Trip to Budapest (part 4)

So guys, this is going to be my last post about my trip to Budapest.

So, just like the day before, we got up at 8:30 to shower quickly and take advantage of the day ahead, because as the saying goes "the early bird catches the worm".

After doing the typical thing of showering and tidying our room a little, we went for breakfast, but as we were leaving the hostel, the receptionist told us that if we were leaving the hostel before 10 the following day, there wouldn't be anyone at reception when we had to get our deposit back for the keys and also return the keys. So we agreed that we would come back to the hostel that night before 21:00 to make the exchange (keys for money haha).

We went to have breakfast at the same place as last time, because apart from being close to the hostel where we were staying, we had also liked the place, so we went back.

This time, I was more hungry so I ordered the menu and so did my two friends. The menu consisted of an orange juice (that of course I left because if orange juice is not natural, then I don't like it at all... ), a glass of milk (because I don't like coffee either, so I asked for a cold milk), two slices of toast and a salami omelette. It was all really tasty and I finished everything, but next time, I won't be getting a salami omelette because it's an odd combination with milk...

When we finished breakfast, we went to the metro stop that had taken us to where we started the free tour the day before (of course we researched all this the day before so we knew where we had to go). We had also kept the map that they gave us on the free tour, which really came in useful because it explained everything really well and we could see all the metro stops clearly. You already know that to catch the metro, the only important thing that you have to take into account is which way it's going, so if you make a mistake, don't worry because as soon as you realise you're going the wrong way, get off the train and go and get the other metro going in the right direction.

So, we got off at our stop and we came out in Hero's Square. It's impressive to be honest, because it's enormous and surrounded by statues of Heroes with their respective horses. It's also a typical place to take photos and just as we asked a woman if she could take our photo, she turned out to be Spanish!

You can't believe the amount of Spanish people there are in Budapest, you start walking around and you hear so many people speaking Spanish. The Spaniards are everywhere, we're a plague seeing as there's so many of us in Hasselt too.

On both sides of Hero's square there are 2 museums, and if you go towards them, with your back facing the square you will find an enormous ice rink, it's double the size of the ice rink that we have in Hasselt, but this one is open-air and I like that a lot more, it makes it more special. Obviously there were a lot of people skating and we could see a woman teaching a middle aged man and it was great to watch them skate, doing pirouettes and all the rest of it...

So, leaving the ice rink on your right, if you carry on walking to the left, you will see a pond with a lot of ducks - it was beautiful because the temperature of the water must have been warmer than the temperature outside and it was giving off steam - it was gorgeous in all honesty.

Just on the side there is a chain of stalls like in a fair ground or a market, I don't know how to describe it and the Polish girl that came with us finally bought herself a bikini, which I didn't like - it was much more ugly than the ones we had seen before but each to their own... We also saw that in this stall they were selling post cards so I asked the guy who owned the stall if he sold stamps as well so I could send the postcard that I bought to my parents, but he said that he didn't and if I wanted a stamp, I had to buy a postcard from him and then he would give me a stamp, so I just left.

Next, as you can see, we went to the zoo. We didn't have to wait in any queues thanks to the tickets that we had previously bought which I told you about before, the zoo was also free for us. In all honesty, one of the reasons that we chose to go to the zoo was so we could get the most out of the card...

Well, there's not much to tell you about the zoo, because even though it was fairly big and very cool, it still had the appearance of any other zoo that I've ever been to. I think that every zoo is more or less the same... Here's some photos for you to look at.

But something that seemed really bad to me on behalf of the zoo is that, for example, the aquatic animals, or the majority of them, were not there, I imagine that was due to the possibility of the water freezing over or something like that. But you can't imagine how much it upset me to see two seals in their pond without water, both of them huddled together dying from the cold. I think that was cruel!

By now it was about 12:30 midday and we were starting to get hungry so we went to a stall that was inside the zoo surrounded by people and it seemed to be good and it smelt so good.

It turns out what they were selling were traditional sweets from Budapest (then again my Romanian friend told me they have the same thing in Romania).

It was delicious, and just to let you know that it's something to eat as soon as they give it to you when it's still hot - you end up licking your fingers.

After lunch, we carried on looking around the zoo, but we didn't stay much longer and ended up leaving. When we were leaving the zoo, the man that was at the door asked us if we had actually seen the whole zoo, so we said to him that we thought we had but we weren't sure... but we were already tired... Or so I thought.

We went in search of somewhere to eat so we went back on the same journey that we had done before towards Hero's Square. Just opposite, on a corner we found a bar that had pizzas which seemed good and not too expensive.

So we went in and we ordered. It turned out that the prices were so cheap because they were actually slices of pizza, not whole pizzas, but even so, I was so full with only one slice because they used really thick dough that was quite filling. The other Spanish girl ordered 2 slices of pizza, and the Polish girl ordered the set menu of chicken, rice and peas.

We didn't order anything to drink because we already had out bottles of water and we filled them up from the tap.

When we finished we decided to go on search for the thermal baths that, coincidentally, are in the same direction as the zoo, so, once again, we went back on the same route and we came to the thermal baths that are just behind a permanent zoo (I mean that it's not one of the typical ones that are held in a marquee and are only there for some months, no - this one was permanent).

As soon as we went in, I could already smell that typical swimming pool smell, you know the one...?

When we got there, we didn't know what to do because when you get in there are two ticket booths on the left and the right and opposite, there is a stall where they sell bikinis, bathing suits and towels (so if you don't have a swim suit, you can buy one here but they were more expensive... around 7000HUF).

We decided to go to the ticket booth that had less people queueing up. We said to the woman at the desk that we wanted to go to the spa and that we were paying with card, and she gave us a wristband. The price was approximately 12€.

