Picture Synopsis

For those of you not on Facebook, here is a link to an album with the best pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42419&l=8318c&id=731281502

Day 18 : Problems With Authority

Rosie:

So today we woke up and got out of bed really quickly because we thought that we needed more milk and the grocery store was going to close in half an hour. We made it! After searching for the cheapest possible milk, we settled on the bag of milk, yes that’s right, acceptable containers for milk now extends to plastic bags. Of course once we came back and started eating out cereal, we realized that we didn’t actually need more milk. Oh well, at least it was cheap, and fun to play with. After we finished eating, we made sandwiches. Corinne and I put ours in the old bread bag, but Sarah miraculously pulled a plastic glove out of her pocket to put her sandwich in.

When we came back to the room, I remembered that Corinne had locked the door and therefore was the last person that I had seen with the key. After patting all of her pockets down and searching through her bag about ten times, she decided that she must have left it on the table or put it into the refrigerator with our perishable food. When she still came back empty handed, Sarah reached into her pocket and found the key. When we finally got the door open, Sarah left to go wash her face, but before she left she said that she wanted to climb onto the roof before we left. Corinne and I decided to climb up onto the roof and hide from her. Getting up onto the roof was no problem. As soon as we got up though, Corinne panicked, not because we could fall to our death at any moment, but because the owner of the hostel might yell at us. It was then that we realized Corinne has a problem with challenging authority, or rather not challenging authority. Once Sarah found and joined us for a little while, we all climbed down to go use the internet.

We were each supposed to get the internet for five minutes, but by the time it was my turn, we had been in that room for over forty minutes. After all of that waiting, my email did not even work…soooooo HAPPY FATHER’S DAY DAD! The whole waiting thing was not so bad though because Sarah and I had a lot of fun distorting the image on the other computer screen. We were thinking about leaving like that (the computer didn’t actually work anyway), but it seemed like a bad decision.

We decided to walk to the pier and sit by the water, but it was freezing, so we bundled up in sheets on a random bench and did Sudoku puzzles. Then we played hide-and-seek. After exhausting our limited entertainment by the water we started walking to the train station to check train times for tomorrow. On the way there we found some brick ruins and went rock climbing. I made the discovery that I suck at rock climbing, but we all made it to the top of the wall eventually.

There was really nothing to do at the hostel, so we climbed onto the roof again and brought up the laptop to play music (Corinne put up a protest but eventually gave into the peer pressure). Probably less than ten minutes after climbing up, the owner of the hostel came over and “yelled” at us according to Corinne. Of course this “yelling” consisted of him apologizing to us several times for making us get down, but I guess if he were speaking louder, and not apologizing and was actually made, maybe then it might be yelling.

Sarah did her laundry while Corinne and I played Purple Palace for a while, and mastered the cake making game. Afterwards we made macaroni and tomato sauce on a hot plate and stole some of the spices from the hostel. Corinne ended up getting a bunch of spice on her pasta because I was waiting for her to say when, and she never did, but she said that it tasted fine. We all went for an after dinner walk and Sarah finally ate her cherries! We found some on a tree that was hanging over the sidewalk.

We broke into this park-like place after hours. I think that it was supposed to be a beach, but it was mostly grass with a little bit of sand under the playground equipment and there were ladders going into the lake. Either way it was probably the most fun that we had since coming here. We all played on the see-saw, which was inexplicably amazing. Then we tried to swing on the tiny swings, but it was really uncomfortable, and we had to double our legs under the swing and hold them so that they wouldn’t touch the ground. There was a tree and we all started to climb it. Sarah and I got up right away, but Corinne couldn’t pull herself up and could only hang from it. See:

Just kidding. Corinne actually got really high and I realized that my suckiness at rock climbing was actually an ineptitude to climb all together. I think that I’m going to work on that.

There was a giant water slide in the distance, and after walking to it, we climbed all the way to the top. Once again, Corinne was scared that someone was going to catch us, so every time a car drove past we all ducked. And that’s basically it. Tomorrow we are headed off to Vienna.

