As November 11th approached, the need to get south the Athens was becoming more of a consideration and so I took a bus from Krakow down to Budapest.  I had originally planned another route ending in Budapest where I would then fly from Budapest to Athens, but my plans changed and I decided to check out Macedonia on my way to Greece which had me taking a bus down south instead.  I arrived in Budapest in the early evening and decided to get my legs under me by going for an adventure run around the city.  The city is beautiful along the river and due to my face injury, I hadn’t run in a few days.  It felt nice to get out!

There was an island in the middle of the river that had a nice flat, rubber track around the outside.  I wish the place I end up had something like this, because it was long and was perfect for speed work!

The hostel scene in Budapest is pretty famous and there are some raunchy party hostels.  I had heard about the reputation and attempted to steer clear of these as best as possible.  I had gotten a recommendation from a person in Krakow who had just come from Budapest about a quiet chill hostel that was affiliated with a party hostel but wasn’t one itself.  I decided to check it out and I am happy I got the recommendation.  Everyone staying there was super chill, the volunteer worker people were super chill and they closed the common area at 11pm so that there wasn’t any partying happening in that hostel itself, it was only going to happen elsewhere.  Anyways they had activities planned for each night and the activity for that night was an open mic event which sounded fun.  I met a few people and we headed over.

It was a strange scene as it was a mix of the party hostel people and the chill hostel people.  I found a group of people in their late 20’s early 30s and we kind of chilled off the side while the youngins partied.  We did decide to get late night pizza which is never a bad idea.

This is also the night I met Anna, who was from LA and was also at the end of an extended trip around the world/Australia.  We ended up doing a month long road trip through the US a few months later, which I will probably cover on this blog once I am done with the actual #travel30in30.  I also took a bunch of video footage on that trip so might actually put a movie together of the trip.  Anyways back to Budapest.

The next day was Halloween so Anna and I along with a french guy decided to hit the town looking for some costumes.  Well the french guy was looking for a dentist of all things, but we hung out for most of the day.  The costume search was secondary to exploring the city.  Anna and I had fun mimicking statues around the city.

We walked A LOT and found some really cool areas of the city.  Eventually we started getting into some more off the beaten path areas of the city to get to some thrift stores and it really was not easy to come to a decision on what to be for Halloween.  As it got dark, we decided to just go for it and so I ended up with a bathrobe and tape on my hands to become a boxer (I still had the black eye so it was fitting) and Anna found a childs cow costume which barely fit.  Here are some of the sites we saw on our walking wander of the city.

We finally ended up at a star wars themed Baguette sandwich place for dinner and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for Halloween events.

The hostel was a part of a network of hostels and so the plan was to go to a few of the hostels in the network on a bit of a pub crawl, to see everyone elses costumes and what not.  Since ours wasn’t a party hostel, everyone was encouraged to head elsewhere which was awesome!  Another awesome thing was the guy I met in Toulouse who approached me because we were speaking English, lives in Budapest and was down to meet up!  Sasa stopped by the hostel initially and then we ended up meeting back up with him later on!

Here is what I came up with for a costume.

And here is the group of us!

Our first stop was the ruin bar hostel where we had a drink then continue on to the famous party hostel of Budapest.  I’ll talk more about Ruin bars later since I went to one another night.

The actual party was at the Retox party hostel which is pretty famous in Travellers circles and have lots of stories about it.  They had draws and charity prizes and what not, so Anna and I split our money and put tickets into the buckets that had the least ammount of entries.

And what do you know, the next day we found out that we won a free segway tour for two!  I would never pay for a segway tour and think the people doing them look stupid, but if it was free, why not?

We decided to leave the Retox party since it was kind of out of hand and not that much fun for us old people.  I had promised Sasha that we would try and meet up later and he said there was a big party at a bar he was planning on going to and could get us in for a discounted rate.  So we decided to go check it out.  But first Pizza fuel.

We headed off to find Sasa and eventually found him at a place across town.

We went to the party which was at a HUGE venue and completely packed.  We had a great night of Halloween revelry.

The next morning was our opportunity to cash in on the Segway tour and so we spent a decent ammount of time figuring out how to make that happen.  Nobody seemed to know how to cash it in or where to get a coupon.  This is what we ended up getting from the Hostel.  A hand written note on a napkin!  The person at the Segway place did not know anything about a prize and would not accept the napkin, but eventually the hostel got a hold of the owner and all was set up for an afternoon tour.  We had to kill some time before the tour, so decided to check out some of the nearby churches and shops.

It was finally time to start our tour!

We started with an introductory lesson on how to ride a segway and then we set off on a tour of the city.

You automatically look really stupid the second you step on a Segway.  Not sure why, but the below photo is proof.

We rode up the main street which is the route the oldest subway in Europe also follows and eventually ended up at the large park in the city. (I just watched Gemini man and this monument appears in the movie!

We continued through the park and this is about the time when Anna was messing around, slipped on some leaves and went down.  She was OK which is good, because I was laughing pretty hard!

