i keep a diary

February 07, 2005

Baltic Vacation Part Seven: On to Budapest

After staying up all night the previous night at an indoor tropical resort on the outskirts of Berlin, we dropped our rental car off and hopped on a Budapest-bound plane.

Monday, February 7th

Up, up and away.
We weren't in the air for fifteen minutes and Jake was already begging for a another sweet, sweet booger.
Soooo tempting.
Need sleep.
Eastward bound over snowy Bratislava.
Coming into Budapest: The river that you can see is the Danube that divides the "Buda" part of the city on the west from the "Pest" part of the city on the east.
As we got lower, you could easily pick out all the cookie-cutter Soviet-era public housing buildings.
Immigration line.
First order of business: Brandon took us to his friend Adrian's apartment (which is radly located in the XIII District of Budapest) where we'd be staying. Adrien had converted half of his huge apartment into a hostel that was closed for the winter. Adrian was staying at his mother's house in another part of Budapest and told us that we could stay there for free. Thanks so much, Adrian!
Hey look, a little old Hungarian lady in the courtyard.
The second order of business was for me to go to the pharmacist and get jock itch cream for the Grizz. Any guy that's traveled a lot knows that sooner or later, you're gonna have yourself some jock itch! Grant had been suffering for a few days but was letting it persist because his fear that the pharmacist wouldn't understand the phrase "jock itch" and he'd be forced to pantomime out "I have itchy balls" and end up looking like a masturbatory chimpanzee.

After watching his squirming get progressively worse as the days passed, I decided to take one for the team and head to the pharmacist on his behalf. (Where the scenario that Grant dreaded indeed took place and I had to play "I HAVE ITCHY BALLS" charades with the pharmacist as the line of 10 septuagenarian Hungarian women in line behind me stared on in horror.) Hey, Grant - YOU'RE WELCOME!
Yes! Great success! I brought Grant the cream and felt like a true friend! Then I started asking him why he was shy about pantomining "I have jock itch" but not shy about whipping out his ball sack and putting it on a stranger for a photo. WTF?
The New York Szendvics? Oh, really?
With OPERATION: Nut-Soothe completed, we met back up with Brandon and he took us to some...
...local restaurant for some down-home Hungarian cooking. (I think it was some sort of breaded veal thing with potato dumplings and paprika. But whatever it was, it was fucking awesome). And for dessert?
We had Disko.
Which comes with a pictogram "Twist, Lick, Eat" tutorial. After dessert, we headed off to...
...The Széchenyi Thermal Baths! This place is the largest thermal bath complex in Budapest.
The place was totally decked out in neo-Baroque style.
Grant poses with a fish-riding cherub.
The baths!
Before changing into my swim trunks - I hit the open courtyard with my camera while the light was still good and snapped a shit-ton of pics of the place (with the hopes that Grant would score a travel piece about Budapest and I could score a lil' extra pocket money by providing the photos.
So far, no dice yet. But at least you, dear reader, get a thorough idea of how big the two main public pools are.
Steamtastic!
The narrow walkway in the middle that divided the two enormous thermal pools.
Twilight sky.
Not having a wide-angle lens with me, I went up on the balcony to try and get a little perspective on the sprawl before heading inside to lock up my cam and change into my bathing suit. Here's a long exposure to show all the steam.
And here's a shorter exposure. Yay, photography!
Unfortunately, the ghetto-ass circus across the street was closed by the time we'd finished bathing. We walked back to Adrian's apartment and then after a quick nap...
...Brandon took us out to a pub to meet his friends Akosh and Adrian.
We also got to meet his friend Jonathan (who we were all really excited to meet because apparently he runs some super-sketchy Hungarian porno business - check out Grant leaning in trying to get the porno-lowdown). Unfortunately, Jonathan shadily dodged all of our questions and we were never managed to find out exactly what his porn-involvement is. His reluctance to share with us only succeeding in convincing us that it was probably something really, really ska-ska-sketchy! After no sleep the previous night, half a day of traveling, and several hours in a thermal bath, it only took about two giant Hungarian beers to make us realize that we needed bed in a bad way.
We got back to Adrian's hostel around 11:30pm. I brushed my teeth and by the time I got out of the bathroom, this guy was already under the covers and asleep! (Or at least he was until I screamed really loud while simultaneously pressing the shutter on my camera. Hahahah).

