I had no idea what to expect with Budapest.  As we boarded our outbound train from Vienna I tried to prepare my brain for what was to come, but all that I could remember from my research on our next city was that it was inexpensive and many Europeans, namely Brits, flock to it for “Stag” and “Hen” parties.  Coming from Vienna, Austria, a glistening gem of cleanly sidewalks and manicured sophistication, our first glances of Budapest couldn’t have procured a starker contrast. Budapest defines “shabby chic.” The buildings in Budapest are stunning, yet coated with a film of dirt and grime. To me, Budapest was almost like a cobwebby museum overtaken by 20 somethings and hipsters.  The buildings look nearly haunted and dilapidated, yet modern art and bass thumping clubs share the same sidewalks.  The crowd in Budapest was so primarily young that I felt like we’d arrived in Neverland and would maybe come across Peter Pan at any given moment.  Young, beautiful Europeans spilled out of every park, club, and bar.  My love for Budapest is nearly analogous to my love for 90’s rock: it emanates nostalgia, it’s gritty, it’s grungy, it’s sexy, and it makes you want to drink.

Dad enjoying a very masculine and Hungarian lunch

Shabby chic

Really interesting sculpture just before the bridge to cross over from Buda to Pest

We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Carat, a boutique hotel with reasonably priced rooms and an ideal location.  Though recommended to us by my step mom’s Hungarian Princess friend (literally, her dad was the President of Hungary), the service from the staff at Carat was some of the worst I received over the course of my entire journey. Do not stay there.  Do, however, walk all the way down to the Danube River, marvel at the Hungarian Parliament Building, cross over from Buda to Pest, and then finish off your evening with shots of Unicum at one of the many unique bars and clubs.  Budapest is an old urban sprawl infested with an eclectic mix of the young and restless.

We saw these guys randomly passed out on a grassy knoll as we were walking the streets, Alex decided to “join them”

Highlights and moments:

-RUIN PUB visit! A sweeping trend in Budapest is ruin pubs or ruin bars, which are simply “reclaimed” bars that are constructed within the “ruins” of once functioning establishments such as parking lots, barber shops, car garages, etc. Like I said, Budapest defines “shabby chic.”  The ruin bars keep the original structures of the original establishments and simply add whimsical elements of the bizarre and fanciful to the exposed brick or stone walls that have withstood the test of time.  We chose to find the very first ruin pub to pop up in Budapest, called Szimpla Kert, located within the Jewish Quarter.  From the front, the bar was completely undetectable, it blended right in with the gritty, gray stone facades lining the quarter.  However, upon entering this unique watering hole, we were bombarded with rainbow colored lights, dolls, technology, vegetation, and props of all varieties adorning the walls.  Rooms of varying sizes and themes line the hallways that lead to an open-air beer garden in the middle.  The bar is two tiered and filled with patrons of all different ages and walks of life.  Alex, dad, Jackie, and I opted for a technology themed room, where vacuums, computer monitors, electric bicycles, and blenders decorated the walls.  We posted up at a banquet style picnic table and imbibed for hours, laughing and talking. I’ll never forget when a girl came by carrying a basket of oversized peeled carrots for sale.  She claimed this was a Hungarian bar tradition, so of course I had to buy one.  I received a receipt for my 30 cent carrot purchase, yup, a receipt.  This purchase broke the ice with the lovely young British couple seated next to us, and we ended up sharing quite a few good laughs when Alex and dad couldn’t hide their immaturity and started pretending my carrot souvenir was a humanly appendage. Men.