We took a peek into the famous Turkish baths dotted around the city, but the most famous one is in the park.  There was a new attraction where you could bath in hop infused water and drink beer for an hour.  Unfortunately we checked and it was all booke dup until both of us were planning on leaving.

We eventually finished up the tour at City Hall which is a massive beautiful building on the bank of the Danube river!

It is probably one of the most photographed parts of Budapest, because it’s visible from so many parts of the city and is massive and beautiful.  One of the largest bomb shelters in Europe is also located in this area.

As a review of the tour, it was a little bit dissapointing.  Our Guide wasn’t very good and the novelty of riding the segways wore off after about an hour.  We did not take advantage of the range the Segway provided over walking, going up and down the same street instead of doing more of a loop.  It was fine for free but I would have been super disappointed if I had paid for it.

After the tour was done, we decided to take a recommendation from a few different people and head to a Hungarian restaurant that ended up being a little more fancy than we expected.  They didn’t seem to mind our  sloppy clothes and we proceeded to have a very classy dinner.

I am glad Anna was wearing a LA shirt so everyone knew she was American.

Budapest has a Pinball Museum but it always seemed to be closed when I was available to check it out, so we made our way to an arcade that promised to have pinball.  We played some pinball and enjoyed some of the other games they had there.

We capped the evening off with arcade games and then headed back to the Hostel to get Annas stuff and make sure she made her bus to Munich from from where her flight was booked.  She had initially planned on getting to Munich for a few days before leaving, but got distracted in Budapest and was now supposed to fly out the next day.  Her bus was at midnight and despite me trying to get her to make it to the bus earlier, she insisted that she had plenty of time.  Turns out the subway line that took her right to the bus station was closed early and the other trains didn’t go in the right direction.  There was no uber and we couldn’t find a taxi.  Sooo she missed her bus and the next adventure was to find a place for her to sleep.  It ended up being way more difficult than expected as everything seemed to be booked.  It tunred into a long night trying to get her settled somewhere.

The next morning her new bus was later in the day so we had some fun in the afternoon before she needed to catch it.  She was returning to LA after THREE YEARS away, which was crazy to me.

The Hostel had organized an escape room game for the afternoon, so we wanted to find something to do in the morning.  We headed to a local cafe and then off to another place that had a bunch of pinball since we got a taste for it the night before.  We found the bar and enjoyed the entire place to ourselves.  It was pretty close to the escape game so we met the group there at the agreed upon time.

The escape game phenominon was actually started in Budapest, so it was kind of fitting that we had to do one while here as it the ground zero for escape rooms.  We picked a Harry Potter themed one and had a great time!

After finishing up the escape game, we returned to the hostel to find out that the evening activity was to go to a Ruin bar.  Ruin bars are famous in Budapest as bars set up in old crumbling spaces in some of the more run down parts of town.  It all started in the early 2000s and has grown in popularity.  Szimpla was the first one and after it became THE place to party for the young and hip crowds many others opened.  We went to Szimpla and it was HUGE and kind of like a maze.  It was super fun to wander around and get lost in the many levels and rooms,  It was a really interesting experience

We had a great group of people together and we had an amazing time!

The next day was my last day in Budapest.  I was having so much fun that I ended up staying a few more days than expected and really had to accelerate my plans to get to Athens.  I woke up in the morning and headed out for a run up to the hill overlooking the city.  It was nice to get some elevation into my run and was able to get some great views of the city.

This is the path I mentioned earlier that went around the island in the middle of the river.  It was awesome!

It was 10 days before athens and ended up being my final long run.  Looking back, I did almost no speed work before either Boston or Athens and the millage was also pretty low.  I am surprised I did as well as I did with the lack of proper training.  It was a great run though and a beautiful day!  I had gotten south enough where it was not as cold as it was in Poland.

That evening I wanted to check out one of the craft beer places nearby that allowed you to pour your own beer.  I have since been to a few places like this but this was my first experience.  You put money on an RFID card and before you pour your beer you scan your card and then dispense the ammount you want.  The system charges you a certain ammount per mL and you are on your way.  Nobody really wanted to join me because the beer was more expensive but I did get two takers!  An older gentleman and an american girl decided to join me and we had a great time.  The band was pretty solid too!

It was an interesting experience and a super chill evening.  I was also taking a red eye bus from Budapest to Serbia that night so didn’t want to be doing anything too crazy.

We headed back to the hostel, I got my things and then jumped on the subway to the bus station, but not before getting a pastry that I was told to get before leaving.

It’s called a Langos and is Hungarian Fried bread.  It had sour cream and cheese and onions which was a kind of strange combination but, it tasted pretty good.

After finishing up my delicious late night snack, I jumped on the subway and headed for the bus station.

And with that my time in Budapest had ended.  I did only plan on staying there for 2 days or so but was having so much fun that I decided to stay for a bit longer.  It will for sure be on my list of a place I would love to visit again.  I didn’t make it to a Turkish bath and I also missed the other parts of Hungary which I have been told are very different to the city.  I am glad I spent the extra time there and was excited to have seen old friends as well as make new ones.  Anna and I really hit it off and like I said, she will appear again for my road trip across the United States.  Off to Serbia I go for a single day in Belgrade.