Tuesday, February 9th

Eleven hours of sleep later, we felt much better. After checking out a few guidebooks laying around we decided to head out and explore the city. First stop...
...McDonalds! Hahah. Shut up, I don't want to hear it. If you're on a budget, it's the cheapest place to eat (ok, and it's pretty tasty). Besides, it's not like they have...
...the McRoyal at home.
After getting our belly fulla grease on, we hopped on the subway and headed east under the Danube River to explore the historic sights on the Buda side of the city.
Deepest subway ever.
The Buda side is mountainous compared to the much flatter Pest side of the city. The guidebook we had described stairs that led to the highest point of Buda that overlooks the river and all of Pest. (By the way, in Hungarian, the letter "S" is pronounced as "Schhh" - so the proper way to pronounce the city is to talk like Sean Connery and say "Budapescht." The sibilate "S" sound that we make is written as "Sz" in Hungarian. So, um, yeah. That concludes our Hungarian lesson for today).
Now let's climb those stairs!
Looking west over Buda from the top of the stairs.
After we finished climbing, we headed east looking for the castle and the highpoint that overlooks Pest.
Getting warmer...
...getting hot...
...burning up...
...Yatzee!
Grizz surveys the city.
The very next day, I went to the Museum of Terror (that gives the history of Budapest's back-to-back occupation, first by the Nazis then by the Soviet Communists) and was blown away to see a film of Hitler and his Third-Reich cronies standing in the very spot we'd stood yesterday watching his Panzer tanks roll through the streets of Pest across the river. The Third Reich and the Holocaust have always seemed a little surreal to me - to see film footage of Hitler standing in a place that I personally recognized somehow magnified the reality and all of the horrors that I saw in the museum that day.
The spires of the Fisherman's Bastion just outside of the Matthias Church.
Trying to figure out how to walk over to the Buda Castle.
Squinty McSquinterson.
Grant gets his peep on.
Hahaha.
One of the many cool statues footing the base of the Fisherman's Bastion.
The view across the river from inside one of the spires.
More Neo-Roman stone work.
Afterwards we headed south to check out some of the amazing art outside of where Hungarian Parliament meets.
Bananas.
After all the sightseeing, we decided to take the subway back over to the Pest side. In Budapest, there aren't any subway turnstiles but there are inspectors that will occasionally stop people and if you're unable to present a timestamped receipt that shows that you paid the fare, you'll get a ticket. Each time Jake bought a ticket, he's just stick it in a pocket and when he got singled out by the ticket-checkers ("Look, Heléna...JEW!") it took him almost 10 minutes of pocket emptying before he was finally able to come up with the right receipt.
Back at the hostel Jake fell asleep with his mouth open again, and I snapped this pic of him waking up due to the fact that I had just FILLED his sleeping mouth with contact lens solution. Mmmmm....salty!
After a quick disco nap, Grant, Jake and I met up with Brandon and Akosh and headed out for a dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Where Jake and I failed miserably at trying to pick up the two cute girls that were sitting near us (you can sort of see them in the background). Here's Jake capturing our sheepish humiliation.
After dinner, we all went to some bar around the corner. No sooner had we put our coats down when two cute girls came over to Jake and I, introduced themselves as "Nataschja" and "Tatiana," said that they were visiting Budapest from Slovenia, then kissed on the lips explaining it was a Slovenian custom. Here's me with Nataschja.
And then they introduced us to their friend "Boris," who was also from Slovenia.
Jake and I were chatting with the girls for a few minutes when Akosh pulled us aside. He was convinced that the girls were Hungarian, and were lying about being visitors from Slovenia. We pulled their friend "Boris" aside and started grilling him. It turns out that "Boris" grew up in New Jersey, had been living in Hungary for the last 10 years and that the girls were in fact Hungarian and just wanted to tease us and have an excuse to flirt. Hahah.
Here's me with "Nataschja," whose real name turned out to be Edit (pronounced Ee-deet).
A couple beers later, Grant, Jake, Akosh and Brandon got tired and decided to call it a night, leaving me to get wiggity wasted with a bunch of rowdy Hungarians.
Hey, is that Mike Skinner's dad?
Hahaha.
Awww, all cuddled up in the corner. I found out later that she was still in high school. Doh!