Hungary

So for those that have patiently been waiting for an update and an explanation for the change in travel plans, this is the blog entry for you.

I will address the second issue first since it is the shorter one to explain. First off, the war in Israel caused general paranoia among friends and family, all fearing for our safety if we were to return there for Em to fly home and me to chill out for a month, and an increase in the cost of flights terminating there. Secondly, touring through the Middle East and viewing many wonderful and fascination Roman, Egyptian, and Byzantine ruins, we decided that we'd both reached the point where looking at similar ruins would be wasted on us as we'd reached our current capacity for such things. This fear of apathy towards things that we would normally have loved, plus the idea that we really weren't that far from Eastern Europe and thus my host family of old (in Prague), and the happy delusion that it would cost the same to travel in Eastern Europe for 12 days as to go to Greece for 7, led us to the logical conclusion that we should change routes at the drop of a hat and explore some familiar and some new sites. Thus the reason for our abrupt, although maybe not completely unforeseen, change of course.

Now to the first issue above, our visit to Hungary.

The trip to Hungary was almost as exciting as Hungary itself. After our eight hour layover in Istanbul, we boarded a Metro bus and headed out of country. Thinking that this was one of the nice plush, accommodating buses that we'd become used to while traveling in the Western part of Turkey, we were sorely disappointed to find that this bus wasn't quite up to par. They'd decided to crowd a few more seats onto the bus when constructing it, thus successfully creating a cramped atmosphere. Then a nice elderly couple decided to sit behind us and make sure that we couldn't put the seat backs back. Everything Em tried to more her seat back, the grandpa would growl at her. It was really funny cause she kept looking at me for help. What we ended up doing was that peeking through the seat to see when gramps didn't have his knees in the seat back and then moved the seat back inch my inch so that he wouldn't notice. This worked until we got off the bus for bathroom breaks or the boarder check, only to realize that the seat was back in it's up-right position and our little battle of wills would resume once again.

The border check was fun too cause we were there for three hours and people would get off and on randomly and no one told us anything so we didn't know what we were supposed to do. Eventually we found that we were the only people left on the bus except for the bus driver and decided that maybe it was time to abandon ship . This was good cause we next had to wait in line to hand over passports. The best part was that I handed mine over a person or two in front of Em and when Em handed hers over the guy totally did a double take and was like, "Didn't I just receive this?" I think that was the highlight of waiting unknowingly for three hours at a boarder at 2 in the morning.

When we where in Turkey, we had been told that when we finally made it to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, we were to wait for a certain bus company to open to get a ticket to Budapest, our real destination. After two hours of waiting for this company to open for business, we found out that they didn't actually go were we needed. So we ran around all the other companies asking, only to find out that one we'd asked a hour previously, had found some seats, but that they only accepted their currency. Here, we had another problem, tickets were available, but we only had US dollars and our friend only had Euros; the ATM wouldn't accept anyone's cards and the one change place that we could find would have stolen about $50 to change the cash. So we ran around like headless chickens and finally found a slightly less devastating exchange rate at the train station. Running back to grab the tickets, the unhappy bus driver threw our bags under the bus, pushed us aboard and drove away.

The 12 hour bus ride was for the most part uneventful, except for almost getting left behind at the gas station cause we were a few minutes late getting back on. This led to the couple behind us reminding us the we had fifteen minutes only at all further rest stops. Also, there was a comedic point where Em really needed to pee and all she had was 20 Bulgarian something or others, some Israeli money, some American, a Euro, and some Turkish, when all she needed was 5 Serbian or so. It was hilarious cause the bathroom lady wouldn't accept anything that we had and wanted us to change the Bulgarian to Serbian at a big loss just so Em could go pee. Seeing as we were only driving through this country, that seemed like a ridiculous idea. Eventually the lady got the idea that Em would probably just pee right in front of the bathroom, and she let her go for free.