Day 17 : Look, Cherries! (now with picture and added story)

Sarah:

This morning we got to sleep in. It was amazing even though we only slept in until 10:30am. We went to the grocery store to buy food for the next few days since Corinne is sick of langos and Rosie is sick of sausages. On the way back, we noticed an elderly man picking white berries off of a tree across the street. We came back to the hostel and packed a picnic since it was pretty warm and wanted to go to the beach. I made yet another cheese sandwich (this is at least the 5th one). Then I got hungry so I ate it while Rosie and Corinne made thiers.

We headed off to the beach, at which point we passed the tree off of which the man had earlier eaten berries. Although Corinne and Rosie told me not to, I picked a berry off the tree and ate it. It was okay, but not delicious. Rosie basically called me a hypocrite for eating a random, potentially poisonous, berry but not drinking the tap water. I said that it was completely different, although it probably isn’t, and Rosie and Corinne told me that they would not get help if the berry turned out to be poisonous since they had clearly warned me. Since it’s my blog day, I get to emphasize the fact that the people that I am traveling europe with would let me die here. They better be lying.

Anyway, when we got to the beach we discovered that you have to pay to get in. We thought this was rediculous and Rosie was completely outraged so we settled for a nearby grassy area by the water. We whipped out our food, ate it all, and then fell asleep/read/listened to music. It was really relaxing until the wind picked up and it got really cold…so much for getting rid of our tan lines. By this time, Corinne was craving food and I was bored. I decided to take a walk and lured Corinne into coming with me with the mention of waffles. Rosie packed up her stuff to come too. Instead of going to get waffles, however, we remembered the cocoa krispies that we had just purchased and made a plan to go back to the hostel, change our shoes, eat cereal, let them know we were going to have dinner there, and go see the tower at the top of the mountain. We did just that, except make it to the top of the mountain.

The tower is visible from our hostel so we decided to wander to it. We had a rocky start full of dead ends and random stairs, but eventually we figured out that the brown signs were not street signs, but instead showing the direction we were supposed to go. After that, the only hard part was walking up hill. About half way up we stopped to admire the view. Afterwards, we noticed a sign indicating that admission to the tower was 200 florints, a little over $1, but still not free. Content with our view, we decided to sit in the grass for a while. This is when I learned that wearing yellow is not a smart idea in Lake Balaton. I was covered in little black bugs within minutes which I continually had to flick off while Rosie and Corinne watched, unaffected.

On our way back down the mountain, we discovered a miniature shopping cart on the side of the road. It was cute and had wheels so I rode it a few feet down the road. After assuring Corinne that it wasn’t scary to ride, she pushed it a little bit up the hill and hopped on. Rosie was too scared to ride it and said that Frank “told her to be safe.” Excuses, excuses.

After we made it back to the hostel, Corinne started to sort through the massive amount of music Rosie and I had given her. We did this until dinner time, at which point we went down stairs. I made pasta in the “kitchen” since the goulash had pork in it. It was kind of hard to explain why I wouldn’t be eating the goulash… here is how the conversation went:

Me: What does the goulash have in it?

Hostel Guy: it has (lists ingredients) and pork.

Me: Oh, ok. I’m not going to have any.

HG: Why? It’s very good pork.

Me: I don’t eat pork.

HG: But it’s good meat. It is from here. (slaps his thigh)

Me: Yeah, but I don’t eat pork.

It kind of reminded me of this scene in Everything Is Illuminated.

The kitchen was actually a little wooden structure attatched to the side of the main building consisting of a sink, a few wooden shelves, some pots and pans, and a hot plate. Dinner was good. We each ate our meals and I stole some bread from the plate that was supposed to be for Rosie and Corinne only. Tomorrow we are having pasta, so more repetative meals for me!

One more thing… there are a bunch of what I assume are cherry trees around. This is a pretty reasonable assumption since they sell tons of cherries here and the berries look exactly like cherries. They also look delicious, so my random food for tomorrow is going to be cherries.

Day 16: It’s like snow for food!

