Next Stop Budapest | Day 11

I slept soundly through the night and in fact once it was dark the cool outside air took the temperature of the room down substantially. I was woken up about 8:30am for the passport check. I handed over my passport and got the green checkmarks. I closed my door but then could hear there was a curfluffle outside. Just from what I could hear there was an issue with someones ticket. Something about the wrong ticket was printed and it showed the wrong train. Then a lady’s voice entered and she seemed to have some knowledge of the situation. A new detail was added when the ticket collector mentioned we were about 3 hours late. This is where the lady stepped in and she knew all about it. She said that she had gotten a misprint and also had missed a connecting train. There is no problem with the ticket and it is EU law that they reimburse the passenger for the ride, the missed ride, and also any accommodations needed. This back and forth went on for a bit and the ticket collector seemed to be agreeing with her. In the end I suppose the ticket was all good and the passenger was able to keep riding. Also the statement of we were 3 hours late turned in to we are on time, but then someone said we were 4 hours late, and then no one knew what was happening. Either way I was cruzin in cabin. I rested a while longer until something irritated my eye. Of course I started rubbing it and before to long it was full on irritated. I couldn’t quite seem to work out what was in there so I checked in the mirror. Under my eyelid was either sleep that had gotten caught or some dead skin that had come loose, but whatever it was it was incredibly uncomfortable. I tried to remove it a few times but couldn’t seem to gras a hold of it. I thought about using something small to dislodge it but the decided against that idea. Best I could come up with was just to lay down and close my eyes and hopefully it would work itself out. About 45 minutes went by and I opened by eyes and whatever had been in my eye seemed to have worked itself out. My eye of course was swollen and red but at least it was hurting any further.

The train attendant came around and said that our next stop was Budapest. I gathered up all of my things and opened the door to look out of the window. The gentleman and woman were standing in the hall chatting. I was fresh blood so they asked how I was and where I was traveling to. We chatted a moment but I had to use the restroom so I asked Thomas which way that might be. He kindly offered for me to use his if I cared to as the public one was a bit gnarly. I asked a few times if that was actually ok and he said it was so took advantage. We chatted a while longer until we hit the station and piled off. New places are always tricky especially when finding a ride out of there. The hotel didn’t see to far so opened the Uber app to find an error message saying “no rides.” I quit the app thinking that would help but when I re-opened the app it said the same thing. I then googled it and turns out Budapest has banned Uber from operating in the city. This left taxis. I found one in the cue but didn’t seem to be anyone in it. A man got up off of the planter and signaled he was the driver. He didn’t speak english so when I told him where I was headed he didn’t understand. I pulled up the address and that seemed to do the trick. We drove in silence down a long busy street and across one of the many bridges connecting the Bud and Pest sides. The hotel I was staying at, Park Plaza Budapest, was located along the Danube River. We drove along the river for a little until we reached the hotel. The man did some calculations on his phone and said $26,000 Forint. I pulled out my currency converter and it came out to $66 Euro, or $72 USD. I attempted give him 26 Euros but he wouldn’t accept it. I thought there is no way that 26K Forint is correct and maybe he meant $2,600. We went back and forth in this weird verbal dance because we each didn’t speak the others language. Finally I just said I would pay by card which he accepted. I got my bags and headed in to the hotel still confused as to what happened.

The lobby was quite nice with an elevated bar just off to the right. I checked in without a problem and the porter helped me with my bags to my room. I inquired with him about taxis here. He said a ride to the train station should be about 7,000 Forint and what I was charged was way way to much. That was what I had thought and I recalled the dude in Bucharest mentioning that some cabs like to hike up their fares for foreigners. Once I was in the room I hopped on Google. I looked at a few articles and found that in fact there are some cabs that aren’t real cabs they just look like them. Also, two articles said don’t get a cab from the airport or train station as those are primary scam taxis. Was a bit pissed to be honest. The articles went on to say download the Bolt Taxi app as that is the best cab company in the city and is honest. I was trying to think of what verbiage I could say to my credit card company to claim it as fraud. While I thought I went to my credit card app to look at recent charges. I saw the Uber charge to the train station from yesterday, a charge for $28 USD, and then the hotel charge I just checked in to. I called the credit card company and in fact that charge came from a cab company. I was thoroughly confused because no matter what combination of numbers I put in that had a 2,6 or 0 in it came out to $28 USD. If the cab ride was that amount then that was fine but what wasn’t going to be fine was a $72 cab ride. In the end I’m not really sure what happened but the charge was reasonable and so I moved on. I ventured downstairs to inquire about the charge on my card to just double check that that was from the hotel. It in fact was and no issue. After that was behind me I looked on apple maps to see what kind of food was around. There was a spot called Port Beer & Food. It said they have traditional Hungarian food as well as an extensive beer list. That was all I needed to know and walked that way.

