Thur's a starm brewin' 'Arry

I'm ashamed to say that Budapest has been our first city where we have failed in our unrealistic aim of seeing EVERYTHING. It's much more spread out than everywhere else we've been and it's just been impossible to do everything. In fact we haven't been in Buda at all, and only spent our time in Pest. This means we haven't seen the castle, the statue or the hills. What we have seen and done has been incredible however and I think I will be very sad to leave this place behind in a few hours.

Again our hostel here has been different! We were in a twelve bed dorm but each bunk bed had its own sort of private area, which was really lovely but also meant we didn't really chat to anyone else in our room. That ended up not mattering too much though as you will find out later.

On our first evening we headed straight to Szimpla kert, which is a bar two streets away from our hostel. The reason we were so keen to go was because some people we know had gone last year and taken beautiful pictures there, and we'd read about it online. The bar is in a building which, from the outside, looks like an abandoned warehouse - because that's exactly what it is. Inside are two floors, inside bits and outside bits, with random open rooms off the side, filled with old bicycles, televisions, fairy lights, bathtubs...everything that was abandoned there has been turned into seats, tables, or art. It's by far the best place I have ever spent an evening and I feel like there will never be another bar that can match up to it. Cheap drinks and just full of people, although not SO full that it's uncomfortable because there are so many places to go within the bar. It seemed as though upstairs was the place of the locals while downstairs was where people like us spent time. We met SO many people, there was such a friendly atmosphere and we struck up conversations with practically everyone we came across. Spent quite a bit of time with a stag party who were all dressed as Robin (with the groom as Batman) - they were from Reading and they were such a laugh. Hilarious photos. There was also another group of guys who we also thought were a stag party as they were all wearing kilts, but they were a rugby team from Edinburgh on tour. We spent time with them too and they ended up being our very best friends here I've never met such a bunch of genuinely lovely people. They were bar hopping and moved on, but Jill was pretty tired and her contacts were bothering her so we went back to the hostel at about eleven.

The next day we did Pest. From our hostel we headed to the river and walked down it into the pedestrianised shopping area, which was actually very similar to the one in Copenhagen except much more run down. Budapest has been the most run down city we've been in actually, they don't seem to have the same ideals about continual restoration that we saw in Vienna and Prague. Anyway we window shopped until we got to a huge building which is the Central Market Hall. The bottom floor of this market sells food, and actually a lot of people do their grocery shopping there every week. The smells of berries and nuts were enticing, but seeing butchers selling heads and kidneys and stomach linings (seriously) was very much not. Upstairs sold clothes, textiles, jewellery and so on. There was a lot of very expensive amber but Jill and I contented ourselves with cloth bracelets (the kind she wears, you know what I mean).

After the market, we headed to Raday utca, which is a street completely lined with inexpensive cafes. It was a bit early to eat so we went all the way down to the bottom of the road where we found a completely random group of musicians dressed all in white playing instruments we had never seen before. All around them were stalls selling books, and little tents where women were painting kids' faces for free! We sat down and I had a flowery design painted on my arm, which was actually so gorgeous, and prompted many questions later that night about my 'beautiful tattoo'.

We headed back up and stopped at Zoe's Cafe for lunch, which was breast of pullet with ewe's cheese and garlic rice...oh my god it was so good. Definitely my favourite meal of the trip so far. We have noticed that since Denmark, waiters in restaurants have more and more trouble understanding why we are ordering tap water. It really just doesn't seem to be the done thing in a lot of places, which has been odd as us cheapos usually order tap water everywhere we go - in fact, I'm pretty sure places in England are obligated by law to provide tap water free of charge. I'm a fan of that law.

Our meandering back took us through the university and past a building with windows flung wide open in which a choir rehearsal was taking place. It was gorgeous and we sat on a wall listening to them until they finished. Mmm it was lovely.

It was so so hot and beautiful so we walked for HOURS AND HOURS IN THE HEAT (35 minutes tops) to Margrits Island at the very north end of the city. We'd heard that this was sort of a hang out place for students where you could sunbathe etc. Of course, of course, as soon as we got there the sky clouded over and we just sort of sat on damp grass inhaling POISON (pollen) for an hour or so - not quite the experience we'd had in mind haha. We left to walk back (at which point the sun miraculously came out again so we had to walk in the heat), Jilly began to subtly indicate she was tired ('you said five minutes, YOU SAID FIVE MINUTES FIVE MINUTES AGO') so we bought strawberries (we are attempting to eat a balanced diet on this trip). I'll stop with the brackets now.