Corinne:
This morning dawned with the phone ringing. And ringing. And by the time I got the energy to wake Rosie up, I didn’t have the energy to make her get up. So we got a late start. Which was fine because the train we looked up last night was supposed to leave from the closer train station at 13:30.
After a breakfast of Honey Nut Cheerios and 2.8% milk (what’s with the milk percents?) and toast (melted cheese was attempted and failed, but none other than our lactaphile Rosie), we left our funky hostel. I’m not sure if anyone has described it to you, but it is pretty much like a house with a couple random rooms. And the ceilings are high, so the owner decided that building tree-house-like lofty bits was a good plan. So Rosie and I got to share a large couch-masquerading-as-a-bed while Sarah slept under the really steep steps. Everywhere you looked there was a random door or loft with more beds in it. However, the three of us were the majority of the residents the majority of the nights we were there.
Anyway, we left that place of eccentricity for the metro to the train station. (And we actually have two Budapest metro tickets left. So if anyone wants one, let us know.)
We get to the train station, and the way to do things around here (and at all the train stations we’ve been to) is to go to the information desk, inter- or intra- national, then with your information, go to the respective ticket desk. We get to the station, and for one thing, it has the worst layout of them all. There is a large hall with fastfood joints around it and trains down the middle. We manage to get stuck behind some fences, then just decide to go to the information place we went after we tried to get our pass validated when we came into Budapest. And that consisted of completely leaving the building, going around some construction work, walking over plywood, then ignoring the signs to get to a window. Where they subsequently tell us that the train we want would go from the other Budapest train station. (We looked it up online and distinctly wanted to get on this train because it left from the station we where closer to.) Rosie finally just asks for the information desk for intracountry travel, which was down the hidden stairs (even though they were right in the middle of the foyer). We get there and are told basically the same thing, even though we know we are right about this train. We turn away from the window to leave when she suddenly gets us back and asks to see our tickets. I’m very confused at this point, but once she sees we are on a rail pass, she tells us about another train..in fact, the very train we wanted to begin with! So we get our reservations and wait for the train to pull up.
When we get to the track, we are met with train we don’t want…then attached to it is the one we want. Which reminded Rosie of a story of her brother when the train went two different places and half of his group ended up in a different place. From this and where our train was headed, we decided that half of every train goes to Vienna.
The nearly empty car (save a man who only spoke Hungarian but attempted a conversation) got us to the right place. We went directly to the information window, where told directly to get to platform 7, stepped right on the train, and were off to Revfulop in a matter of minutes. It was great timing.
The more crowded train cruised by the shores of Lake Balaton, which I’ve decided is a lost Great Lake. There were a couple of school groups of varying ages and pitches that were on the train as well. (Sarah is going to have very well-behaved children from the way she acts.) The man we chose to sit with got off at the next station after asking Sarah if he could ask her a question, then asking where we were from. Then leaving the train.
The only directions as to how to get to the hostel are to walk 200 meters from the train station. Luckily we had the address as well and managed to find it without much difficulty. Go Friday the 13th. (Need I not remind you of the last time we had instructions like that…BCD Hostel…where we had to interrupt someone’s evening walk to take us the more than 200 meters there…)
Our luck held for a little bit longer as the school groups that were hurting Sarah’s ears so much on the train were also needing the bigger rooms in the hostel. So we are tucked away in a three-bed attic room in a brand new house in the  And had our stuff all over within 5 minutes.
But that is where our luck ran out as we got the grocery store minutes after it closed, then couldn’t find the restaurant that our host described. We did walk along the lakeshore though, including through a field of what appear to be baby dragonflies. The larks where having a heyday, but we didn’t want to open our mouths. All along the pier it was the same thing, with hundreds on each building.
So, we were planning on spending our days on the beach tanning. Since we all had our long sleeves on, I’m thinking it’s about a 50-50 at this point whether we’ll manage to wear only tanktops. The brisk wind also made wearing a skirt (the only clean thing left) exciting. Wind always finds us when one of us is wearing a skirt.
What we did end up finding for dinner was meat. Sarah had chicken, while Rosie and I each had a Sausage. With bread and mustand.
I think Rosie described langoses for you yesterday, but to reiterate, they are disks of fried dough. And I had one and a half yesterday. And then, after vowing never to have another, split one with Sarah tonight. With powdered sugar, which is like snow for food. Yum. But I think that the two unhealthy foods are battling it out in my stomach. Tums.
We had a large load of laundry started before we went to grocery shopping-turned-dinner, and came back to help hang it in the gale-force winds. I was scared I wouldn’t have any clothes left by the time the wind was done with those clotheslines.
We were only charged for one load, but because of extra soap that was put in, a bunch needed to be rinsed again. After we had given that batch back, the owner asked us to pay for another load. I was pretty sore about that because we would have down it just find without the six scoops of soap he put in the Maytag washer (“American, no?”).
So we got to hang the “second” load, then goofed off inside with cards and a pixelated Juno.
If you hadn’t realized, like almost everything around here, internet isn’t free, so we’ll probably be uploading everyother day or whenever we have extra money laying about.
And, as a postnote, Rosie was extremely brave and only shrieked twice when a “large” bug came out of the sink.

