Saturday, July 08, 2006

Party till the Train starts running...

Ok not currently in Budapest anymore, but still thinking about it. A great 3 days for sure, and in fact I will be flying into Budapest airport on the 20th on my way back from Bulgaria, and thinking of spending at least 1 more full day before trying to get to Slovenia on a 7hr train ride. I'm in Bratislava, Slovakia right now but more on that later..

I must say as much as I loved Budapest, this was the first country where there was a serious language barrier. Hungarian is nothing like any other language and not alot of people speak english, even the thought that most of the young people will speak english is not true in Budapest, I think the cause of this is some of the young people come from smaller towns outside of the big city and thus dont get the good education and english skills. So for anyone going to Hungary in the future, and I highly recommend it, as even outside of Budapest there are plenty of great smaller cities according to my guide book, but LEARN SOME HUNGARIAN it will help out, just basic phrases..

The Title of this post is basically why its been a few days since I last posted to the blog, the nightlife in Budapest while not rated highly in the guidebooks was very fun. My first day after walking around I stopped in at a bar on the Buda side(Hilly) of the Danube, first off the bat, it was happy hour, so 2 beers for the price of 1, and the price of one was 430 Ft(currently about 215 Ft to a dollar), so yeah that was all good. Then climbed up to the Cittadel which is a massivly HIGH ASS mountain with a momument and club at the top, it is easily 500 meters above sea level, a good hike for anyone in shape or wanting to get into shape. Its been HOT HOT HOT everywhere in europe, in fact I have sweated more than I would in a NYC summer for sure. So after a shower at the hostel it was time to go out and party, I went back to the place where the 430Ft beer was and in fact went to the club across the street. After a few days in Poland, which was cool but all the clubs/bars were almost underground in old historic 1400's buildings Budapest was a relief. This bar was an outdoor bar, huge, with lots of couches, benches, a dance floor and plenty of bars. Its called Club Rio and I almost felt like I was in Brazil. The music was decent, and beer a bit more pricy coming in at 700Ft(still less than 4 bucks), but the whole outdoor mood was amazing, being that everyone smokes in Europe, being outdoors was great just having your clothes smell like sweat the next day.

So the last train, tram, bus stops at 11pm, I arrived at 11:15pm on that last bus, I didnt know about the night busses yet, so I figured well the club is open till 5am, the public transportation starts at 4am, so its party till the sun comes up. LIving in NYC you take for granted the fact of all night transportation, I can stumble out of any bar in NYC, and either pay for a cab for door to door service and not worry about getting ripped off, or take the train home. Not the case in Europe, I've done it once in Barcelona partying till the first metro, Budapest was the 2nd.

A few other observations about Budapest, the women are amazing, its like a damn Car accident, you just have to look. tall, short, blonde, brunette, a few redheads. Women love to wear white pants/skirts here. Even after Memorial day in the states where its allowed in fashion sense, white pants have not taken off.. It could be cause american women are worried about the size of their asses, or panty lines, or whatever.. Hungarian women have no such problem, be it they were wearing a thong, g-string, granny panties, or going commando, White is the color of summer.

Budapest is really a beautiful city, this is what I expected Prague to be, but Prague didnt do it for me. Its like 2 cities in one, the flat Pest side, and the hilly Buda side seperated by the dirty Danbue river. Walking around is the best way, as you get to see amazing building just around every corner, while nothing stands out as truely breath taking like walking upon the Colusseum in Rome, still great buildings and everything is supersized, their Parliment I thought was big from in front of it, yet only when I was on the other side of the River up 500meter did I realize its scale.

The Hostel at first was a bit sketchy, but in the end met some cool peeps, 4 girls from California doing a quick 1 month trip. They live in San Diego and one is moving to Chicago for medical school, I told her if she survives the first winter she will be ok, but that might be tough from someone living in the best weather in the USA. Also the natural aussie guy traveling around Europe. Also an american studying Cello in Vienna, so a nice mix of people.

My second night out on the town was not as good as the first, not wanting to go back to Club Rio, I decided to trek out to E-Klub, this place was rated good in some message boards, well first off its in the middle of the woods, second its like a NYC club where the men pay a cover and women nothing, and I am sure black american tourists pay even more than most. But if you want to hear Hungarian pop and hip hop music this is the place for you. I didnt recognize any songs, except a hungarian cover of the Police "Every Breathe You Take" sung naturally in Hungarian. At one point the DJ in the Hip-Hop room played Vanilla Ice followed by The Informer by that canadian Snow guy.. I was like DJs in the states have been shot for less than this.. At Club Rio I got to hear Biggie, Disco, Barry White, James Brown all of it. In fact I realized the language barrier at Rio when I asked a group of girls to dance, and they kept on saying "yes Dance.. dance more.. dance with us.." and then in trying to talk to them afterwards, realized the words coming out of my mouth were like chinese.

Anyway its 7pm here in Bratislava and tonight is the 3rd place match in the world cup at 9pm, so I want to get back to my seriously sketchy hostel, I am paying 20 USD to sleep on a couch in the living room, but its all good i got a free train ticket from Budapest to Bratislava today from the last hostel, so in the end everything works out. So far Brat has been the most dead town I have been in on a saturday so i hope this evening I can find some fun, plus already seen like 4 groups of English Stag parties, so that is NOT a good sign.. Hope everyone back in the states is enjoying a good weekend... Pictures, i know I have been horrible, but i think there is a computer near my couch at this hostel, we will see what I can do....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I forgot all about'A licky boom-boom down" Snow...Informer was a great song.

Um...you've been away from the states too long...women aren't wearing white pants? Are you crazy? White pants are the new black.

Time to wrap it up and come home, your starting to get out of touch.

-TG