(no subject)
Greetings from Budapest! I would love to be able to say "hello" in the native language, but I don't have a single clue how to do that! I1m also having a hard time with this keyboard, there are letters misplaced all over the place, but that's relative to me of course.
Yesterdaz I was on a plane from Athens to Budapest with Matt, Kalenga, Darryn, Kim, and Mari. We had a really early flight, and the bus to the airport took an hour, so none of us slept because we knew we would never get up. It's alright, we could just nap in our hostel, right? (it took me a while to find the question mark just now.)
It was 8 am and we had just stepped foot in our hostel. The man at the front desk informed us our room wouldnát be readz until noon, but we were welcome to sit around or we could stash our bags and go walking around. We opted to walk, but we were all so tired.
It turns out Budapest is one of the cleanest European cities I've ever seen! Peoplehere aren't bad either, everyone seems to be reallz nice and I haven't had a sense of fear at all due to being in a large city that's completelz "foreign" to me.
We didn't walk on the Buda side at all, just Pest. We passed Parliament, which is a gorgeous gothic building, and also the largest synagogh in all of Europe. We mosied into a market that looked like it was inside an old train station, and eventually we found ourselves at the Danube looking across to Buda. After that we went back to the hostel, it was time to check in.
After checking in and taking a few hours to nap, some of us found St. Michael's, a church that is holding a Baroque festival all week. We heard the church choir sing while a guest orchestra accompanied them. It was amazing hearing the music in Hungarian.
Afterwards we met up with the rest of the people that didn't attend the show and tried to find a pub that we could just hang out at. At first we walked into Old Man' Pub, a place where live jazz music was being played. The place was crowded and I wanted to stick around, but no one else did so we ventured on. In retrospect I am glad we decided to leave, because we hung out at a karaoke bar! There were no solos sung by this girl, but I joined in the crowd at various English songs that were being played, and I even gave dancing a traditional Hungarian dance a shot. I was basicallz following the girl who was beside, but she was a bit drunk and I reallz don't even know if she knew what she was doing! It was fun.
Today I'm going on a historical walking tour of the city, which will include going over to Buda and looking at a castle. Castles are great, I wonder if people can go inside. I'm not sure what else is in store for today, but it might be a good idea to locate the train station so we know where to go on Sunday and at what time. I don't want to leave Budapest, but perhaps Prague will be just as nice.
Oh yes, I've been calling the country "Hungaria" quite a bit because I don't think too hard when talking (I would assume). Kalenga made fun of me for it. Cool thing is I have found several signs on buildings that say HUNGARIA, so just like everything else in the world, it all works out in the end.
Yesterdaz I was on a plane from Athens to Budapest with Matt, Kalenga, Darryn, Kim, and Mari. We had a really early flight, and the bus to the airport took an hour, so none of us slept because we knew we would never get up. It's alright, we could just nap in our hostel, right? (it took me a while to find the question mark just now.)
It was 8 am and we had just stepped foot in our hostel. The man at the front desk informed us our room wouldnát be readz until noon, but we were welcome to sit around or we could stash our bags and go walking around. We opted to walk, but we were all so tired.
It turns out Budapest is one of the cleanest European cities I've ever seen! Peoplehere aren't bad either, everyone seems to be reallz nice and I haven't had a sense of fear at all due to being in a large city that's completelz "foreign" to me.
We didn't walk on the Buda side at all, just Pest. We passed Parliament, which is a gorgeous gothic building, and also the largest synagogh in all of Europe. We mosied into a market that looked like it was inside an old train station, and eventually we found ourselves at the Danube looking across to Buda. After that we went back to the hostel, it was time to check in.
After checking in and taking a few hours to nap, some of us found St. Michael's, a church that is holding a Baroque festival all week. We heard the church choir sing while a guest orchestra accompanied them. It was amazing hearing the music in Hungarian.
Afterwards we met up with the rest of the people that didn't attend the show and tried to find a pub that we could just hang out at. At first we walked into Old Man' Pub, a place where live jazz music was being played. The place was crowded and I wanted to stick around, but no one else did so we ventured on. In retrospect I am glad we decided to leave, because we hung out at a karaoke bar! There were no solos sung by this girl, but I joined in the crowd at various English songs that were being played, and I even gave dancing a traditional Hungarian dance a shot. I was basicallz following the girl who was beside, but she was a bit drunk and I reallz don't even know if she knew what she was doing! It was fun.
Today I'm going on a historical walking tour of the city, which will include going over to Buda and looking at a castle. Castles are great, I wonder if people can go inside. I'm not sure what else is in store for today, but it might be a good idea to locate the train station so we know where to go on Sunday and at what time. I don't want to leave Budapest, but perhaps Prague will be just as nice.
Oh yes, I've been calling the country "Hungaria" quite a bit because I don't think too hard when talking (I would assume). Kalenga made fun of me for it. Cool thing is I have found several signs on buildings that say HUNGARIA, so just like everything else in the world, it all works out in the end.