Day 15 : Sheer Terror

Rosie:

We got up this morning ready for a pretty packed day. After a short breakfast of honey nut cheerios, we were on our way to the giant famous temple in Budapest (yes, that is the technical term). Apparently this particular temple is somehow linked to my family history, but I don’t really know how. Either way it was really impressive. The whole thing was actually the biggest building ever and was decorated like some of the more extravagant churches that we have seen. According to the really rude tour guide behind us, and Rick Steves, it is the second largest temple in the world; the largest being located in New York (who knew?). Sarah especially disliked the tour guide because she made her move out of the seat she was in when there were about a bajillion empty rows. But whatever, I’m sure there was some dire need for her to have that specific row.

Our next stop was St. Stephen’s Basilica. It too was extraordinary, but free. At least mostly free. One of the cool things about the building is that they have the hand of St. Stephen on display in a little jeweled box. In order to actually see into the box, you have to pay 100FT for them to turn on the light. I know that 100FT is not a lot of money (about 60 cents) but the concept bothered me for what ever reason. On our way out, a Chinese man gave the guard guy the money for him to turn the light on, and we ran back to see it. You basically couldn’t see anything anyway through the box, so I am glad that we didn’t waste our money.

On the way to the Basilica, Corinne’s dreams came true. She had been searching all around Hungary for the cheapest possible postcards. Most of the places that we had gone sold them for 100FT, but we had found them for as cheap as 50FT and everywhere in between. Anyway, as we walked past this one small shop, Corinne spotted a sign that said the postcards were only 30FT. I’m pretty sure that was the highlight of her day, maybe even of the whole trip.

We continued by walking down Andrassy St. which is a pretty nice walk. There is a long island filled with trees stretching through the majority of the street. We stopped to eat lunch on one of the benches, which included the latest hand food…cucumbers, now not just a topping. Afterwards, we went to the House of Terror, which is one of the coolest museums that I have ever been to. On the minus side, not very much was translated into English and we weren’t allowed to pay the student rate because we weren’t European. Some of the information was conflicting, but I think that the museum building was used as the Communist headquarters after WWII, and during WWII the Hungarian Nazi headquarters were somewhere on the same street. The basement of the building though was definitely used as a prison to incarcerate, torture, and kill people.

Since basically our first day in Hungary, we have been looking for this Hungarian street food called Langos. Which is basically deep fried dough with sour cream, garlic, and cheese. When we went to the park this afternoon we finally found a stand that sold them. Sarah, unfortunately had just bought a pretzel, but Corinne and I split one and it was delicious. We got ours with sour cream and cheese, although looking back on it, I feel like sour cream and garlic might have been better, but there is always Lake Balaton to try them again. The point is that it was really good.

After eating one of the fattiest foods ever, we got in our bathing suits and went swimming in one of the nicer Hungarian baths, according to Rick Steves. There were three main pools in the one that we went to. We started off in the colder one, which was pretty cool and had a little waterfall and big jets in random places. Then we went to the hotter one, which is apparently where every older, slightly overweight Hungarian man likes to put on a tiny speedo and sit around. Of course this was after going into the locker room and seeing completely naked, more than slightly overweight, older women. I tried to escape them by going to the bathroom, but standing stark naked, in all of her glory right in front of the stalls was yet another one. I have to say, it was way scarier than the House of Terror. Maybe the two should switch names. I feel like “The Pools of Terror, don’t come in unless you are fully prepared to be scarred for life” might be a little long, but it would definitely prepare visitors more than “Hungarian Baths.”