When you're going in, you have to use the wristband that I told you about, because it has a little electronic chip inside it so you have to hold it against a machine which will then let you pass.

When we got down to the changing rooms, they were huge, there were a few showers and a toilet as well as the changing rooms themselves with their corresponding ticket booths. The latter also surprised me because they opened and closed with the chip in our wristbands, it all seemed very modern to me.

We finished changing and we went up with our camera so we could get some photos of the place... we took the corresponding photos and then we went back downstairs so we could leave the camera there.

Then we went back upstairs for good. We went for the place where there was less people and it was the right choice, and I'm going to tell you why. It was very funny because you could feel the cold air on your face but the rest of your body which is under water is warm. In the centre, there's a kind of circuit which takes you with the current and when there was a lot of people it was funny because we all collided with each other.

There's also a normal swimming pool on the premises which we couldn't get into because we didn't have swimming caps. We didn't really mind though, we preferred not to go in because the water was cold. My god! Are these people crazy or something?!

So we went running to the following pool because you don't understand how cold it is moving from one pool to another, ruuuuuuun haha!

When we go there, it was pretty cool because at the opposite end of the pool there were people playing chess in the water!

As I said before, we had made our way to the other pool because it was much hotter, at first it felt boiling hot, but I think it would have been worse if we had gone from being hot to being cold, you get me? No?

In the last pool, we were basically dead because we were so relaxed. At about 4 in the afternoon it started getting dark and they began turning on all the lights, one last time. I strongly recommend this place 100%.

Lastly, I will say to you that the water in this place is heated naturally. I'm going to explain a little of the history. This city received a title crowning it something like the city with the most medicinal spas and thermal baths in the world.

These medicinal waters are used to treat lots of illnesses.

After our times in the baths, we were so relaxed that we decided to go to the Opera, to see Othello by Giuseppe Verde. We were a little in shock when they said to us that the opera cost 300HUF, that is to say 1€ or something like that. This was because we were students and we bought the cheapest seats, but it made me so excited because for that price I could actually afford it and I had never been to the Opera before, it really made me so excited, so we bought the tickets.

We had about half an hour before going into the Opera so we decided to go to buy something, because you know that after swimming, you always get hungry. So we bought ourselves some pain au choclats. It took us a while to find a cheap place because we were on the most expensive street in Budapest I think, we only saw expensive shops, but at last at the end of the street we found a shop selling sweets and baked goods.

Another thing that I wasn't anticipating about the Opera it that you have to leave your coats in a cloakroom before going in, which of course costs money.

I really liked the feeling of sitting in the Opera and although it was a struggle for us to see (since we were in the worst seats) I have to say that I really liked it.

As for peoples outfits, there were all types of clothing, in the area that we were sat in, people were generally dressed normally, in street clothes, although there was a couple that were in a suit and dress. But in the best areas, everyone was dressed formally.

We didn't stay for the whole Opera because we had to go to the hotel to give back the keys, so we left a little before the end and on the way back, we stopped off at a Christmas market that was really close to our hostel, where we took the metro!

In this market we could see other places selling the sweets that we had eaten in the zoo but for triple the price! As you can tell, people are taken advantage of in these places... We were looking at the market, which was beautiful because it had so many Christmas decorations.

I'll tell you something weird, we bought ourselves some candies thinking that they were truffles because that's what they looked like but, you know what? They were chocolate covered marzipan! They were good but I would have preferred truffles.

After seeing the market, and a concert that was held there, we went back to the hostel. The man gave us back our deposit and he told us that we could leave the keys in room before leaving in the morning so we wouldn't be without keys that night.

And here concludes our odyssey. You remember that my friend was meant to print the tickets for our arrival in and departure from Budapest? Well we forgot that she still needed to print our departure tickets, so as the guy at reception had a printer, we asked him if he could do us a favour and print them, but he said he couldn't because he needed a laptop or something and we only had the tickets on a USB stick. A man who saw us said that it would work with a mobile connected to the printer, so we asked the people in the room next to ours if they had a printer bla bla but they told us they didn't.

So, we had to call a friend of our friend who was on Erasmus in Hasselt but was also in Budapest at the time and she had given us her friends number in case we had any problems. After everything, the man at reception told us that he still couldn't help us but if we went to a hotel, he was sure that they could print our tickets for us so we went in search of a hotel and we found one that seemed like a luxury hotel; we went in, and we asked if we could use the internet and the guy at reception gave us the password and username without asking us to pay anything! We sent the email on our USB drive to our friend so she would be able to connect her phone to the guy at the hostel's printer, but when back to the hostel, he told us that we didn't have the mobile cable so we still couldn't do anything. So we had to go back to the hotel again to ask if they could print a document for us and they were super friendly about it because they did it for us without asking for anything in return, not even money.

Finally, we had gotten over the issue, so we went back to the hostel to leave all our things and get some money so we could go out for dinner. After lots of looking around trying to find a place with traditional Hungarian food, we ended up in an Irish pub with some spaghetti in a tomato and meat sauce.

The waiter was really nice but a bit clumsy because he managed to pour coke on the Polish girl, twice! The price was around 8€.

Once finished with dinner, we went to take out some money because we didn't have much cash left and the taxi was going to cost us 3500HUF which is the price that the guy at reception had agreed on because he had to call the taxi to come and get us at 4:30 in the morning the following day.

After all of that, we went back to the hostel to finish packing our things and trying to relax because that night, we would have to get up at 4 in the morning.

The taxi was on time but I didn't like how the guy was driving because he was flinging us around a little... I came to the conclusion that he was falling asleep at the wheel!

And once again we had to check in, go through security, get to the boarding gates blah, blah, blah...

When we got to Charleroi, we had breakfast and once again caught a load of trains and buses... so when we finally arrived in Hasselt, I went straight to bed to go to sleep...

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