Hey everyone. On the last blog I mentioned I shouldn't wait 3 weeks before making a blog post, and yet, here I am making one 2 and a half weeks later. Since my last post, I haven't really traveled all that much since Poland, but I have experienced a whole lot since then. I need to start writing down what I do every day because I can't seem to remember everything I do because I haven't had a slow day since Poland - every day there is a new adventure. After reviewing this, I'll warn you, it might take a while to read!
I'll just make an attempt to detail the most exciting of things - as in, the ones that I can recall or have pictures :)
Wine Tasting - Saturday, June 18th: This is one of the longest and best days in Hungary so far. A group of about 14 of us took a bus to Zsámbék where we visited a ruin church. I guess it was originally a church, but was destroyed by Mongols, rebuilt, used as a fortress, then had Turks occupying it (and obviously they made a bathhouse in it), then it was taken back and used as a castle, then destroyed by an earthquake... It's been through a lot... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zs%C3%A1mb%C3%A9k
After the small tour we took a bus to Páty for a wine festival. The wine festival was on a hill which was covered with trees, but cleared near the top of the hill, so it was kind of a hidden area. Before we made it up the hill, there was a house we stopped at where they were serving food and wine. We sat down at a table and we were quickly served for free by a very friendly and funny Hungarian man who was so happy to serve us (and he spoke very good English). He gave us plenty of wine. He preferred the red wine and influenced most of us to take it over the white wine as he referred to the red wine as "sex machine wine".
After this we made our way up to the festival and checked out the scene. There was a band playing an American song, but with Hungarian vocals - I'll have to remember which song it was (good luck to me). We sampled about 10 different wines and made our way to a cellar where we were able to get a discount since one of the Hungarians knew somebody working there. We apparently decided to get enough wine to kill an elephant to split between about the 12 of us that were actually drinking. Before we drank, I informed everybody that the night would be a shit show, and for a while it was :) We drank all the wine while trying to crowd around our one blanket on the grass.
Afterward we made our way down the hill to the bus, losing sight of many people along the way, but we all found our way back down to the bus stop. Some Hungarian teenagers started yelling "gypsy!" at us so in a drunken stupor I started chanting "U.S.A.!" in Hungarian pronunciation. They then came over to try to talk to me because they thought it was interesting. Some of them knew very little English, but not really enough to communicate. They seemed way too intrigued by me, and some were very young (14-19!) When the bus came I was glad to get away, but alas! They looked in the window and yelled Facebook Facebook and my American friend Emily was sooo nice that she wrote my full name and showed them. Now I'm FB friends with a bunch of Hungarian high-schoolers, great...
We nearly got kicked off the bus as 2 people apparently had just a little too much to drink and got sick. The rest of us were loud and probably pretty annoying haha. When we got back, most people went home, but 5 of us went out to Ötkert, a dance club (or disco as they call it) in Budapest. We danced for a pretty long time and pulled out all the moves - the bernie, the dougie, the cat-daddy, etc. We went home late and I'm sure we woke up the next morning and went out to do something else.
Colorstar concert - Wednesday, June 22nd: My favorite place to go for concert, Zöld Pardon, hosted the band Colorstar, a semi-electronic, semi-instrumental, semi-alternative rock Hungarian band. Here's why this is the greatest venue in the world that I know of. If you get there before 6:30 or 7:00, it's free entry (otherwise it's like $2). Before 7:30 it's buy-one-get-one-free for wine, beer, and shots. This means we get there at 6:30 and get super tipsy for about $5 and see a whole concert. It's an outside venue. You can get a pretty good pizza for like $5. They have big bean bags all the way across the back wall. The stage is really big and the area in front of it is big enough to fit a ton of people. It's seriously the best place ever (unless it rains...) The band was actually really awesome too, so all in all, this was a great night.
Hungarian circle dancing - Thursday, June 23rd: OK, we were nervous going to a Hungarian circle dance, but we thought we should do it just one time. It was actually a pretty fun time. They had these sandwich-like things which had chopped sausage, diced cucumber, tomatoes, and some other things, which was really good. The girls were immediately ready to go dance, but it took the guys several beers before we decided it was time. The live band was playing Hungarian instruments, and I can only say it was a flute-like thing, a guitar-like thing, a drum of some sort, and some occasional middle-east-esque vocals. Eventually a second group of musicians joined and had some more circle dances. We were about ready to go but we decided to do one more. I swear we did the same 15-second move for 20 minutes before the song was done and we were drenched in sweat - it was disgusting. Believe it or not, after like 5-10 minutes we jumped back in for one last dance (like 10 minutes only at least) and then headed out. Fun, but a one-time experience!
