Budapest Timez

Alright, so I am traveling yet again...

Yesterday I went to the airport in Berlin to hop on a plane to Budapest, Hungary. I made it an hour early with two sandwiches, water, and an LED hula hoop - I felt prepared :)

I fell asleep before the safety speech was being made. I don't know why, but moving objects make me narcoleptic. One of the stewards on the plane had to wake me up to tell me to take out my earphones (which weren't even playing anything, just in) with a safety jacket around his neck. I was confused though, so I just pushed the button on my seat to show it was up and gave him this "what? The seat is up?!" look.

I slept again, even for takeoff. When it was time to come back down, I looked out the mirror and saw sun, cloud, then cloud, then darkkkk cloud. Then rain. It was awful weather, but oh well.

I had an umbrella and directions on how to get to shelter, so I found the bus stop and started talking to this lovely Hungarian woman that was going home from working at the airport. She told me it was cheaper to buy tickets at a kiosk (I was asking how much it would be so I don't get ripped off) so she actually took me to one, and talked to them so I got cheaper tickets :)

It was a half hour bus so I talked to her most of the time. She was training to become an immigration inspector. She hadn't spoken English in a year, but did really well.

I got a very teethy smile sometimes which made me think maybe she didn't get every single thing I said, but was still being very polite... She directed me to the metro and went her way.
It was here that I discovered that the metro doesn't really have signs saying which stop you are at. In Berlin and Vancouver, you have some sort of label. I couldn't see any... they would announce in fuzzy Hungarian which stop was next, but I didn't understand a word of it. Looking at the names listed and knowing what they sounded like in Hungarian on a barely audible speaker was impossible. I got out randomly to check where the hell I was. It was only two stops away, so that was lucky.

I somehow found the place right away - perfect considering the rain. I got to see Adam's sweet flat and chat over coffee before taking off to a cs meeting down the street. I had dinner and beer, and met some people.

It was a good night! We walked back and gossiped. I had an inflatable air mattress on the floor, so I watched a show or two while Adam passed out upstairs (he had to work at 6am).

I woke up before 12!!!!!!

that hasn't happened in aaaaaaaaaaaaages!!

I woke up without coffee or anything, just got up and ate some museli. Adam gave me a map, and told me where to find a phone guy.

I took some pictures from his balcony thing:








I used some cleaning solution on my camera lens finally, since it was having problems focusing before. It also doesn't open or close too easily. I took a test shot of Adam in the flat to see if it would work..



It seemed to! I sprayed some into the zoom thing too after so that it would move smoothly again. This was a mistake, as you will later see.

Either way, I started walking around afterward. I bought a Hungarian SIM, and a charger since I had stupidly left mine behind somehow.

Now, I was noticing that my camera was opening and closing and zooming quite smoothly... but...



seems out of focus doesn't it?!



I tried to make that one less cloudy with Photoscape, but it still looks off, eh? I was noticing too. It just increased from there. I was wandering about in the direction of a main shopping street and the Castle and found this really nice pedestrian street on the way:



I tried using sepia and such to try and make them less cloudy...





When I looked at the camera, I noticed there was some sort of beading condensation on it, but it wasn't on the outside.. it was inside the glass thing. Great. So I have to let that dry before my photos are no longer cloudy. I assume that when I sprayed the screen cleaner into the zoom thing it went inside and now it has to dry. At least it will be clean when it is. In the meantime, however, I had a very blurry camera that increased in it's blurriness as the day progressed as you will see!

I walked by a big covered market so I went in to check it out. It was apparently famous, so I walked about looking at all the food and souvenirs. I knew it was famous since I heard German and American English more than Hungarian in there.



I decided to walk along the water and saw some cool houses:



and a bridge:



I started walking along the water towards the famous chain bridge, enjoying the sunshine. My camera was behaving a little to take this shot of some boats on the river:



Here is a statue built by nazi's across the river (on the buda side of the city):



i had to pump the crap out of the contrast to see this picture;



The street was beside a lot of traffic while I walked along the water, so I decided to duck in and walk down the main shopping street for a bit. There are loads of pedestrianized streets in the city center! My camera had started getting really cloudy though so some of these ohotos will be a little doctored to see what is going on.



