Hung(a)ry for Travel

Okay. This is the moment we all (really just me) have been waiting for, testing my world traveling skills, a full week of travel. With school giving us a full week off, it was time to bring out our passports and take off. Luckily, my amazing travel partner, is incredibly organized so we had a google document outlining all of our travels- honestly a blessing. So, outlining our trip we have basically two days in one country/ big city.

We start off in Budapest, Hungary.

Alarms set for 5:30 am on October 30th we head out to the train station to take us to the airport, from there we excitingly boarded on our flight to Hungary- having virtually no idea what to expect. For me, I had only heard of Budapest as a fun place to go- I had looked up pictures so I knew somewhat of what I should expect, but let me tell you- it was way beyond what I thought it would be.

Once we arrived in the airport on our ~sketchy~ flight (that's what you get for paying $40 for a flight I guess), we were planning on having to take a bus then a metro then a train then walk (while attempting to remain in good spirits), but we actually were able to get a shuttle that took us directly to our hostel (oh, yeah I forgot to mention it was our first European hostel experience too). Anyway, this shuttle saved us. We each paid 7 euro for this and we got a card to set up our return shuttle.

Unfortunately, we were not able to check into our hostel right away- so we ran and got some lunch and the only thing open was a TGI Fridays- it was about 11am. Now, I have nothing against TGI Friday's but I had never even been in one in the United States, so it was quite ironic that it was the first place I went to in Hungary. Anyway, after this we walked around and explored the streets for a little, where I thought the trees were beautiful and then I realized I just hadn't seen trees in such a long time #nerd. Around 1 were able to check into our hostel, which was a pretty nice and cool place. I can honestly say our experience in Budapest would have been entirely different if it weren't for our hostel- Avenue Hostel.

We each got our own locker, lock, towel, and bed in a room with 8 other people. It was an interesting experience as there were a bunch of people there that couldn't speak English so you are just living with these people in silence. But, we weren't in Budapest to see the hostel, we needed to explore!! We knew we wanted to go to the Thermal Baths, something Budapest has become famous for. These baths were basically just hot pools but they were really old and the architecture was so cool around it. It was about 50 degrees out and we put our bathing suits on (a not so pleasant experience after a month of eating solely Italian food), and hopped into the steamy waters. We stayed here for about two hours and it was a very relaxing and pleasant experience. We were able to buy our tickets directly from our hostel, but I heard that most people had to buy them online before because they sold out on-site.

After the baths, we decided to rest for a little and then we got a free dinner at our hostel. We ate and got some drinks at the bar, where we then met some staff members who, not only convinced us to play drinking games, but to go on a boat cruise that night with them and some other hostels. This was one of the best decisions we made, as it was a beautiful way to see Budapest at night, and was just incredibly fun. There were drinks on the boat, music, a dance floor, and we met so many people! (look at my pictures to see the Parliament building at night!)

The next day, we were tired but knew we had a big day ahead of us as we wanted to see a lot of Budapest this day, especially since we left the next day. So, we got up and trekked up to Fisherman's Basin- where we were able to see all of Budapest and a beautiful church. The views from here were incredible, and well worth the many many steps taken. We then went back to the hostel for a rest and decided we were going to go out again that night for Halloween! We had no costumes but slapped some makeup on our faces- I became some kind of animal and I still couldn't really tell you what it was, Maddy was a cheetah, and our friend Porter was a mermaid (imaginations were necessary to complete our costumes). We went to a hostel called Retox Party Hostel which had an event where they had seven different games going on and you competed to win prizes, competed is not used lightly here. During one of the games Maddy and I were literally ganging up on people to get one of us to win- which we didn't. After this, the staff members led us to an open mic night where all types of music was sang and it was genuinely a good time. It was great to be around people who all spoke English for once!

We made it back to the hostel that night with the hopes of sleeping in as much as we could before we headed back to the airport for our next location- Prague!!

Budapest was amazing, after two days we felt like we saw most of what the city had to offer, but out of all three cities we felt this one was the most FUN. A lesson learned, sometimes the best experiences come from zero expectations.

~See you in Prague~

#Budapest #Hungary #Fall #Travel #Student #StudyAbroad #study