The place was less pub and more cafe. I sat at one of the outside tables and looked over the menu. Most all of their beer was from Belgium which I thought was interesting. I went with the one IPA I saw called Delirium. It was pretty good and was a bit high in alcohol content which I wasn’t going to argue with. I drank my beer for a bit but none of the food jumped out at me. I paid the tab and ventured back to the hotel. I was still hungry and the nice lady behind the desk at the hotel recommended a place just around the corner called Corvin Gastropub. She highly recommended the Hungarian food there so off I went. I sat outside and ordered a beer. The place was a bit crowded on the inside the but the tables outside weren’t at all. While I drank my beed I ordered a Hungarian soup called Goulash soup. In reality its a bit more of beef stew than a beef soup. It is made with a beef broth and contains slow cooked beef, potatoes, carrots, paprika, and a few other spices. It was fantastic and it never stood a chance. It was of a portion where I think it was meant to be more of an appetizer than a main dish so I combed over the menu again to see what I could have as my main. I drank my beer down and ordered another long with the Hungarian Stew. The stew was equally fantastic. It was slow roasted beef cut in to chunks and then home made dumplings. Like the soup I killed it haha. The restaurant was certainly a good recommendation and glad I came. I wrapped things up and by that time it was starting to be sunset. I walked back around the corner and saw everyone starting to gather to watch the sunset over the Parliament building. I took a seat on the wall and chatted with my mom as she had called. While we were chatting a line started to form. An activity in Budapest that is incredibly popular are the evening river cruises. It was clear that this was a line for one of them. There was probably 150 people in line so that inspired me to look online about tickets and if I could sneak on. I was able to snag a ticket for $15. The line hadn’t moved yet so I risked it and ran back across the street to my room to grab my mobile charger. By the time I had exited the hotel the line was down to its last few people so I ran down the river walk and was the last person on the cruise.

They had a small bar and decided what would a river cruise be without an adult beverage. The entire interior of the boat was filled. Every table had multiple groups all chatting amongst themselves. I stood in the line and when it was my turn I decided to just get 2 beers because I didn’t want to wait again. Beers in hand I saw people walking up the stairs to the outdoor deck. I followed and there was some standing room available so I found a spot. The group of girls in front of me had gotten a bottle of wine and were cheersing. They started to take a selfie so I chimed in inquiring if they would like me to take one instead. They enthusiastically said sure! The cruise went up and down the river and all the buildings were lit up. Of course there was the Parliament building but on the opposite side of the river perched up on the hill was the Citadella and the Buda Castle. The city looked so beautiful at night and there was something to admire in every direction. Photos had been taken and we had all started chatting. Anna, Lauren, and Lilly were just on a long weekend holiday from London. They all happened to be free this weekend and said they hadn’t seen each other in a while so they decided to go on a holiday. It is incredibly cool to live in Europe because you can travel in any direction and be in a totally different country and culture. They said that the flight from London to Budapest was about 2.5 hours. With places like this that close you would be a fool not to travel on your free weekends. We chatted for the remainder of the cruise and when the boat got back to the dock the asked what my plans were for the rest of the evening. I didn’t have any I said and they asked if I wanted to join them for a drink across the river. That sounded great to me and had made some new friends! When I say we walked over the bridge to find a pup, I mean we walked! From boat to a general pup area was about a mile and a half. It started drizzling of course but at least the temperature was cool. We were headed to a place called Zeg Zug. I certainly had never heard of it but any place with a cold beverage worked for me. About half way there the girls needed to use the restroom so we found this outdoor bar garden which had a restroom. This was the first time I encountered this but they charged to use the restroom. I’m not sure exactly what the charge was but I want to say it was like 200 Forint. I was the only one with cash but with it being like 50 cents I could cover us. I asked if we just wanted to have a beverage here but the allure of Zeg Zug was to great haha. We continued walking through the town finally ending up where Zeg Zug was, or at least used to be. It in fact was not there and moral was low. Its typically at this point when there is some adversity that enthusiasm dips. Lilly and Anna decided to throw in the towel and head back to their apartment. Lauren on the other hand wasn’t going to be deterred and wanted to find another place. I had walked all that way so a beer was for sure in my future. The girls were headed to the Baths the next morning before their flight home and wanted to make sure that Lauren was going to up and at it tomorrow at 8am. I appreciated the check in on that because the best laid plans can be ruined with a fun night out. She said of course she would be and we bid farewell to Anna and Lilly.