Here is the next bridge, the white one (don't know the name of it). Apparently they moved the church to the right of it a few metres over to build this bridge there! They put wheels under it I was told.



I continued walking down this main street and found big square with a statue.



The main street seemed to be all tourist stores. I don't know how all of them survive when they sell all the same stuff and they are all right beside one another. Strange.

I had looked in a couple stores since I wanted to find a belt for my green pants back home, but nothing was really standing out. I also had seen many backpack patches, but they were all huge and I am running out of space!

I walked to the bridge and tried to take photos of the lions..





I was not encouraged by the amount of steam in the camera, so I walked across the bridge without taking photos. I admired the view and made my way towards Castle Hill!

At the bottom of the hill there was a funicular that took you up, or you could walk. I was contemplating these choices when I was approached by a girl to take her photo for her. I did, then we talked a bit. She was from China, and only here for the day. She was on a big Europe tour, so she didn't have time to walk up the hill, only to take the funicular. I looked at the price and decided "ouch", I would walk. Time for a challenge. I almost died running for the S-bahn on the way to the airport, so I am realizing how badly I need to get in shape.

The walk was surprisingly easy and short. I was on the platform to watch the funicular before it started moving I think! I wasn't at the top yet, but still...



I got to the top of the hill, and looked around the grounds. The National Gallery was inside one of the bigger buildings, and there was this big gate nearby too:



I walked around and enjoyed the fantastic views of the city from the top. Unfortunately, it was really hard to take photos so some of them are useless. I was able to doctor this one of Parliament to look like an old postcard though!



I tried one with myself in it:



I didn't go in the Gallery since it was so nice out (wanted to stay outside) so I walked around and found this massive statue/fountain. There were a lot of Chinese people taking their picture in front of it



There were people everywhere setting some sort of festival thing up. There was a stage, music equipment being stored and guarded, people building tons of wooden sheds to sell stuff in, and temporary construction in general all over the place. On the other side of the hill, you could see the Buda side of the city. This is mostly rolling hills and houses. If only you could see past the Castle wall in this shot...



I went out from the construction and into the quaint little city part. There were old buildings and cobble streets. I looked at a map and found where the labyrinth was since I was recommended to go in there. I didn't know it was underground, so I hesitated before going in. It was early enough that it would still be light after going in, so I went for it.

This was really interesting. I figured with my camera already quite blurry, taking very low light pictures in the labyrinths below the Castle would not work at all. I didn't even try to take a picture here. It was huge, and kinda creepy. It was creepy in a good way though. There were a bunch of different chambers with themes. There were recreations of European cave drawings, and statues, and a real four-sided wine fountain covered in vines (it was very old though so not recommended to drink from it). At the end there were modern things and it was all to make a point of non-consumerism. It was advertised as sponsor-free, and had fake archaeological finds with imprints of things like shoes, phones, microwaves, and laptops all claiming to be 4 million years old and from another civilization. Also there was pop art covered in plastic so people would find our artifacts in the future in that ancient cave. It was cool.

I ended up in there about an hour, so after this I wandered down to the next viewing area. I passed a sign advertising what I assume to be a weed drink?



Here is another old postcard style photo:



There was a big church up on this hill area too, but there was a line and I've seen the inside of sooooo many churches now. I decided to stay outside.



Now there was a whole section you could walk around that looked like it was out of a fairy tale. There were cafe's and violin playing and loads of German people and North American people. Everyone was snapping away at the view of the city, so I attempted to take a shot too and I think it turned out pretty neat.



Looks fairy tale like. By this time I was getting hungry and my phone had died. I was deciding between going back to the house to eat leftovers or going out to a cafe to eat and charge the phone. I opted for the cheaper option, leftovers. I was quite a hike down the hill (I took a long way somehow) and went along the water to go over the white bridge instead. From here I proceeded to take the wrong way home and ended up having another mini tour of the city haha. I didn't stray too far though and found my way back in time to eat, charge my phone, and relax with Adam on our computers before going to the CS meeting.

The meeting was in Buda, so we took the tram over the bridge. It was so pretty at night! The meeting was nice enough. I had the usual post-pub-kebab and walked over the bridge and all the way to my house with an Aussie I had seen at the previous meeting as well. I fell asleep after a Law and Order episode.