6/20/08 Friday ~ Travel Journal

Budapest, Hungary

9:46am

We are at the train station trying to make reservations for a night train tonight. This time with beds! Our hope for the day is to visit a spa that the man who rented our room to us told us about. Apparently it's very cheap and it's unisex. Jere came over from the line earlier and said that the reservations are not made in the computer - they're hand written...it's so strange to think that people still work that way. Last night Jere reminded me that this area used to be under Soviet rule and it's weird but I had already been feeling like there was that air about the town. Maybe just something I got from the movies. There was just something distinctly different there in Eastern Europe than Western Europe.

2:01pm

We just spent the last two hours in the "spa". Really it was just a cold swimming area and a warm one. There was also a dry sauna. Jere sat in the same spot where there were bubbles that started periodically. When the bubbles in his area would stop, bubbles and jet streams would start in the ring around the area he was in and the current would push people around. I laid in the sun, swam and visited the sauna. Now we're going to walk around and look at some stuff before we head to the train. (code for "I have no idea what we're going to do and we're bored") We leave at 6:05pm and arrive in Zurich, Switzerland at 6am.

2:30pm

Right now we're on an island in the Danube river. We're in a park watching a dancing fountain with music. It's been a very peaceful day and continues on as we sit in the shade listening to the music mix with the sounds of the water flowing.

4:21pm

We are in the train station ready to go. Unfortunately our train doesn't leave for two more hours. For the first time on this trip we're both regretting deciding to come here. Budapest seems nice but it's definitely not a place we enjoyed much. In hindsight we would liked to stay in Venice another day. But that's hindsight we won't focus on it. We couldn't find any postcards so this section of our journal will be void of pictures until I develop some. (we'll see if that happens)

10:30pm

We are on the night train to Zurich and are sharing a coachette with a guy from Sydney Australia named Shawn. he is so interesting! We've been talking since before our train left at 6:05pm. I love meeting new people. This is the most exciting part - not knowing who you'll meet if you don't go. If we hadn't taken this night train he would never have existed to us.

6/19/08 Thursday ~ Travel Journal

Budapest, Hungary

7:56 am

We're sitting in Gyekenyes, Hungary just over the border. Border patrol stopped u in Slovenia and Croatia too so now we have stamps in three new countries! Last night's sleep was REALLY rough. I think we'll go for the beds instead of reclining seats on the night train from Budapest to Switzerland. I really want to get a hotel room and just crash for a while. We'll see what happens when we get to Budapest. Last night we sat with two girls - Julie and Brittany. They're from Vancouver Island in Canada. They got off the train at 4am in Zagreb, Croatia. They were just going to sit in the station until business opened up. Scary! It is so amazing how different all the cultures we've experienced are. We were woken up three times by border patrol and more than five times by the conductor checking our tickets! Each time, the border patrol guys were very different. We're riding through a thick forest right now, I wonder what the rest of Hungary looks like.

8:21am

I was joking around with Jere about how I couldn't understand what he was saying (like 10 times) so I told hm I would call him "the Hungarian". Then I decided that "the Hungarian" sounded like a hit man name (assasanist - is that a made up word?) and proceeded to speak very loudly saying "The Hungarian" (with my hands cupped to make a megaphone) He informed me that customs is sitting three seats away...Whoops, probably shouldn't make them think I am making fun of their culture.

6:25pm

So I just slept for five hours! We arrived in Budapest around 12:30pm (1.5 hours late according to our ticket) The whole morning we were exhausted from not really sleeping last night and slept fitfully till we got off the train. As we were leaving the train, a man approached us asking if we had accommodations and I felt like I was trying to tell him we did but for some reason I couldn't. (we didn't have accommodations). We stepped off to the side and spoke with him. He was offering a room for 35 EU. The situation seemed very similar to the couple in the Cinque Terre and so we asked him if we could look at the room. he just said he couldn't do that without knowing if we would stay (because the room was a ways away from the train station) He was going to send us by ourselves to the room where upon his wife would meet us but as we were walking and she wasn't answering her phone, he decided to come with us. We took a bus and a tram, then walked a little. We arrived at a building, walked inside and straight ahead was an old iron elevator shaft. It seemed like it was straight out of the movie "The Saint" when he was in Russia (but the one in the movie was wooden) We got in and went to the fourth floor. Apparently the man - Sandor and his wife Anna live here too and just rent out a few rooms. At the train station it seemed like they had five rooms for rent but I counted only three. I know they have a son but not sure if he lives here or not. Our room is huge...Well it has tall ceilings so maybe that's why it feels so big. There is a free standing closet/dresser, a love seat, TV, full bed, two chaise lounges and a table between them. There is a huge window as tall as the ceiling which has been open since we laid down. I can hear the cars driving by and occasionally people. I love the sound of a busy city. During my nap I woke up a few times and glanced at the clock on the wall. each time it said 2:40pm and in my mind I always thought "okay some where around 2:30pm". Not until I am sitting here awake did I realize that it's broken. It is now 6:46pm and the only we've had to eat today is the circular Italian granola bars we bought yesterday.

9:12pm

It's so hard to believe that it's Thursday. This whole trip it's been like we know the date but not really the day. We have a little over a week left on our month long adventure.

We just got back from dinner at a little restaurant on a side street. The smell of food drew us there and it was really good! Jere had Hungarian Pork Stew with Rotzi (Hungarian specialty) and I had a stuffed chicken breast with feta inside. We had fried mushrooms with tartar sauce before our meal. Everything was really good! We're just going to hang in our room and watch Germany and Portugal play in the Euro games.