Tired after nearly two days on buses, we arrived in Budapest around 9pm and headed to the hostel. Our friend that was with us got money out of the ATM, but it was in such a large bill and we couldn't find anyone that would give us smaller amounts, we were forced to ride the Metro without a ticket. Eastern Europe relies upon honesty and heavy fines if caught without a ticket, on their public transportation, so stealing our way on wasn't that hard to do. Judge us as you will, but you'd do the same thing if it were late and you were tired and had a heavy pack on your back.

A Metro ride and a short walk alter lead us to our hostel, which turned out not to meet our expectations. The place smelled a might funny and everyone staying their was odd, I was half expecting to see sharp canine teeth, maybe it was just the lighting. Thinking that we'd only be in Budapest for two maybe three days and that we'd already paid a deposit, we said screw it and dropped our bags. As things tend to be, we stayed there three nights and then moved to a much nicer hostel where we'd actually been spending more time.

Being the good little walkers that we'd become, we spent a good deal of time outside enjoying the fresh air and learning all the different streets and alleyways of this magnificent city. We had thought that we'd found our favorite city after visiting Istanbul, but then we came here and realized this was really the best place. I can't even really begin to describe why this city is so great, but I think it partially has to do with the fact that it is old coupled with new; the people are friendly (well most anyways); there are cute cafes, shops, restaurants, bars, etc. littering the streets everywhere; everyone can mingle and blend in, thus making it easier to gain the full cultural experience as an insider rather than an outsider; you can walk the same streets over and over again and always find something that you missed the first time around; and that being there had such a serene, unhurried feel to it. I think this is partially why we ended up staying six days instead of our planned two or three.

Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest. The cities were united into one Capital city in 1873 and have been happily integrated ever since. Buda is the more woodsy, old world part of the city; while Pest is the continually expanding, fast paced, 21st century section. We stayed in Pest for the whole of our stay and enjoyed it very much as it was close to most of the main attractions and provided a plethora of things to do.

Most of our days were spent wandering the streets haphazardly without a real plan in mind. Sometimes it's nicer to get lost and then find your way back. That way you tend to find little jewels that you would never have seen by sticking to the main streets and having a singular destination in mind. I think that we must have walked 10 miles our first day and only seen about twenty different streets. We went up and down and up and down. It turned out that we concluded our day at the main train station, which was a good place to know as we were going to go there in a few days time.

Our first day in Budapest, we also visited the main Jewish Synagogue, which had a museum attached to it and a memorial art park. The art part was small, but contained within it a very unique sculpture that I liked immensely. It was a Weeping Willow tree made entirely from metal and containing the names of murdered Holocaust victims. I thought that this was a very poignant piece and very thought provoking. The museum was also well done with various different exhibits, one that combined perfume scents, photographs, and staged sets to recreate or maybe imitate ideas or social standards. It was nicely done and I think that many people that I know would have liked it.

On the following day we went to the main park and toured through Vajdahunyad Castle which really isn't a castle. It's really a collection of buildings that exemplify the different architectural styles of the country. Each building is purposely designed to express a type of architecture found elsewhere in Hungary. These buildings all serve different purposes, but most house museums or offices of sorts.

In addition to Vajdahunyad Castle, the park houses: sports fields, green lawns, boat and duck ponds, street performers, ice cream vendors, the Zoo, and the most noteworthy item, the Szechenyi Medicinal Bath. Hungary is known for two things above all others (at least that's what the inhabitants lead you to believe) its underground caverns, and the thermal baths. Both of these can be found in large quantities all through out the country, but there are a multitude of them in the capital as they provide a steady source of income (via tourist dollars). The thermal baths come from sulfuric springs deep in the ground that are taped into and then pumped up to man made baths. The Szechenyi Medicinal Bath, is the largest in Europe and most infamous in Budapest. It is feed by two different thermal springs, and contains some 15 or so different pools of varying temperatures. We were going to go enjoy an afternoon here, but decided that we would find a smaller, less notorious bath elsewhere.

