April 3, 2024

Gee-effin’-li. It’s a very strange feeling when something that you’ve been anticipating for a long time comes to pass. I’ll be moving into my apartment in Belgrade tonight. I’m seated on the bus headed south from Budapest. But I owe a bit of catching up before that all. 

As far as I can remember, I left off while en route to Vienna. My bus was unfortunately delayed significantly, so I ended up arriving at my hostel around 11 and crashing pretty quick. It was the biggest hostel I’ve ever been in, definitely just a huge hotel that they put bunk beds into. Kind of funny to see that hostels are just bunk bed hotels. The next morning, Thursday, I was able to walk around and see a ton of the sights. Vienna is a really modern city, it’s not hard to tell that Austria took care of its imperial wealth very well. Alongside nice trams and malls are gothic churches, palaces (schloss’s), and gorgeous parks. I got to go into the cathedral Motzart was married (and funeraled) in! I met up with my friends from Prague to tour the Schloss Schonbrunn, which had some of the craziest grounds I’ve ever seen, as well as a sizable collection of massive paintings depicting pretty much the entirety of European royalty congregating and celebrating at various points in the era of Austro-Hungarian power. That night I hung out at the much hipper, cleaner, and more central hostel my friends were staying at, which also happened to have a pool table. I’m not sure what the function would be, but if Y is my skill at pool and X is beers consumed, it would be a very squiggly line. I made some really fun new friends, a few brits who made me want to dig into my anglo roots a lot more, and a Ukranian guy who humbled the shit out of me at pool, as well as a good handful of people I crushed. There’s levels to pool, I’m learning. The next morning I met back up with my friends from Prague (from New England) to walk around a bit more and mostly to go see Klimt’s The Kiss. Unluckily, there were only two tickets left at the time slot we arrived at, so the two of us who had been most excited to see it (myself included) went into the Schloss Belvedere. What an experience to see it in person. Really breathtaking. There were also a handful of works by Egon Schiele, one of my favorite artists ever, and it was really an unexpected treat to see some of his stuff in person for the first time! My Viennese gastronomic adventures include a lot of schnitzel, curry wurst, a cordon bleu (I was expecting something fancier), and a good bit of beer. 

From that Schloss (can you tell I like the word Schloss), I made my way to the train station to ride some rails to The Slovakian capital of Bratislava. It was a quick ride, about an hour along the Danube. For a long time I had been planning to spend that Saturday walking the distance in an attempt to set a new one-day personal record, as the distance would have been about 41 miles. However, I opted not to, mostly because I wanted to hang out with my new friends, drink beer, see more of Vienna, sleep in, and I think that the actual route would have been a bit mundane, or certainly not the best stretch of 40 miles I could find. A task I’ll definitely table for later. 

Bratislava was wild. I’ll, as per usual, keep the blog classy, but I’ll say it was firmly in the upper quartile of my nights out in terms of craziness (sorry for all the math talk, idk what’s up with that). Saturday night was a pub crawl that ended at a club. The bars were pretty good, especially a tequilla bar where I learned a new way to take a tequilla shot: instead of a salt shaker and a slice of lime, use a shake of cinnamon and a slice of orange. Insanely good!!! The thing that made the nigth really fun were the people. I’ve defintley seen that the less “sexy” a destination, the more interesting the travellers, and that definitely held up in Bratislava, especially for the volunteers at the hostel, who were all really interesting, authentic, and fun. On Sunday I attended a walking tour of the city, very hungover. To be honest I don’t remember a ton of it, except that when Napoleon invaded, there were tax breaks for houses that had been damaged in the fithging, and so some people fetched cannonballs from the battlefield to add to their front door as a decorative tax break. Genius! The city of Bratislava has a really charming old town of smooth, wide, light-stone cobbled streets, mostly lined with cute shops, restraunts, and the odd stunning cathedral. Overlooking the old town is a really nice castle that also happens to connect to the Slovakian parliament. The next night I indulged in another hostel party, which began with quite the trek, meandering across the Danube and through a bit of woods until we (when I say we, I mean about 50 half-drunk 20- and 30-somethings following a cool-kid crew of hostel volunteers) entered a clearing in which to construct a decent bonfire. It was really surreal, to look up from a conversation or a drink, across the danube, and see the medieval castle of Bratislava lit up on the hill. All of this debauchery was well facilitated by a couple dozen “washed-out” soap containers of jungle juice, most of which did not make it back to the hostel for the basement club after party. Again, there were really awesome and fun people that made a really cool night just fantastic. Slovakian gastronomic indulgences included a massive potato pancake, delicious sheeps cheese dumplings, and goulash soup. 

The next day, Monday, I woke up with a sore throat and little energy, and booked a mid-day bus for Budapest, thinking that Bratislava had left enough bruising on. I got to Budapest in the afternoon. The trip from the remote bus station to my hostel was an adventure in its own. I couldn’t figure out how to buy a tram ticket, so I just hoped to not bump into any ticketeers. Unfortunately, I was just barely able to dodge one and hop off super early, walking the rest of the way. A bit of fun, though. Besides, this allowed me the just scrumptious treat of my first view of Budapest. Holy shit, what a city. In (on?) Buda, the western bank of the city lie the Hungarian parliament and the Fisherman’s Bastion, totally stunning. A giant cathedral also lies along the river, and upon exploring Pest (western bank), one is simply bombarded with just gorgeous architecture. The whole city felt similar to Prague but grittier, more unadultured by tourism, a little less ultra-wealthy, louder, bigger, and absolutely no less stunning. I don’t say this about many places but I could see going back to Budapest for a long time. My gastronomic experiences included more goulash, chicken paprikash, and a local fried dough specialty drowned paprikash sauce. Wicked good. 

However, my grandest Hungarian cultural experience happened at the baths, Szechenyi baths to be more specific. That’s the big beautiful place what you’ve probably seen everyone post when they go to Hungary. I guessed that there’s probably a cheaper, better, and more authentic bathhouse, but I honestly felt like splurging and getting the photo-op (shrug). It was freaking awesome. Armed only with my speedo, I enjoyed the outdoor baths, indoor thermal pools, a salt inhalation room, a chromotherapy sauna, an aromatherapy sauna, a beer sauna (a steaming box of hops sat in the center of the room), a nude sauna, a cold bath, and most intense of all, a ripping hot steam bath. It was so freaking cool, lots of people, but I was still able to find plenty of quiet peaceful moments to enjoy the famous Hungarian bathhouse experience. I left feeling sooo freaking chilled out. On the walk home I was lucky enough to enjoy a neon pink sunset over a big old castle in the park, call with Jack Trapp, and soak in the sight of the Budapest Opera House. So nice. 

This morning I had a good bit of work to do, but I got to have a little goodbye walk around the amaaazing city before getting the metro to the bus on which I now sit. It’s an odd feeling I have right now. I was about to say that I’ve never closed one adventure chapter of my life to immediately open up a new adventure chapter, that it’s usually adventure then calm. But that’s not true at all. I guess I’ve never done it with two adventurer chapters in a row on the horizon. I think I’d do better to reflect in a few days time honestly. I’m a slow bounce-back-er, and I think that the Budapest spa just barely brought me back from the zombie-hood induced by Bratislava. I’ll close with this: in a couple hours time, I’ll arrive at my Belgrade apartment!