I'd be lying if I said I didn't have those same thoughts at first, but as it turns out, Budapest is a pretty awesome city. You're also probably wondering how we even decided on Budapest. Allow me to explain.
So here in Germany they have this awesome deal with Germanwings where you can pay 40 euros or so for a blindbooking fee. They give you a list of possible countries but you have no idea where you're going until it's paid for. We had talked about going to Ireland and Greece, you know really beautiful places but they were a little on the expensive side. So being the frugal college students that we are, we went with cheap mystery trip and ended up with Budapest. We had only known maybe 2 other people that had been there but they had good things to say about it. And, just as luck would have it, Nate happened to have a friend studying abroad there as well. So what all did we do? I'll recap
Sunday:
Just a bunch of bus, train and plane rides before finally arriving at our hostel in downtown. At 10 p.m. it looked a little sketch but once we were inside, it looked like a page torn out of Ikea.
Monday:
We had an early start, or at least I did. I think I woke up around 6:30 or 7 due to the sun blaring through the window while everyone else slept till about 9. So once everyone was up and ready, we met Nate's friend, Michael, who was to be our tour guide for the next couple of days. Here's what we saw:
-Parliament
-The Chain Bridge
-Buda Castle
-Matthias Church
-Fisherman's Bastion
-The Labyrinth
-St. Stephen's Basilica
-Heroes Square
-Vejdahunyad Castle
-A park
I'm trying to keep this as short as I can but there was a lot that happened. The labyrinth was probably my favorite part of the day, but it went underground beneath Buda Castle and took you through a series of poorly lit, winding passages. I had a lot of fun scaring the girls. There was also a Hall of Courage which was pitch black. It was awesome. Going to all these places required a lot of walking, so by the end of the day we had worked up quite an appetite. We found a Mexican restaurant which had probably the greatest gift of all, free refills! Oh, how glorious it was.
We got back to the hostel after getting some groceries and hung out with a girl from Canada who was doing her tour of Europe for a few months.
Tuesday:
We were pretty tired out from yesterday so we decided to sleep in. I made it to 8 a.m. We hung around the hostel for a bit before heading to Margaret Island, which is on the Danube river between Buda and Pest (yeah they're 2 different cities in case you didn't know). So we walked around a bit and laid by the musical fountain before seeing these 4-5 person bikes. I say bikes but it was more of a car that you had to pedal. But we rented one of those and cruised the island for an hour or so. We saw all kinds of things like animals, kids climbing trees, 80 year old women wearing thongs, 60 year old men exercising in speedos. It was great. We met up with Michael again and he took us to the Citadel where we had an amazing view of the city.
Wednesday:
This was my favorite day of the whole trip. Before leaving, we were all researching stuff to in Budapest and I stumbled upon Caving. Apparently, Budapest has a lot of caves. But we didn't want to just walk around a bunch of rocks, we wanted adventure (or at least I did). So I found a caving adventure tour. So we show up at the cave and tell the guy, we want the Adventure tour. So he asks if we've made a reservation. I tell him, no, the website said we didn't have to. Well, it turns out you kinda do, but God was on our side. So I found one of the guides and he talked to his boss and long story short, we suited up for our adventure. There was a lot of crawling, squeezing, and sliding for a couple of hours and it was great. The guide even gave us chocolate.
There was one place called the Winnie the Pooh hole, which was just a small hole usually meant for kids. But since we were making such good time, the guide told us we could try it out. I have to say it was a tight fight even for me. 
After leaving the caves, we wanted to relax and so we headed to one Budapest's finest thermal baths. 
We went back to the hostel and watched a movie after eating at the mexican restaurant once more.Thursday:
Thursday was our day of rest. We didn't really do anything until after lunch. We then headed to the Children's Railway which is a train run completely by kids (everything except the conductor). So we cruised around the Buda Hills and then took a chairlift back down to the main city. We decided to find some Hungarian cuisine for dinner, but the closest thing I got to Hungary Food was some Hungarian smoked cheese which was on my burger. It was delicious though. For dessert we had waffles.
Friday:
Once again, I was up bright and early so I went for a final walk by the river and saw a little bit more of Budapest before heading back to see if everyone else was awake. We packed our things but our flight wasn't until 9:45 that night, so we left what we could at the hostel and headed to the mall. We were able to catch a couple of flicks in English which was a nice change. Afterward, we went to TGIFridays and I had fried mac and cheese. Kind of expensive but totally worth it. We headed to the airport and returned home to Germany.
You don't realize how much you love a language that you only know a little of until you go some place that you have no idea of anything that is being said. I'll miss the food in Hungary but it was good to be back in Germany.
And that was Budapest. This past week we were back in class and getting back to our regular routine. For those anxiously awaiting our return: only about 6 more weeks here. Hard to believe I know, but I hope to make the most of them. Bis bald.
P.S.
