My birthday

Saturday was my birthday (which many of you noted on Facebook, so thank you) and I decided that I wasn’t going to spend it in Tata by myself.  So, I walked to the train station to head into Budapest for the day.  I found the train station on the map, and walked there no problem.  But it was a challenge from the get go.  First of all, the station was run down, boarded up and covered with graffiti- which is not unlike other parts of Budapest or Hungary, but it was a bit disconcerting as this was my first venture into the world of trains in Hungary.  I didn’t know when the trains came, or when the first or last one was – virtually nothing about the train system at all, and yet here I was ready to conquer it.  I saw a mom and her teenage daughter waiting for the train, so I asked them if they spoke English.  The daughter said she did, and I found an instant life preserver.  She explained that I bought the ticket on the train, and how much it cost.  We chatted a bit on the train and once in Budapest, they took me to where I buy a return ticket, and to the Metro stop to bring me to the place I needed to go.  I was shown how to buy a metro ticket, and they made sure I knew what I was doing.  Turns out, she is a student at my school – I told her I’d have her English teacher give her extra credit for helping me. 

 

I got to the Buda side of town  - which is inconvenient for where I needed to go, but once we were on the metro it was no big deal.  I met Jacob at his place and we headed to Ikea for a big birthday spending spree.  Unfortunately, since all of the people from my group were placed in different parts of Hungary, we all have varying degrees of accommodation.  In Budapest, the apartments are smaller and you have less in terms of “perks” in some cases.  Jacob is in one of these situations.  His apartment is small, but it works for a bachelor.  Unfortunately, while I had many of my things already stocked in the kitchen and apartment, he was missing many of the basics and needed to spend quite a bit of money bringing his place up to speed.  Ikea was a bit overwhelming with all the people there on a Saturday, but we made it through in one piece.  We had a really good hot dog at the cafeteria afterwards for less than a dollar.  They didn’t serve Swedish meatballs though – I might have actually tried them for once.  This was only one of two Ikeas in Budapest – seems a bit weird to be in such a foreign country with something so familiar, yet totally foreign.  Did that make sense?  At any rate, we dropped his stuff off and headed up to the Castle Hill area.  We were in search of a wine shop that supposedly had free wine tasting, but we never found it.  Instead, we had a nice bowl of soup on Castle hill and enjoyed the scenery of Budapest from above the Danube.  Afterwards, we picked up some Palinka (Hungarian brandy) and headed back to enjoy some Hungarian drinks.  Palinka is an interesting (really strong) drink that I’m pretty sure could reverse the effects of rust.  It’s not something to drink on a daily basis, but worth trying.  Lyla and Lauren met us for a bit and we shared the Palinka as a bunch of ex-pats in Budapest.