Kesha concert, kind of... - Saturday, June 25th - There was a Kesha concert today, which I was doing everything in my power to not see, but still have a fun night. The day involved walking in all the wrong directions with no apparent reward at the end. Before the concert we went to a Mexican food place, where I for the first time had food that tastes a lot like the food we have in the U.S. and it was sooooo amazing. I got a breakfast burrito with carne asada, onions, cheese, lettuce, hot sauce, and it was soooooo good. We apparently were supposed to bring it with us to the Kesha concert, but three of us gave up on that idea. We sat on a bench and absolutely demolished the messy pile of deliciousness before moving on. We apparently were supposed to take the metro right up to the concert, but we missed that idea and walked all the way there. By the time we got there, Kesha was done (mission accomplished!). We then took several bottles of wine to the park for some drinking. About 20 of us sat on a couple tables and played Never Have I Ever, which seemed to turn in to Kevin Story Time. I thought I was a pretty normal person before that game!
We then walked in a huge unnecessary loop back past where the concert was and many people went home. About 7 of us decided to go to a Turkish Gyros place. Gyros places are everywhere here and are so friggin' good and cheap. This place, like many of them, has a downstairs area to smoke shisha (from a hookah). 3 of the people had no busses, trams, or metros to get home when we wanted to be done, so we ended up just staying there for a long time. 4 of us (including me) fell asleep at some point because it was ridiculously late. We left at 5:30 with the sun blazing in the sky and hopefully we all slept in...
Humus bar - Tuesday, June 28th: Hummussssss! We went to a hummus bar and it was really good. I split a meal with my Hungarian friend Dora, who had never had hummus before (I had it once before). We got a mixture of chicken, liver, and heart (I can't remember if it was chicken liver & heart or something else). It came with some pita bread, or whatever the flat delicious bread is called. This was a super good meal. I'm pretty sure Dora licked the plate clean, she got hummus again the next day! They also had some pretty hot sauce to go with it, which was awesome because there isn't too much spicy food in Hungary. After that, we went to a bar for drinks. I can't remember what this drink was called (we call it a teddy bear), but it involved red wine, a dash of raspberry syrup, and possibly a splash of something else like soda water, but I couldn't tell. It's a dangerous drink - it tastes of no booze, but it's strong. Three of us finished that night by playing guitar in the park. We were possibly a little too intoxicated for a Tuesday...
Canada Day - Friday, July 1st: This is Canada's July 4th, and there are several Canadians here. Interestingly, they're all Asian, except for the French-Canadian. The Canucks prepared poutine, which is basically french fries topped with cheese and gravy. Not going to lie, this was really good, but after watching them cook it I didn't eat as much - soooo much grease! We went in a big group to the bar afterward and got tipsy and danced. My Asian buddies got in to an international Foosball competition between a bunch of people. I've never seen so much excitement over Foosball before!
Tourist Weekend - Saturday & Sunday July 2nd-3rd: My New Zealand friend Antony (we call him Kiwi) had his friend and his friend's girlfriend come in to town for the weekend. My roommate Lili had her friend in as well (but he was here on the 1st-2nd). Also, some of us haven't seen some tourist attractions in Budapest, so we had a tourist day on Saturday where we went to Buda Castle and the Fisherman's Towers, had Hungarian food, and went to some Hungarian clubs. The views were great, the food was incredible, and the clubs were a blast. There were 2 guys from Manchester, England who hung out with us and were hilarious. I also talked for a minute with somebody who had partied with ASU students in England. He said they were the biggest partiers he's met - go ASU!
The next day we went to a bathhouse. This is the third time we've gone to one and it's a great way to relax. I think they had 18 pools in total - some inside, some outside. They varied in temperature from 28 Celsius to 40, and some had some kind of whirlpool thing going on. We also (very) randomly ran in to that same guy who had partied with ASU before, that was really strange!
Coming up: Today is July 4th, so we're having people over for burgers and hotdogs (assuming we find the food, we're running late on this plan!) This weekend a bunch of us may go to Vienna, Austria. There is actually a band I've been wanting to see playing there Sunday, so now I'm really hoping we go. There's a concert at my favorite place Thursday, but I haven't checked out the band yet. I am going to Amsterdam late this month. I am going to Frankfurt, Germany August 13th. I have to go - I'm meeting someone to try out their guitar because he's trying to sell it! I may come back and post some pictures, but of course, if you're facebook friends with me, you can check out my latest photos on there!
