Budapest

So we are not in Hungary. Yeah. We got in around 5 ish.

We woke up at the crack of dawn (6 am) to get ready to check out of the hostel that we had all grown quite attached to, including Andrew who had initially called the place a refugee camp. It was definitely the most fun hostel despite the fact that I am not covered in bug bites.

Anyway, we got out to the train station an hour before the train was supposed to leave because we wanted to go to Citibank before we left for Eastern Europe. Didn't end up going there, and just sat around instead. Our train to Budapest stopped in Vienna, so while we were waiting, there were hordes of Germany fans chanting Deutchland and carrying large loads of beer. A lot of fun. I miss the crazy German soccer fans.

The train came in 30 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, so we got on the train and all of us except for Andrew (who had just purchased a frap from Starbucks) essentially passed out. We were in a six person seater, similar but slightly more comfortable than the one that we were on for that overnight from Brussels to Berlin. We had it to ourselves until we reached Salzburg, at which time two people claimed their spots. They were very nice and gave us tips on where to go in Budapest towards the end of the train ride.

It was an 8 hour train ride, so it was very long. Slept for the first couple of hours. I did wake up to see the Salzburg train station, at which point I sulked because we were going to stop in Vienna and Salzburg until we realized that there was going to be no possible way to book affordable places to stay during the European Cup. And since the Vienna-Zagreb train apparently does not exist, that stop that we made in Vienna on this ride is the closest we will be. Training through Austria, however, did make me want to sing songs from Sound of Music. It just has that effect.

What else? The train became significantly quieter once we hit Vienna, but for some reason it became progressively and unbearably hot towards the end. It was kind of miserable. Didn't buy any food on the train because I wrapped up a croissant from the Tent to act as sustenance.

We arrived in Budapest around 5 and spent a while trying to figure out how we were going to exchange money. It is illegal to exchange money on the streets (I don't know why you would), but like there was literally a group of people who were waiting in front of the currency exchange office trying to offer a "better deal." Intense. Once that got sorted out, we made our way to the Metro, bought three day passes for Budapest and went on our search for the hostel.

The maps that we had were not very clear, so once we got out of the Metro Station, we had no idea where to go. After wandering around aimlessly, we did find our way and the hostel. This hostel, Adventura, is very cute. They have themed rooms. We are sleeping in the India Room right now and will be sleeping in the Africa room for the few hours that we can sleep before leaving for our 6 am train in a couple of days. People here are also very friendly.

After sitting around and getting a couple of recommendations on the good places to go to watch the final game of the European Cup, we headed out in search of a Citibank. We were all out of cash because I had miscalculated the amount of Euros I would have to change into the Hungarian currency to pay for the hostel. We didn't find one. Well we did, but it was closed so we had to go somewhere else.

After this, we walked over to the Danube River and went to this little island in the middle of the river (the name escapes me) to watch the game. It was a pretty cool setup, but we were all sad because we were rooting for Germany and Spain won. Andrew was rooting for Germany as well, but he bought a Spain flag in Munich as a way to be a troll. My strange brother got a European Union flag. Yeah. I don't know.

Anyway, we walked back from that. Budapest is a very pretty city, and there was a very pretty view of the city at night from the bridge we were on. That's about it for today. We will be doing some sight seeing tomorrow in what I imagine will be a hot day.