Budapest

Budapest was a fantastic way to spend our last couple of days of our ten-day break. It was just so relaxing, and honestly I don't think we would have been able to survive a really busy city because we were just simply too exhausted. The five of us (Sarah, Val, Bryce, Tessa) were the only ones to stay in a hostel. The others stayed in really nice hotels because they found five star hotels for only like $30 a night. It would have been nice but we were able to find a hostel for $10 a night so we thought it was just another way to save money. And use our saved money to get messages. Everything in Budapest was pretty cheap, well at least we thought. Budapest had a currency similar to Prague in that you had to get out thousands of their currency to have enough money for the time that we were there. Budapest was also nice because everything was in relatively close walking distance. They did have a metro system but we only used it twice, to get two and from the train station to our hostel. That night we arrived around six checked in and went out for dinner. We ate at another Mexican place but it wasn't nearly as good as the place we ate in Berlin. Truthfully no Mexican will compare to what we eat back home, I'm especially missing that homemade guacamole. I decided to be an absolute nerd that night and stay in and read Hunger Games. I made the mistake of starting it on the train ride from Vienna to Budapest, and could not put it down from that point on. I'm waiting to download the second one until I'm on the beach and can just read for hours.

The next morning we woke up early to do the walking tour. There wasn't too many interesting historical facts or stories from the tour, but it was a beautiful tour. Instead of boring you to death on what each individual picture is I just put together some of the prettiest views and buildings that we saw.

Of everything we saw, my favorite by far was Matthias Church. You can see for yourself how gorgeous the church was built, especially the roof with all of its colorful tiles.

 The view overlooking the city from the church.

We explored a lot of the city ourselves after the walking tour, got lunch, and then found this really cool indoor market which was huge. The bottom floor was filled with food vendors, and the top filled with clothing and souvenirs. I ended up getting this really pretty stone necklace, and I'm almost mad at myself for not getting more jewelery since I had some cash leftover at the end of the trip that I can't now use anywhere else in Europe. It was one of the girls' birthdays so for dinner we went to this incredible restaurant which was an all you can eat AND drink buffet. Normally I don't even like buffets because they food is gross most of the time, but the food was amazing. And they put an endless supply of alcohol on our tables; whatever we wanted (wine, beer, champagne, you name it). It was a lot of fun since all 20 of us went to celebrate, and a perfect way to spend our last night. For the perfect hangover cure the next morning, we bought our ticket for an entrance fee into the baths and a 30 minute message. We went to the largest public bath in Europe, the Szechenyi Bath and Spa. A public bath may sound gross but this place was heaven on Earth.

The place had 3 heated outdoor pools (one the temperature of a hot tub) and 15 various indoor pools and saunas. My favorite was the warm outdoor pool because it was so nice out that it wasn't even that cold to walk around in just your bathing suit. I could fall asleep with the sun beaming on me. Let me say though the public sights were quite entertaining. I swear Hungary has to beat America in the obesity rate. I have seen enough hairy fat men for the rest of my life. But getting over that fact, it was one of my favorite days. I couldn't handle any of the saunas; they were wayy too hot for me. And let me just say my massage was INCREDIBLE. I never wanted it to end. After our full spa day we went straight to the train station, and headed back to Lugano! Home sweet homee.