This also suits me perfectly, not only do I have a supermarket fetish that is heightened when overseas with products and food to decipher, but Budapest so far has the best selection of carb-based consumables.
A whole isle of dough-y, bread-y deliciousness. I couldn't help my over eager starving belly and got two from the selection, eating them as I got unbelievably lost. I have never before been that lost. I literally walked in one direction for 20 minutes before discovering it was completely wrong. Goodbye two and a half hours.
Eventually I found the river Danube, my intention, to discover it was about a block from the hostel.
The paper map thing is hard.
In other 'first day in Eastern Europe acitvities', I successfully met up with my TopDeck group. Meeting first the other newbies, 8 of us altogether, before meeting up with the bus full of others already 14 days into their mammoth tour. Walking on to the bus was like starting a new day of school, but being a couple of months younger than everyone and having to blend into some pre-established rituals, a little more tricky when you're no longer 5 years old. The apprehension quickly melted away when we started to meet everyone (started, I repeat, it is going to take me a few go's to remember 40 plus names in my old age) and found everyone to be nice and welcoming.
So commenced the brief driving tour as the sun was setting where we ended up on the top of the hill at a church and 'Fisherman's Bastion' just as the sky was turning pink hues from the sunset, a wonderful way to start to see a new city. On to a couple more monuments as well as a group photo in front of the Champs Élysées de Budapest and back to Wombats, our hostel and my new 2 day home.
We quickly dumped our stuff before heading out for dinner in a traditional Hungarian restaurant with typical Hungarian staff (I actually don't know this for a fact, but they looked exactly, exactly, like I imagined Hungarians would.) I ordered the chicken goulash and it was delicious, accompanied by bizarre Hungarian noodles which taste nice and look odd. The traditional schnitzel was ordered by quite a few people and it was enormous. The challenge was on to finish it all and most failed. Those that succeeded also failed, really, as they looked beached for the rest of the night, weighed down by schnitzel regret.
Next we headed for a bar and got lost. Twice.
Our guide clearly had too much schnitzel and couldn't think straight.
We arrived later at the coolest bar which was like a picturesque junk yard. The whole place was piled high with, well, shit. But it was artfully and delicately placed shit which had a nice feel. The atmosphere was brilliant and you can't complain at the price of drinks.
My 4am wake up call started to get the better of me as I also spotted a few others with their eyelids drooping and most people called it a night. The most casual travel group I've ever known! Where's this rowdy, inappropriate group of delinquents behaving like children that the retired are talking about these days? I'd say their late nights talkback goes deeper into the night than us 'youth'!
Head on the pillow and I was out solid before the lights turned off.
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