Back at hostel, we ate the strawberries. This deserves its own paragraph because the strawberries were just so damn tasty.

Like the massive keenos that we are we headed back to Szimpla kert before it got dark. It was so different in the daylight! Anyway we stayed for a while and took pictures while it was empty, which was a struggle as the light is so weird in there that I had to use a special setting to capture anything, which involved a shutter speed of about 15 seconds...bit awks to stand in front of a camera for 15 seconds when there's a ton of people around so we did all our camwhoring while it was empty. However it remained pretty dead even at nine thirty, which it hadn't been the night before! We left and followed our noses - what, no we didn't at all, we followed everything except our noses, our eyes and ears picked up lights and noises coming from the next street. Looked much more lively so we got through security easy peasy (every bar here has scary security outside but we haven't been ID'd at all!) walked in, and walked straight into the rugby team! Turns out it was actually the bar of their hostel. Some of them had received punishments for breaking 'tour rules', one guy was in marigolds because he pointed at something while sightseeing, another guy was dressed as a cat being led around with a leash, another guy was wearing a fake rabbi beard...ridiculous what ensued was the best night out I have ever had. I don't think I've ever laughed so much. They protected us from the gross Hungarian men, it was actually so comforting to have them around. Pulled my calf muscle really badly, so was carried home as day broke at about 6 am, on the back of a Maori rugby player, singing Arctic Monkeys songs at the top of our voices. What a moment.

After 1.5 hours sleep, we were up again and walked HOURS AND HOURS IN THE HEAT (45 minutes) to the Szechenyi Baths! Stupidly chose flip flops on this day so I am no longer blister free Anyway, what a beautiful place. Outside, between galleries of Roman columns, were a warm pool, a cool pool and a swimming pool (for the odd people that wanted to do lengths). It was sooo good just to lie there and tannnn. It's not expensive at all - about the equivalent of twelve pounds? You get the whole day there, access to everything, plus your very own cabin to change in so lovely. Inside were the natural baths, which were cool and stuff but smelt revoltingly like meat and eggs and death. I couldn't stay in there for very long, it was pretty but really, the smell.

It clouded over so we decided to leave but on our way out, we heard a 'hi' from the pool and guess who it was...the same Kiwi who'd carried me home. The whole team had just arrived, so we decided to stay and we spent the whoooole rest of the day with them. Proper laugh once again! They walked us home instead of getting a cab, risking missing their bus to the airport. It was a sad moment when we said goodbye to them especially since we will probably never see them again, they ate a lot of salad here so they probably will all die from E. coli. After the sad farewells we went to Tesco to stock up on cheap food, and the 1.5 hours of sleep caught up with me so we collapsed into sleep at about nine.

This morning we trained it to Gödöllő, a town about 30 minutes outside Budapest, to meet Noemi, another ex-au-pair of mine! She was our first au-pair so I hadn't seen her in 12 years...very strange to meet her again, and even stranger to meet her twin boys who were six, the same age I was when she looked after us. Unfortunately she had to work at 11:30 so we could only spend a couple of hours with her but it was lovely to catch up and exchange memories...mine of course are more limited than those I have of Pavla, but it was hilarious to hear her giggle over the weird compulsions and habits I had when I was six, which I'd always thought no one knew about except me. I was a weird kid.

Our plan was to spend the time before our train to Venice at 5 doing a fast trek up the Buda hill to the castle but as soon as we pulled into the station, a proper storm started. Thunder and lightning, rain, the full works. So we spent the rest of our money eating Wienerschnitzel nearby (we had goulash in Vienna...I think we are confused) and doing this.

We've had such an incredible time here although I do feel guilty for not seeing Buda. Just another thing to come back for I suppose, and I always knew that there would be places we couldn't see in their entirety. We've had so much fun here and some of the best memories were made here, which I know will stay with me forever. It's sad to leave, despite being so excited for Venice! Not so excited for the train though, I literally don't even think we have reclining seats...should be interesting ahaha.

Hope you're all safe and well!

Lots of love and wanderlust,
Abbey x