Buda...best. Seriously.

Shout out to the couple from Atlanta! Thanks for the good company and beer :-)

I regret not staying longer in Budapest, especially over a few weekends to really experience the nightlife (Google 'ruined pubs'). Off all the cities thus far, I feel like I could have stayed here for months on end,

Anyways, back to what Budapest was like, I got into. Keleti train station. Managed to find my way to the street my host, Lajos, lived on. However, I could not figure out for the life of me which building it was. So I rang someone random on #46, they spoke some incredibly unintelligible Hungarian and I got rung in, take note Ramya! Anyways, I walked into this incredibly dark stairwell, keep in mind it was the middle of the day, Imagine the abandoned building from the Matrix, but without 99% of the set lights. It was at this point I was getting a bit worried. However, I was fortunate enough to survive walking around there for several minutes but then made a call to Lajos who was actually in the much better lit building  next door,

"Hello, Mr. Norman!", greetings, etc. I thought it was hilarious he was calling me Mr. Norman with his Hungarian accent. Anyways, first thing we did when we got into his awesome IKEA-furnished flat was take shots of his homemade undistilled apricot and herbs+lemon palinka (45%). They were both quite good, definitely something new after all the beer consumption in Europe, thus far. I could tell already this was an eccentric fellow with his vast book collection, NFC parking meter prototypes (turns out he is an embedded systems programmer) in the surfer room, antique camera, never mind all our communications preceding including him telling me to take a shot in the bathroom at Keleti, all the jokes and sarcasm as well. I didn't really come to Budapest with a plan, so in a rush he suggested I check out the one of the famous bathhouses. He introduced me to his beloved orange VW Transporter (3rd generation) aka the bus from Scooby-Doo. So, after eating he dropped me off at Szechenyi Bath. I came just with swim trunks in hand and was quite aloof of all that had just happened.  The bath was amazing, with a main "pool" area, several saunas, ice pools, and all sorts of other temperature, aroma, etc, variations.  I will never forget coming out of the hottest sauna i have ever exoerienced and then jumping into a cold bath of 18C. I chatted with a Canadian tour group of mid-20ers, not wanting to just be there alone. Couple of cuties who looked remarkably like Camerian Diaz (pre- bad aging) and a thinner "Sloane" from Entourage. It was a good time and well worth the 2600 florencs (about 190 per USD).

Not having a map and remembering one of the turns I had to make coming back, I got really lost on the way back. The only marker I really had in mind was a cool building with a shattered glass and metal look that Deloitte had. About 45 minutes later Lajos picked me up from godknowswhere. His girlfriend Margarita was with him. He drove us aro  und both Buda and Pest pointing out the buildings, discussing history, and so on. It was late at this point so we went to Gellety Hill for several amazing views. I would have to say the view of the Danube, the city lights, and all of it together made up for the best view of this trip thus far.

Something that I will never forget is when we were atop the hill with some of the few statues kept from the Communist era, I wanted to take a picture of a few since I thought I had a good view. However, before I did Margarita asked if I knew what I was taking a picture of. I couldn't answer her and so we got into the history of why the Communists used the George fights the 7 headed dragon story, which I completely forgot not being Catholic and all. Anyways, from now on I will make sure I know what I am taking a picture of so it is more than a visceral response of "this is pretty, let me take a picture."

Came back and discussed classical music after he found out I played violin and piano. Some Shostakovich with Oistrakh, his favorite violinist. I am a Heifetz man myself, but Oistrakh was truly a great as well. Got some other Hungarians in as well like Bartok and Liszt. I think Lajos loved nightcaps because I had another shot of something.
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Spent the next day doing everything on the comprehensive hop in hop off Budaoest Sightseeing buses and as well as a boat ride on the Danube and a couple hours spent on Margaret Island, apparently where everyone goes to run. This is definitely the way to go, in order to see what's around, understand some history, and get as much in as possible before further exploration. Won't go into all of it, you will have to experience Budapest yourself :-)

Got back to Lajos' flat around 10pm after being out all day. Tried traditional Hungarian bread (origins dated back to 16th century). Made delicus sandwiches with some amazing cheese he had bought as Well. Took shots of Borovichka and some other palinka probably about 2am at this point. Found out about his enjoyment of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Lol. As he said before, he didn't believe in art just entertainment. We watched an episode where one of the major characters was killed, and then an operatic song comes on. He recognized it afterwards we listened to a selecton from Puccini's La Boheme while smoking cigarettes. I was reading the booklet from the CD and at the end of Act 1 that song occurs when two neighbors suddenly fall in love, which similarly happened in Buffy before the woman was killed.

Discussed the ridiculousness that is English and also, Hungarian whereby they append nouns with a million different suffixes to describe it. was really tired by this point so I packed a bit and made sure to set my alarm early to make the Vienna train in the morning.