Probably the highlight of the Hungarian baths was dunking Sarah. For whatever reason, Sarah gave herself the title of ‘un-dunkable’ and of course, Corinne and I felt the need to prove her wrong. After just jumping at her from random angles for a little while, I decided to be a little bit sneakier. A couple minutes later, an English guy came up to us and started talking mostly to Sarah. While she was being forced into conversation, I snuck behind her, went underwater, and pulled out her legs from under her. Then Corinne pushed her over, and our goal was accomplished. Sarah’s self-given title had been removed. I was ecstatic, she was not so ecstatic.

After the pool we went to a palace in the park. It was really pretty, mostly because it had a small pond next to it and was in a really nice area. Outside of the palace there was a pretty sweet statue. It is of “Anonymous.” The first written history of Hungary was signed Anonymous and this statue was supposed to be a tribute to him/her. It basically looked like a dementor, its face completely hidden by a cloak. At some point Corinne decided that she wanted another Langos all to herself, so we went back to the stand and she got one, this time with garlic. I tried to push her into getting the one with Nutella, but she didn’t want to spend the extra money. It was sad.

We went back to the hostel to cook dinner. I cooked with Sarah’s help, apparently Sarah and Corinne haven’t heard the horror stories. We made sloppy joes, which were delicious. Sarah realized a little later that we still had frozen broccoli that we never ate, so she made that afterwards. Maybe I am a little biased, but I think that was our best dinner in Hungary.

Oh yeah, Sarah tried copying a fashion trend that we have seen around. Maybe it will catch on back home? :

Day 14 : Same Difference

Sarah:

So the photos are taking forever to load and I want to go to sleep….so I’ll add them tomorrow.

After the usual morning routine (Corinne tells me to get up, I acknowledge her request, I go back to sleep, repeat 1- 3 at least 2 times, I get up), we went to the market again. We decided to be a little healthier for breakfast today, so naturally I got a giant chocolate croissant…and fruit of course. Corinne got a banana and a chocolate croissant that was about half the size of mine, and Rosie bought two plums and some brie (and totally judged my breakfast, although she claims she didn’t).

After breakfast, we headed over to see a church that was built into a cave and the Liberation Monument (a statue of a woman with a palm leaf in her hand), which just happened to be on top of a mountain…not surprising. Although it wasn’t as high up as the tower in Prague, it was super hot and humid today and I basically died again. The monument is actually pretty cool and completely worth it, mostly because it is breezier and not as hot up there. On the way there we found a bunch or children playing on really big slides so naturally we went over to join in the fun. Unfortunately, I was wearing a dress so no slide for me. Corinne got in line with the rest of the kids and slid down though.

Afterward seeing the monument, we started towards the castle grounds which are on a neighboring hill. Luckily, the castle is on a lower hill, so there was no more walking up stairs or anything. After going through a park and crossing a highway, we finally got a clear view of the castle. We also got a clear view of a swing set, which prompted Rosie to ask if we could stop there, which of course we agreed to. I decided to ride the pony on the spring and eat the croissant I had saved from this morning. After eating half of it I felt content, but I ate the rest 5 minutes later. Rosie said she was proud of me for having that little bit of self control which meant a lot considering the fact that she had judged me earlier.

After the playground, we walked down the hill some more. When we were level with the castle I decided that a bridge over all the roads below us would be really nice, especially if making bridges out of thin air was a super power. After throwing out the idea of a super civil engineer I quickly realized that we might still have to take stairs which led me to discover the greatest super power ever: escalator powers. You can disagree, but to me, turning stairs into escalators or making escalators and moving walkways appear out of no where sounds awesome (and also way less selfish that flying, according to Rosie). After trying it a few times I discovered that I do not have super escalator powers. Oh well, maybe I’ll get them when I join the 19 year olds club.

When we finally go to the castle, we walked in and paid for an elevator ride to the top. There was no way we were going to do 5 flights of stairs. At the top we found another really nice breeze and another pretty view. After walking around for a few minutes while Corinne gave us some knowledge about the castle, it started to rain. Once again, my book had truth in it’s pages because it says something like: always bring a poncho since 5-10 minute showers occur frequently in the summer months. We did not have ponchos and found shelter on a nearby windowsill. After the rain let up, a guard came over and told us to get off the building. It was only “Seattle-ing,” as Corinne put it, so we kept walking. We kept walking and saw some other stuff on the castle grounds, learned some more stuff, and took some more pictures. We felt a little ripped off when we went to one of the churches since we were also supposed to be able to see the Museum of Ecclesiastic Art with admission, but no, it was closed. The second church we went to was the remains of St. Mary Magdalene Church. We decided is was group picture time again and that the best way to do it would be to stand on top of some of the ruins. To pull off the picture, Corinne had to leap across an enormous gap and compose herself in time for the picture. She did this twice, making the total number of leaps four. After we were done, I wanted to jump across the gap, which I did. Rosie was a little scared, but she also managed to do it. We all felt pretty proud of ourselves.