While in the park, we took a few hours to pay a visit to the Zoo. I realize that Zoos are cruel in that they keep captive animals that would otherwise be happily living in the wild, but curiosity makes me happy that they exist. It's a sad dichotomy of mixed feelings. This zoo was neither the best nor the worst that I have ever seen, in that it didn't give the animals as much room as I'd have wished for them, but that it didn't forced them into too cramped of quarters either. The animals on display were interesting as there were many that Em and I hadn't seen before.

Our third day was the best in that we went Sandwiching. Which is not something erotic as many of you perverts out there might be thinking. Sandwiching is a term that means to go exploring underground caves and squish through small cracks and crevices. We'd found out about this the previous day and just had to sign up.

So at the appointed time we went to the appointed bus stop and systematically located all the other participants by the white vouchers that they clutched in their hands. There turned out to be about 20 of us (we were later broken up into three groups). Two city buses later and a trip to Buda and we arrived at the cavesite. Each person was nicely outfitted with their own mechanical (or prison, if you will) jumpsuit, a helmet, and a heat lamp. We then trekked across the street and followed Alice down the proverbial rabbit hole. The cave system that we were in was the second largest in the country at about 20km long. It used to be two separate systems, but someone knocked a wall down and they were joined. Our trip consisted of two and a half hours sliding, shimming, climbing, crawling, and laughing our way through a 700m loop of labyrinthed pathways. It was a blast. There was even a Pooh hole that we attempted to fit through. Only three of the girls in our group managed it as those of us with actual hips couldn't fit through. I think that this was one of the highlights of my entire trip.

The fourth day brought with it at trip to the Chinese market and the Grand Budapest Parade. The Chinese market was considered to be a stop for anyone looking to find weird olds and ends, the equivalent of a Flea market in the US. It sounded interesting so we headed there for a visit. What we found was mainly a clothes market, but it was fund to go through and look at everything for a bit.

We had extended our stay in the city mainly because the advertisements for the Parade made it sound like a can't miss event. Like many other over advertised events, this one didn't much live up to expectations. The first hour of the parade was happily spent watching costumed performers, martial arts competitors, balloon people and other fascinating things, but that hour gone, we were left with float after float of pre-adolescents in skimpy outfits houchy dancing to terrible house music, while hoards of pedestrians followed along beside each float. It was interesting to watch for a bit, but it never seemed to stop and eventually we just left.

Our fifth day in town was are last day there and as such we determined to see as much of the remainder of the city as we could. To help us out in this little endeavor, we rented some bright orange bicycles. These riding advertisement helped up to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. Our first stop was to ride over to Margaret's Island, which is between Buda and Pest. The Island contains the Centennial Memorial, a Japanese garden, a Musical Fountain, several recreation facilities and Franciscan, and Dominican and Premonstratensian ruins from the Middle Ages. We didn't see all of this, but we did take a nice stroll through the park and managed to find the Church of Margaret, after whom the park is named. Another little oddity of the park is that everywhere you could rent a bicycle, but not just a normal two wheel one. You could rent bicycles that looked like cars or like trains, that had three wheels or five, that carried one person or five, that were made for children or families, etc. It was very cute.

Our stroll though town also brought us all around the lower part of Buda (not so much up into the green mountainous areas), and eventually down to the Buda Castle. By the time that we arrived here, we had just enough time to hike to the top and quickly ride across before needing to return our bikes. The Castle is like the one in Prague in that it is comprised of many different buildings that are hodge podged together and all house different things. It's like a little village complete with everything that it needs to function properly.

After returning the bikes, we hurriedly gathered our belongings and headed to the railway station where we had a night train to Eger, our home for the next four days. Trying to catch our train turned out to be harder than we originally thought in that we waited for an hour on the wrong platform for the one that was arriving from Eger instead of headed there because we couldn't read the board and just saw the name. If I hadn't asked the information what was going on, we would have missed the actual train that we needed. We ended up having to run to get to it when we realized our mistake.

