The city of Monopoly Money

We got to Budapest by train and once we got off the train, three different "taxi" drivers asked me right away if I needed a taxi. When the first one asked me i just thought it was a nice geusture but after the second and third time I knew these guys were hustlers.

Ferdi had a master plan where everyone got a bus/subway ticket and we take a bus to the place. turned out the buses in Hungary only come once every 30 min or so. While we were waiting I got really uneasy about scams and theft. Ive never felt so uneasy about something like that, not even in NYC, and I think that is saying a lot coming from me.

We ended up walking after waiting around for about on hour while people got/exchanged cash, got train tickets, and oriented themselves. I wanted to take a taxi really bad but Ferdi had his plan.

We ended up walking to the hotel because no one wanted to wait that long. I dont blame them.

Hungary is a part of the EU but is not on the Euro as of now (hopefully by 2010 someone told me) so $1 = 209 ft. Basically Im a 22 year old millionaire. I knew it would happen eventually but I was hoping it would be in American money.

Once we got to the place I straight up passed out. After a night where I only got 20 minuets of sleep all I wanted to do was sleep. I found my bed and then I was dead to the world for about 3 hours.

The place we are staying is a hostel with bunks. The 9 guys are in one room, with beds seperated by walls and curtains. The place has a small common room with 3 couches and some guide books and games (chess cards etc). The beds are comfy though. I got the bottom bunk with

When I woke up it was close to dinner time. Close enough that I only had time to shower and get ready and then we were there. The walk there was a great line through the city because I'm pretty sure we saw a lot of the bigger attractions. The opera house is only like 500' from our hostel.

Vienna-Budapest Train

Yesterday morning we had to catch a train to Budapest early in the morning. Miami Vice by the end of the night had gotten a little crazy so i had stayed up late to help out Lovett who got sick and cut his finger. August and I basically played nurse with him because he couldnt function. As a result I ended up with 20 min of sleep that night. Also I only had like 15 min to pack my bag in the morning so I ended up leaving my shampoo in the hotel room.

Rough

We all had a nice quiet walk to the train because a lot of the people who went out were hurting because we had to wake up so early. I had my headphones on for most of the time because I was awfully cranky and I didnt want to end up taking it out on someone.

On the train, the group got seperated into two groups which was ok by me because I sat in a coach closed room with Nick, Roc, Brick, Trav, and August. Most of the time we talked about the previous night, recapping all the events and touching on the most hillarious parts of the night. Sleeping was tough because the sun was beating down on the train, making the small room what seemed to be 100 degrees. also there was pretty much no leg room since the room was situated with three seats facing each other so Travis and I tried relaxing by just putting our knees against each other. It worked okay for a while but then we just got too stiff since the ride was about 2 hours. All in all it was a good train ride.

Vienna was awesome. In the sceme of things I would put it as my number 2 favorite European city behind Amsterdam, but that could be because I had such a good time there. Highlights were definatly the Summer Palace, the Dom tower we went up, Club Felx, the Wolfgang bar we found, and Augusts adventures in the city.

Budapest, whatchu got for us?