hi hi
ok so now the tales from my weekend in budapest.
well it begins early saturday morning. we had to take a bus to malmo airport and then we were off on our flight to hungary!
once our plane landed they made us get on a little shuttle bus......that took us about 40 yards away to the entrance to the gate. i didnt understand. we could have easily walked that far in about 1/3 of the time it took them to get us all on that little bus. first weird thing about budapest.
then trying to figure out how to take the train to the city was another adventure. the directions from the hostel told us which train to take and then which metro to take. so we were going to try and do that, but we didnt have any money and there were no cash machines! so after walking around aimlessly for about 4o minutes trying to figure out what to do (and by this time it had started to snow) we decided to just take a cab to the hostel. the cab accepted euros and tiffany had some left over from one of her previous trips so we shoved all of our stuff into the cab and were happy to finally leave the airport!
we got to our hostel and i would have never even thought it was a hostel just by looking at the outside. theres just this tiny little sign that says hostel on the wall next to the door. it was in this bigger building that had a courtyard in the middle so during the evenings and nights we had to keep down the noise because of grumpy neighbors. so we got into our hostel and it was actually really nice (well nice for a hostel). there were total 8 bunk beds so there were only 16 people staying there at a time and there were only 2 bathrooms but surprisingly it worked out really well. and there were so many people that worked there! random kids just a few years older than me worked there and it just seemed like there were so many of them. i think they're just working there for right now and are traveling and working at different hostels. working at hostels i guess allows them to afford to travel.
so then i went to go get money out of the ATM and the exchange rate is crazy! its about 210 hungarian forint to 1 USD. so it felt so weird taking out 20,000 HUF! it felt like monopoly money and i could never really get my head around the crazy exchange rate and i had to pull out my phone many times to use the calculator to figure out how much things actually were!
so we left our stuff and went to go find some food. we went to this little pizza place and my pizza was horrible so i just ate the crust. the sicilian pizza at california pizza kitchen is not what sicilian pizza is like in budapest. there were little fish on it. no good. afterwards we wandered around a bit and by this time it was snowing pretty heavily and i was freezing! so we headed back to the hostel and met a few other people that were staying there for the weekend.
we met a guy named george who was from australia and he was really nice and he showed us this really great and cheap place to go to dinner. i got a fried chicken breast which was really good and sooo cheap! it was like $5 for a sit down, menu, waiter dinner. i was pleased.
after dinner we headed back to the hostel and there were more people there so we decided it would be fun to all go out together. some of the people that work at the hostel came with us and showed us a few fun clubs to go to. so it was fun hanging out with people from all around the world (well mostly london and australia) and go out in a new place together. so we went out and had a great time but wow hungarians like to be out LATE! i was exhausted and by 3AM i was ready to crash, but all the others in the group were still dancing and having a great time so tiffany and i decided to just head back by ourselves. bad idea. we got lost for almost 2 hours. one bad thing about maps in europe....they dont list all of the streets. they only list streets that they think are important! ahh so frustrating. so we were wandering around till about 5 in the morning and finally found our way back. The rest of the group got home waaaaay before us and laughed at us the next morning when we told them our story! ahh so frustrating!
sunday morning tiffany and i headed out and walked to the castle district. that was quite the walk (also in the snow). on our way there we saw the cutest christmas shopping area. it was outside and all the little stands were these little wooden huts with lights and garlands and there was a huge christmas tree in the middle! and there were stands that were making food that smelled soooooo good! so we looked around for a bit and it got me in the christmas spirit!
then we continued on the walk to the castle district. we got there and saw buda castle and walked around the rest of the castle district. we went and walked in the labryinth which is an underground tunnel system that is 1okm long....i think. that was really creepy and weird. but entertaining!
afterwards i was freezing so we started back on our long walk back to the hostel! by this time it was still snowing, but it was also dark so the city was all lit up! one of the things i loved most about budapest was how everything lights up at night! the chain bridge, the buda castle, everything! and with the snow falling it all just looked beautiful! although pictures didnt come out too well because of all the snow falling to be there and see everything was amazing!
for dinner we went to this little restaurant and i got some amazing goulash! so i did have some traditional hungarian food while there! it was really tasty and was even better after being in the cold all day! after dinner we headed back to the hostel and watched "how i met your mother" with some of the other travelers and called it a night!
monday we woke up early and took a walking tour around the city. the tour was 4 hours long and was free! my favorite price! we walked all over the city and got to see all of the important places in budapest: heroes' square, the opera house, the bath house (which i really wish we had actually gone into!), saint stephen's basilica, matthias church, and again the castle district. out tour guide was great she told us all about the history and how just about everything in the city was built in 1896 (their millenium celebration). she does tour guides all over europe. she's from budapest but during the summer she travels all over europe being a tour guide for different companies! sounds like quite the life!
after our exhausting tour we went and got dinner at this little restaurant and i had pizza (no weird fish this time!) and we went and hung out with the other travelers and played games and watched tv with them for a while and then we all went out and played pool at a near by billiards bar.
bright and early i had to get up on tuesday morning to get to the airport for my 10am flight! since tiffany wasnt coming back with me i was considering just taking a taxi to the airport and not have to worry about trying to figure out the metro and bus system on my own....but when i asked a cab driver how much a trip to the airport would cost it was waaaaaaaay too much (i think he was trying to scam me since i was obviously a tourist) so i decided to brave up and figure out the metro on my own! and i did! i was able to get on the right metro line, get on the right bus, and make it to the airport with just enough time to check in and get to my gate! that was probably one of my highlights of the whole trip! i was so proud of myself!!
ok now for the pictures.....!
walking along the danube.
picture of buda castle at night from the other side of the danube.
christmas market!
christmas tree.
view of the pest side of the city from the buda part of the city. hard to see everything because of all the snow!
buda castle.
me freezing.
pretty budapest covered in snow.
stockholm.
me and emi. in stockholm.
christmas market!
sweden has a weird thing for trolls. they're everywhere.
christmas market.
enjoying our glögg...mulled wine. 
since i didnt get a pic in a london telephone booth i got one in a swedish...
the vasa. a 380 year old ship that sank after sailing for 20 minutes. and then it took another 300 years to get it out of the water.
there were christmas lights up everywhere in stockholm. this tree was covered in lights and they made it look like it was snowing on the tree.
absolult ice bar stockholm.
bartender.
bartender making our drinks.
the parkas were very fashionable. and the cups were freezing!
ice chandelier. and ice walls.
they had all sorts of ice furniture all over the bar. and basically it was just one bit photo op for everyone there. a lot of fun but soo cold! definitely worth it though.