Lauren said that they had met some others the night before and they were all headed to another club just down the street. We walked that way and when we got there we appeared to be quite early. She asked the bouncer if we were early and they both sort of chuckled and said it would probably be better to come back a little later as there was not really anyone inside. We turned around and just started walking finally stumbling upon one of the Ruin Bars. It was packed inside and was a long stone alley with a tree in the middle. There was tables in the center stretch the entire length. On either side were different rooms that were playing different kinds of music. Where the tree was in the middle was like a four way stop. The alley stretched in both directions with more rooms on either side. We ordered a drink and sat at one of the open tables. The EU football finals was on the tv so that gave everyone a reason to drink and chant more. We chatted for a while about travel and whatnot and after a little time went by she had gotten a text saying that her other friends were at the previous club. We finished up our drinks and headed back to the previous spot. The club was called Froccsterasz. You walked in a giant old door and entered in to this huge interior courtyard. There were about 30 stairs that you walked up and then reached the main dance floor. It was significantly more crowded than when were there earlier. The DJ was playing and people were dancing away. We ran in to her other friends at the bar and all introduced ourselves. They were from everywhere. One was from Australia, another from Belgium, and a few were from Budapest. We all got drinks and chatted and danced away. A few were enthralled that I was from Hawaii and just wanted to chat about that. What is it like, how far away is it, do you need passports to go there, etc. We had a blast. It must of been about 1am when Lauren said she was getting along with one of the guys and she might head out with him. I had to venture all the way back across the river and still needed to work out how I was going to do that so that was a good moment to bail Everyone exchanged the ole instagram and I said adios. Typically nightclubs aren’t my jam but that places was pretty cool and was nice meeting others.

I stood outside of the club thinking of my options to get back. Walking a mile and a half at 1am didn’t exactly peak my interest. I had gone down the potential cab scam so could try the Bolt app. Before I opened the app I saw the scooters. They were called Lime and they were a standup scooter that you scanned the QR code and it charged you a per feet rate. That sounded like a WAY better idea haha. Who doesn’t like riding scooters at night in a foreign city a mile and a half from your hotel after a few beers?? I downloaded the app and backed it out of the parking space. You gave it a good kick start and held down the go lever and off you went! They had holders for you phone so I brought up my maps and plugged in my hotel. With headphones in and wind in my face I scooted off to the hotel. I followed the route and it led me across the famous Chain Bridge. The route was following the driving route so it was just down the middle of the street for me. There was no one really driving so that made for an easy scoot. It took me about 15 or so minutes to get back and didn’t wipe out or nothin. I parked the scooter outside of the hotel and headed up to the room. I got a shower and for some reason dawned on me to look at the Lime app. Sure enough the meter was still running and it said I couldn’t park it there. I threw on some clothes and raced downstairs. I moved the scooter a little further down the street and then I think overwhelmed the app trying to end the ride that it just let me. With that behind me I headed back upstairs and was certainly bedtime. There were a few things I wanted to see tomorrow but didn’t particularly have a time frame and thought I might sleep in a little after all this fun. Will see what tomorrow holds!