimpanzee.
After watching his squirming get
progressively worse as the days passed, I decided to take one
for the team and head to the pharmicist on his behalf. (Where
the scenario that Grant dreaded indeed took place and I had
to play "I HAVE ITCHY BALLS" charades with the pharmacist
as the line of 10 septagenarian Hungarian women in line behind
me stared on in horror.) Hey, Grant - YOU'RE WELCOME!
Yes! Great success! I brought Grant the cream and felt like
a true friend! Then I started asking him why he was shy about
pantomining "I have jock itch" but not shy about whipping out
his ball sack and putting it on a stranger for a photo. WTF?
The New York Szendvics? Oh, really?
With OPERATION: Nutsoothe completed, we met back up with Brandon and he
took us to some...
...local restaurant for some down-home Hungarian cooking.
(I think it was some sort of breaded veal thing with potato
dumplings and paprika. But whatever it was, it was fucking
awesome). And for dessert?
We had Disko.
Which comes with a pictogram "Twist, Lick, Eat" tutorial.
After dessert, we headed off to...
...The Széchenyi Thermal Baths! This place is the largest thermal bath
complex in Budapest.
The place was totally decked out in neo-Baroque style.
Grant poses with a fish-riding cherub.
The baths!
Before changing into my swim trunks - I hit the open courtyard
with my camera while the light was still good and snapped a
shit-ton of pics of the place (with the hopes that Grant would
score a travel piece about Budapest and I could score a lil'
extra pocket money by providing the photos.
So far, no dice yet. But at least you, dear reader, get a thorough
idea of how big the two main public pools are.
Steamtastic!
The narrow walkway in the middle that divided the two enormous
thermal pools.
Twilight sky.
Not having a wide-angle lens with me, I went up on the balcony
to try and get a little perspective on the sprawl before heading
inside to lock up my cam and change into my bathing suit. Here's
a long exposure to show all the steam.
And here's a shorter exposure. Yay, photography!
Unfortunately, the ghetto-ass circus across the street was
closed by the time we'd finished bathing. We walked back to
Adrian's apartment and then after a quick nap...
...Brandon took us out to a pub to meet his friends Akosh and
Adrian.
We also got to meet his friend Jonathan (who we were all
really excited to meet because apparently he runs some super-sketchy
Hungarian porno business - check out Grant leaning in trying
to get the porno-lowdown). Unfortunately, Jonathan shadily
dodged all of our questions and we were never managed to find
out exactly what his porn-involvement is. His reluctance to
share with us only succeeding in convincing us that it was
probably something really, really ska-ska-sketchy! After no
sleep the previous night, half a day of traveling, and several
hours in a thermal bath, it only took about two giant Hungarian
beers to make us realize that we needed bed in a bad way.
We got back to Adrian's hostel around 11:30pm. I brushed my
teeth and by the time I got out of the bathroom, this guy was
already under the covers and asleep! (Or at least he was until
I screamed really loud while simultaneously pressing the shutter
on my camera. Hahahah).
Tuesday, February 9th
Eleven hours of sleep later, we felt much better. After checking
out a few guidebooks laying around we decided to head out and
explore the city. First stop...
...McDonalds! Hahah. Shut up, I don't want to hear it. If you're
on a budget, it's the cheapest place to eat (ok, and it's pretty
tasty). Besides, it's not like they have...
...the McRoyal at home.
After getting our belly fulla grease on, we hopped on the subway
and headed east under the Danube River to explore the historic
sights on the Buda side of the city.
Deepest subway ever.
The Buda side is mountainous compared to the much flatter Pest
side of the city. The guidebook we had described stairs that
led to the highest point of Buda that overlooks the river and
all of Pest. (By the way, in Hungarian, the letter "S" is
pronounced as "Schhh" - so the proper way to pronounce
the city is to talk like Sean Connery and say "Budapescht."
The sibilate "S" sound that we make is written as "Sz" in
Hungarian. So, um, yeah. That concludes our Hungarian lesson
for today).
Now let's climb those stairs!
Looking west over Buda from the top of the stairs.
After we finished climbing, we headed east looking for the
castle and the highpoint that overlooks Pest.
Getting warmer...
...getting hot...
...burning up...
...Yatzee!
Grizz surveys the city.
The very next day, I went to the Museum of Terror
(that gives the history of Budapest's back-to-back occupation,
first by the Nazis then by the Soviet Communists) and was blown
away to see a film of Hitler and his Third-Reich cronies standing
in the very spot we'd stood yesterday watching his Panzer tanks
roll through the streets of Pest across the river. The Third
Reich and the Holocaust have always seemed a little surreal
to me - to see film footage of Hitler standing in a place that
I personally recognized somehow magnified the reality and all
of the horrors that I saw in the museum that day.
The spires of the Fisherman's Bastion just outside of the Matthias
Church.
Trying to figure out how to walk over to the Buda Castle.
Squinty McSquinterson.
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Grant gets his peep on.
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Hahaha.
One of the many cool statues footing the base of the Fisherman's
Bastion.
The view across the river from inside one of the spires.
More Neo-Roman stone work.
Afterwards we headed south to check out some of the amazing
art outside of where Hungarian Parliament meets.
Bananas.
After all the sightseeing, we decided to take the subway back
over to the Pest side. In Budapest, there aren't any subway
turnstiles but there are inspectors that will occasionally
stop people and if you're unable to present a timestamped receipt
that shows that you paid the fare, you'll get a ticket. Each
time Jake bought a ticket, he's just stick it in a pocket and
when he got singled out by the ticket-checkers ("Look, Heléna...JEW!") it
took him almost 10 minutes of pocket emptying before he was
finally able to come up with the right receipt.
Back at the hostel Jake fell asleep with his mouth open again,
and I snapped this pic of him waking up due to the fact that
I had just FILLED his sleeping mouth with contact lens solution.
Mmmmm....salty!
After a quick disco nap, Grant, Jake and I met up with Brandon
and Akosh and headed out for a dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Where Jake and I failed miserably at trying to pick up the
two cute girls that were sitting near us (you can sort of see
them in the background). Here's Jake capturing our sheepish
humiliation.
After dinner, we all went to some bar around the corner. No
sooner had we put our coats down when two cute girls came over
to Jake and I, introduced themselves as "Nataschja" and "Tatiana,"
said that they were visiting Budapest from Slovenia, then kissed
on the lips explaining it was a Slovenian custom. Here's me
with Nataschja.
And then they introduced us to their friend "Boris," who was
also from Slovenia.
Jake and I were chatting with the girls for a few minutes when
Akosh pulled us aside. He was convinced that the girls were
Hungarian, and were lying about being visitors from Slovenia.
We pulled their friend "Boris" aside and started grilling him.
It turns out that "Boris" grew up in New Jersey, had been living
in Hungary for the last 10 years and that the girls were in
fact Hungarian and just wanted to tease us and have an excuse
to flirt. Hahah.
Here's me with "Nataschja," whose real name turned out to be
Edit (pronounced Ee-deet).
A couple beers later, Grant, Jake, Akosh and Brandon got tired
and decided to call it a night, leaving me to get wiggity wasted
with a bunch of rowdy Hungarians.
Hey, is that Mike Skinner's dad?
Hahaha.
Awww, all cuddled up in the corner. I found out later that
she was still in high school. Doh!
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