After all of that excitement, we decided to take public transportation to the opera house since we had decided this morning that we wanted to see an opera. We bought tickets for under $4 and then went shopping for food for tomorrow. We walked at least 5 blocks back to our hostel, during which time it started to rain and subsequently pour. At first we endured it, then we found shelter in a door way. Finally we gave up and booked it back to the hostel since we were only 2 blocks away at this point. We were soaking wet and the bottom of my dress became transparent. Luckily, I was wearing a long-ish sweater so it wasn’t too bad. That’s what I get for wearing a white dress I guess.

When we got back to the hostel, we put the food away, Rosie and Corinne changed for the opera, and I made a poncho out of a plastic garbage bag. Then I looked outside and I wasn’t raining anymore (it also hasn’t rained since). Both Rosie and Corinne decided to wear flip flops. Rosie informed us that hers would probably be slippery and if she died I was to deliver the following messages:

Rosie’s parents, Herbie, and Frank: Rosie loves you.
Herbie: Congrats on getting your license.

Luckily Rosie didn’t die, although she did slip before we even made it down the block.

We reached the opera house and climbed a few flights of stairs to get to our seats. We had a whole box to ourselves. It was nice. The opera started with a big dance number which was really impressive, but strange. I was starting to get suspicious. About 20 minutes into the performance Corinne leans over and says, “I think we got tickets to the ballet.” Two minutes later when the audience was applauding, Rosie announced that she had reached the same conclusion. Opera. Ballet. Same difference.

All through the ballet we were excited to eat a Jewish restaurant my book had in it. Let’s just say we did, we were not impressed: the food took forever to get to us and was way over priced.

To sum it all up,
Number of times it rained: 2
Number of times my book has been right: 2
Number of times we felt ripped off today: 2

Day 13: Concepts of my Paddle in your Face

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 around 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.

Day 12: You will never be there

Rosie:

So basically, today the plan was basically to ride the train for seven hours from Prague to Budapest. We got to the train station and there was a picture of Hilary Clinton on the TV monitors. We were all wondering if she had lost or won, but the story was in Czech so we had no idea. None of the important words remotely resembled anything in English. When Corinne and I got in line for tickets I said kind of loudly, “We should fine some Czech person who speaks English to translate the story for us.” The woman behind us overheard, and informed us that she was no longer in the election. Afterwards we waited on the train platform for our train. While we were waiting, another tourist came up to us and asked us what time it was, after getting off the train in Budapest and walking about half way to our hostel, the same guy was walking right behind us. It was so weird. Most of the people on the train got off way before Budapest, in fact we were three of about seven people in our train car upon arrival.

The train ride was long, but we managed to entertain ourselves. First of all, we had a ton of food because we had “cashed out” of Czech currency the day before. We had Hannah to listen to, and we were constantly trying to figure out how to get our own compartment, which we succeeded in for probably about two or three hours of the trip. Towards the end of the trip we were getting kind of restless so we went out of our compartment to walk around the car a little and realized that there was no one there. Sarah made up a game to play in the hallway where we each stood still without moving our feet and without touching the walls to see who could stay up the longest. Corinne lost almost right away, but then we started again. After about fifteen minutes of standing, switching directions occasionally to make it harder, we decided to switch to one foot. Once again, Corinne lost almost right away, followed by Sarah in a few more minutes.

We got off the train, ran into train station kid, and went basically directly to our hostel without stopping for food. Once we got here we decided not to leave for food again and to just eat what we had left over. We updated the blog and basically went to bed. Oh, for those of you who don’t know, the EuroCup is going on right now. There was a big screen set up about 100 meters from our window and we could here shouting and yelling until pretty late. It must have been an exciting game.