So the hostel that we were booked to stay at, stated that their place was a mere 700m from the train station and easy to get too. The joys of backpacking are that things are never what you are led to believe. After walking in circles for 10 minutes or so looking for a phantom street, I asked so locals where we should be headed. The language barrier got us a pointed direction but little else to go on. Heading where steered we discovered ourselves to be in a residential area and as far as we could see, the middle of no where. A mile and a half walk later, we realized that we'd found our destination and that it wasn't so much a hostel as a University dorm that was renting out rooms. Too tired to argue for the night, we signed in and crashed early, vowing to leave the next day.

Bright and early, with only the overcast sky and some rain to greet us, we said goodbye to the creepy dorm and set off for the center of town and the hope of better accommodations. After aimless walking around and rejecting overpriced pensions, we found the tourist information office and ask for help. They so kindly directed us to another dorm, but one that turned out to be much nicer and two blocks from the center of town. Booking ourselves in for the remainder of our days there, we grabbed our swimming gear and headed to the Thermal baths. I'd been wanting to do this since coming to Hungary and was happy that the rain had finally let up for a bit.

The Eger thermal baths were nice in that they had about 10 different pools ranging from a normal swimming pool, to luke warm water, to a hot spring pool, to ones with water slides for kids or massage jets for everyone. It was nice and we spent the next four hours unwinding. I think I need to go back now...maybe I'll make a side trio on my way back to Istanbul.

Our second day in Eger was spent touring the town itself, which during the day is quite quaint. It contains it's own castle, a host of wineries, dainty little shops, and cute restaurants. Nighttime, though, and the city was like a horror film where the heroines wonder what's eaten the townsfolk and when it will come for them. The entire town seems to have disappeared in doors by 8pm. Except for some pubs, the entire town is closed up by 10pm and there aren't any people walking the streets. We were waiting for the vampires to come out, it seemed so much like a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Day three found us on a bus to Szilvasvarad, where lies the Bukk National Park. Being the kid at heart that I am , I forced Em to ride the little train with me up to the Veiled Falls. From there we hiked to a cave that once housed prehistoric men, but now only houses tourists and peddlers. On our way down we saw some other tourists headed on a branching path and decided to follow them. This led us on a two mile climb straight up the mountain. At one point we asked a couple were we were going on if we could take a look at their map. They gave us a quizzical look and let us, but not before asking what we were doing there without a map and just hiking haphazardly. We replied, "We're not really sure, just going for a walk." It turns out that the purpose for this great climb was to reach the highest peak in the park and a supposedly great view. The height of the peak I don't dispute, but the view I disagree with. After this arduous task, I had expected a magnificent vista. What I hot was a small field with a giant cross and no view at all. How's that for totally anti-climatic? So after a "What-the-fuck?" moment, we headed down a different way.

On our trek down, we ran into some Germans that kindly lent us their map to peruse and thought us as crazy as the Hungarian couple in hiking with no real direction. Our trip down involved many different trails, a few wrong turns, some off roading, and general craziness. We kept losing the path markers and then finding new ones and deciding to follows those instead. At one point we ended up following the rode for about 4 miles cause it started as the trail and when we lost the trail we decided that the rode would eventually lead us to town - which it did, many miles later.

All in all it was a very nice day. We even ran back into the Germans while waiting for the bus back to Eger and I think that they were glad to see us as they didn't have to worry that we'd died on the mountain somewhere like they believed we were going to.

The next day we rode the train back to Budapest and caught a subsequent on to Prague and the reunification of my second family. But that story and those adventures are for the next entry. I hope that this section of the book has satisfied your hunger for the time being. If you so feel like it drop me a line in the comments and let me know that you're all still reading this dialog.