-Experiencing the most awkward pedicure of my life at a Hungarian bath house. We were game for trying something authentic and unique, that also offered us something quasi relaxing.  Our hotel recommended visiting a Hungarian bathhouse, and after learning that a rather popular one was not all too far away called Széchenyi Thermal Bath, we decided to give it a try.  This popular attraction year-round is certainly a uniquely European experience.  The building that houses the thermal baths is palatial looking, but yet, it also holds fast to the shabby chic motif I spoke of earlier, there is a tinge of grime mixed in with the opulent façade. After purchasing our tickets, which come in a variety of offers and packages, we were given a wristband device that served as our entrance “key” and key to a locker in the locker room.  The locker rooms reminded me of centuries old YMCA locker rooms, with nude women of all ages spilling out of tiled, wet cubby-like rooms and an overpowering smell of chlorine bombarding our senses.  By no means did I find the bathhouse to possess a zen, spa-like ambiance.  It was like a water park or gym pool bustling with Europeans.  We got into our bikinis and met my dad and Alex out near the entrance to the outdoor thermal baths.  The outdoor pool deck was lovely.  It reminded me of a less glamorous Vegas pool party.  It was mostly all adults, I don’t recall seeing a single child, and many pool goers were attractive, and keeping with the theme of Budapest, on the younger side.  No music played, but a small hut shaped bar served a snaking line of scantily clad bathers.  It was a very interesting scene.  There were barely any chaise-lounges or daybeds, pretty much everyone was laying on towels on the hard cement pool deck…which was not exactly the relaxing, cushy set-up our hearts desired.  But, we made the most of it!  The thermal baths were fun to try, but I found them to be a bit too hot for comfort on that sweltering August day.  The whole experience was like a muted version of a Vegas pool party, which to me perfectly encapsulated the European experience- people weren’t imbibing to the point of unconsciousness, no one was shouting or fist pumping, there wasn’t heart liquidating music playing, and there weren’t silicone enhanced cocktail waitresses keeping everyone spending money, it was a simple, age-old, skin improving, way to unwind and enjoy either some solitude or some social interaction.

After soaking up the sun and sweating in the baths for a couple of hours, Jackie and my dad went off for a couple’s massage, while I opted for a much needed pedicure.  This “pedicure” still makes me giggle when I look back on it.  First, the elderly woman who did not speak a lick of English, not that I would expect that it simply just added to the hilarity of the situation, scolded me for not soaking my feet long enough in the baths.  So…I had to go back down to the baths and stand in the water for 10 minutes before returning to her.  Upon my return, I discovered the pedicure chair was the same bed they use for waxing- a chair very similar to a dentist chair, covered in a towel.  The Hungarian grandma continued to speak to me in Hungarian, but I was able to deduce that she wanted me to put my feet on her shoulders.  She huffed and puffed and sometimes growled at the state of my feet.  She poked and prodded, cut, and clipped.  I had a choice of about three colors, of which all looked dried up.  I opted for a fuschia of sorts.  The huffing and puffing increased on her end, and my feet were basically touching her nose, as she needed to inch her large glasses closer to further inspect the situation.  I decided to look away and tried as hard as I could not to laugh at the fact that I had my feet propped up on some elderly Hungarian woman’s shoulders. In the end, she told me to review her work (in Hungarian of course) and, with one eye squinted closed, fearfully, I peered down at my toes. Fuschia polish smattered each toe nearly down to the toe knuckle, and small hairs and grains of sand, or who knows what, blemished the toe nails.  I smiled uneasily and asked kindly if she could perhaps clean them up a bit so the polish was simply on my toe nails.  She reluctantly obliged, and after her scraping one foot, I commended her work, tipped her generously, and chalked the whole thing up to embracing a new experience.  Bottom line, don’t get a pedicure at a Hungarian bathhouse.

-Taking a Danube River Cruise.  Though this is a very touristy thing to do, it’s fun and worth it.  The food is served buffet style and the band is a little cheesy, but the views of the city and the Parliament Building all floodlit at night are stunning.  Our waiter served us shots of Unicum, a Hungarian liquor, at the end of the night, which fueled us with some liquid confidence before we braved our first Hungarian casino, which is housed near the river bank on the Buda side.  We didn’t win all too big, but we played some Texas Hold ‘Em for an hour or two, before wading our way through a sea of 20 something’s flooding the streets, to get back to our hotel.