Corinne:
We started the day starving after a “dinner” of leftover train food yesterday. We had talked to Vera, who is Rosie’s grandma’s friend’s granddaughter, and planned to meet on the Buda side today at 13:00. (Did you know that Budapest is actually three cities rolled into 1? Buda, Pest, and one that’s really hard to pronounce/spell.)
After a 90% chance of Sarah not getting out of bed (she beat the odds, congrats), we attempted to get to the Great Market Hall. It was a simple straight, than a left. We got to a giant intersection (with at least 5 streets), and realized that two of the three of us did not have the postcards we wanted to send. Which was probably good, since I was off by about 90 degrees on the orientation of the map.
When we did head out for real, we got to another giant intersection, with the center being full of construction. We walked the underground path to get to the street we wanted, but it didn’t go through. Then, above ground, a large, boarded up chain link fence blocked our way. So we went a
round the block. All of this was before breakfast.
We got to the Great Market Hall, and stopped at a pastry stand to grab carbs. Yum.
Great Market Hall was at the end of Vaci Utca, a pedestrian street that was one of the first Westernized shopping districts east of the Iron Curtain. After dropping off some postcards (sending is more expensive than buying), we strolled down the street. I compared postcard prices. You can tell a lot about a place by the price of its postcards. 30 cents, acceptable. $1, unacceptable. Let’s just say that there were both along this road.
We continued strolling until we got to the Danube and the gorgeous view of the hills on the otherside. I’ve discovered that I’m not much of a city girl, since I want to go to all the parks instead. Anyway, we crossed the Chain Bridge to get to Buda, quizzing ourselves on Audrey Hepburn movies, and walked the couple
blocks to the square where we were supposed to meet Vera (encountering cool graffiti along the way
). Sarah judges cities by graffiti; I judge them by postcard prices.
We met Vera (she managed to find us after the only description we gave her was that we all had curly hair and I would have a red bag), and walked across the street to the pancake place. Aka, crepes. This is now the third time we’ve had crepes in the past 3 days. Not a problem for me!
Vera’s friend had also met us, and after a look at our huge map, I got a bit of a better feel for the city. Not much, though. Roads don’t really go straight. And I still haven’t figure out north and south.
They invited us for an afternoon of canoeing, which we, of course, accepted. Anything for an experience. We spent an hour at Vera’s sparse apartment playing with magnets and marbles 
(and were this close to making a bucky ball), then walked to the metro. Then all of us were confused on which tickets we needed to buy, and my confidence was deflated.
Apparently on the bus I looked slightly lost/dazed because both Sarah and Rosie asked if I was ok. Starting then I just decided to just go along for the ride. The worst that could happen was that we would end up cut into a million pieces in some abandoned warehouse… Except that Rosie’s grandma would hopefully get suspicious. So we were fine.
It was a good idea, since after a 40 minute metro-tram-meet up with another group-bus-walk, we arrived at the banks of the southern Danube, slow-moving and beautiful. The university that they all were grads at owned a site with canoes and kayaks, so we didn’t even have to rent. I couldn’t wait to get on the water and dust off my rusty canoe skills. (Was that mixing metaphors? Too tired to care.)
Those included carrying a canoe. However, when I said I could carry a canoe, the others thought I meant by myself. No. A large discussion ensued which include “carrying a whole canoe exclamation point equals sign carry half a canoe” and “concepts of this paddle in your face.” We might be too geeky for our own good.
We launched, with Rosie steering in the back, Sarah paddling in the middle, and me in front. And according to the others, I set a fast pace. But that didn’t stop us from being last in the group.
Along the river were many sunbathers, fishers, and other boaters. Some possibly nude. Didn’t stop to check.
We did stop to check out the “Hungarian River Ducks“, the “Hungarian River Snails”, and the “Hungarian River Swans.” Sarah, I might add, is an expert on all these creatures. That’s how I know their names.
We didn’t quite know where upriver we were going, but they mentioned something about a pub. When we got there, the first thing I thought of was “Margaritaville.”
It was a bit of a large shack, with picnic tables out front in the blazing sun, but it sold ice cream and water, which is all us Americans cared about. We had a lively discussion about lard, false advertising, and respective schools.
On the way back, the ache that our shoulders felt only grew. I was feeling the burn, but decided to just keep rowing (get out of my head, Dory). We had discussed arms at some point on this trip, and decided that Rosie has the softest inner arm, and I have guns for no apparent reason. But they did come in useful as some one got tired and only rowed two out of three strokes.
We finally got back to the dock (after we were convinced that they were planning to row us to death before committing the aforementioned crime),
and then set out to get back to the city. On the walk back, we played the phone number edition of Mastermind in addition to some Contact. Passing the time well.
After a little confusion, we accompanied Matt to a pub that was close to our hostel. This place was built kind of in an abandoned building, he told us, and had some good, jazzy music playing. However, it did not have a good dinner menu, so we said our goodbyes and walked back the way we came, searching for food. For the second night in a row.
We got rounded some corners and ended up on the same main street that we had walked down yesterday to get to our hostel. “This looks familiar.” Except that we were going the opposite way. We turned around and followed Sarah’s book to a nearby restaurant. We turned down the street off the main and then Sarah said, “That pub has the same name as the bar we just went to.”… It was the same one we had just been at. We had managed to circle the block.
But that wasn’t the last we were to see of it as we got to the restaurant, with a nice sign on the door letting us know they were closed for a festival. We turned and saw the now-not-so-cool pub for a third time.
We had a highly Western dinner at Angus Steakhouse when we had finally given up on all other options, and enjoyed the fancy, empty atmosphere in our stinking, sweaty bodies, with half an eye on the EuroCup.
We were going to go out shopping, but we just dropped into our respective places once we got the hostel. And this typing has only deadened my arms more. At least we are going to be sore in a new place tomorrow morning.
