Budapest is the Best/End of an Era

Now this is a cool city. Honestly one of my favorite cities of the trip so far. We had a nice setup here too because I have a good friend that moved here a couple months ago who was able to host us for the week that we spent there. The story of how I met this guy is crazy enough by itself, but the fact that we were able to stay and hang out with him in Budapest makes it that much better.

Quick background story of how I met this guy: We actually met playing Xbox Live about 10 years ago..no joke. Back in my Xbox gaming days I would play with people online from all over the world, and we just met playing some game together and becoming friends on Xbox Live. After meeting up online from playing video games, we eventually just kept in touch every now and then through the use of social media when it started to get popular, and during my first trip to Europe after studying in Torino, I met him and his family for the first time in person when I took a trip to Sweden, and it was a blast. Yes, he's a real person and it was so cool and bizarre to actually spend time with him and his family and friends. It ended up being an awesome trip, and we've obviously kept in touch since then as well, so when I mentioned to him that I was taking this trip I knew we would try to meet up again. After he recently moved to Budapest it was an easy decision to visit this city while also meeting up with him and staying at his apartment while we were there.

This part of the trip worked out great, as he was able to host Alex and I for almost a week, and we spent a lot of time together catching up and taking advantage of the cheap and extremely impressive nightlife that Budapest so graciously offered us.

Nice little pano of the Danube river looking over into the Pest side

The first couple days of the trip were spent doing some sightseeing and getting familiar with the main sites of the city. While my friend had to work during the day for the first couple days, Alex and I took this time to see the main sites of the city and do yet another "free" walking tour of the city. I think this was probably our 50th "free" walking tour and it satisfied our expectations. We learned all about the history of the city and its Hungarian inhabitants, as well as the main sites of the city and the general layout of everything. We were satisfied with the tour and spent some time after that hanging out on the Buda side (because the city is split in two halves by the Danube river - Buda on one side and Pest on the other - fun fact) enjoying the views of Pest as the sun came down. Call it romantic but Alex and I have had enough of these hilarious moments together where we've joked so much about being a couple and how funny it must look to some people when we travel together.

To be honest, this was one of the busiest days we had in the city, knocking out a lot of the main sites with that tour. After that day the following few days were spent carefully observing the nightlife and the historical significance of Budapest's ruin bars, which are old abandoned city blocks renovated and embellished to accommodate a lot of young people on most evenings. I would have to say that the Szimpla ruin bar is the coolest bar that I've ever been to, with so many different rooms with crazy themes and decor, and the layout is reminiscent of an abandoned rustic space with old antiques from who knows where or when scattered throughout. Definitely a bar that I'll actually remember, and would highly recommend for anyone looking for a night out in Budapest.

We went to a few other awesome historical, educational, and of course cultural bars and clubs the following few nights, with a few great times in between. Including filling our physical bodies to capacity at an all you can eat and drink restaurant for the equivalent of 15 Euros, which kept me full for the rest of my time in Budapest. I'm not entirely sure why we ate at all after this meal over those next couple days, because I don't remember being hungry again for maybe a week or two after our time there...the name of this country is awfully deceiving.

Fisherman's Bastion

Another thing worth noting here - one of the most popular things to do in Budapest are these really cool looking underground caves on the Buda side, not very far from where we were staying. It's rated as the top thing to do here in Budapest on Trip Advisor, so we thought it would be worth checking out. There's this funny story of how Alex and I tried to book a tour for this place about three different times and completely failed to do it for a number of reasons. The first time we tried to book was a simple email to the website to schedule a time. We found a time in the afternoon on a Friday and decided to give that a shot, so when we made our way to the place we were running late and tried to catch a bus. The bus never came and it was going to be too late if we would continue to wait for it so this put us in a tight spot. We tried calling the tour group to let them know we may be late, but this resulted in an extremely broken English response of "no caves, no caves," which led me to believe that I had the wrong number and would not be able to carry on this conversation successfully. I hung up and we debated getting a cab when we were already running 10 minutes late and we were still 15 minutes away by bus. 

At this point we gave up, and as we started to make our way back to the apartment to just laugh about the situation, we saw a woman completely lose control on her push scooter as she hit a crack in the sidewalk and nearly flipped over her handlebars onto the ground. She ended up being okay but it was this event that basically confirmed to us that something out there didn't want us to go to these caves and it was just time to go home. We continued to basically laugh off the situation and sent a follow up email apologizing for the fact that we just stood up our reservation. We asked for a reschedule, and when they said how early the tour was the next day, we again asked if we could do one the day after, on Sunday. Fortunately, they were having an extra tour on Sunday morning so there was still a chance! We didn't even go out on Saturday night, yet we still managed to sleep in the next day and fail once again at these caves...it was at this point that we decided to just quit while we were ahead and save the caves for the next time we find ourselves in Budapest...so that's still on the to do list.

Filip and I in Hero's Square

As a substitute for the failed caving attempt, we decided to do another popular thing on the tourist to do list, and this was the baths. Budapest is pretty famous for their public baths, and they have A LOT of these things around the city. By far the biggest and most popular one is the Szechenyi thermal bath, located in the center of the city park. This place was HUGE and very, very relaxing. It's basically a giant public pool facility. Aside from the enormous 3 outdoor pools, they have a ton of other, smaller indoor ones that range in temperature as well as a number of different saunas that you can use. We spent a few hours there hopping in and out of hot and cold baths and saunas and just really enjoying ourselves the entire time - another highly recommended experience while visiting Budapest.

We had some other great times in Budapest and it was hard to believe just how cheap this place was. I got a haircut for less than the equivalent of 5 euros (a good one too!) and just about every meal we paid for was under 5 euros as well. Also, Budapest loves Christmas, and because of this I love Budapest. We spent some time in the city center walking around and enjoying the Christmas atmosphere created by all the manger-style shops selling local crafts, food, hot wine, and any other Christmas-type food and drink you could want - all so overpriced, and all so worth it. The lights and trees and music and cold winter air made me so happy, and if  it had been snowing I probably would have just decided to stay there for the rest of my life, but the trip must continue...

Budapest is Christmas town

With that being said, the end of our time in Budapest was quickly approaching. But it wasn't just the end of Budapest for Alex, it would be the end of his trip and the beginning of an entirely new type of trip for myself. I've gotta give a shout out to Filip and Linda for being amazing hosts for us in Budapest and I'm looking forward to running into them again in the future.

This has been one hell of a ride for both of us, and we both did extremely well traveling with each other. We got along great for the entire trip and it's easy to say this trip has changed both of our lives for the better. Alex will be heading back to the States for the holidays and moving on to bigger and better opportunities for his future career, which I couldn't be more excited for. I'm looking forward to seeing how much of a positive impact this experience has had on him, and how he will improve his quality of life wherever he is to be successful at everything he does. No doubt he'll go on to do great things, and I couldn't have asked for a better travel buddy. Big shout out to Alex for making this trip as amazing as it was for the both of us.

As for me, my plan is to continue traveling for now. After assessing my financial/life situation at this point, it looks like I can continue to travel and continue my adventure. I'm not entirely sure where I will go, but I have some crazy ideas in mind. To be honest, this wasn't even the original plan from the beginning, but it became a more and more realistic afterthought during the course of my travels over the last few months.

Things will be much different now as I will continue the majority of this trip solo, but I'm really looking forward to it. It's gonna be extremely difficult at times, as I expect temporary lapses of loneliness to eventually ensue, but I will obviously continue to meet more amazing people and I'm really looking forward to getting to know myself and the rest of this world along the way.