Day Twenty-One/ Twenty-Two

TL;DR

We were traumatized at a thermal bath
We drank on the rooftop of a five star hotel
We confused hot yellow pepper for mango
We drank in abandoned bunkers
We got locked out of our Airbnb
We got free food
We got locked in a tower
We climbed even more things

Day Twenty One

Day twenty one began with a small miracle, we were not awoken by bells! With that small victory we peacefully rose to begin our day. We had breakfast at the New York Cafe with Catherine (Alura’s friend from Rice). The inside of this cafe is fabulous and decadent. There was a man peacefully playing the piano while we ate. The food was a little over priced but worth it to see the inside of this building,

We then set out on a mission to find the Széchenyi Thermal baths. Hungary, and specifically Budapest are well known for the thermal baths, where you alternate between hot and cold pools. Finding the place wasn’t hard, but navigating inside was.

First of all, the entrance was not clear, and we had to walk around the building before we could find the right one. Once we were inside we went to the locker room to change. Alura got yelled at by an naked old Hungarian lady for holding a locker for Catherine. Anyway, we go upstairs ready to get our spa on. We try to get towels, but you have to pay. We go back downstairs, get our wallets, come up, and find that they only take cash deposits for towels. We have exactly no cash on us. No big deal, we plan to just dry off in the sun. Then we try to book massages, They are full until about 5 pm (it is noon) and can only take one person. Since Catherine was leaving soon she books one, we plan on going back later this week.

Yeah, this what my bath’s ceiling looks like too…

We go back downstairs to put our wallets away after this fruitless journey. Then we get semi lost in the building trying to find the baths. Once we finally find them our noses are assaulted with the smell of minerals.

After getting over the fact we were sitting in stranger’s skin water, we actually enjoyed ourselves. We bounced between hot and cold pools. The hottest was 38 degrees Celsius. When we were sitting in the hot pool we could hear people screaming. Curiosity got the better of us and that was when we found the 20 degree Celsius pool. We waded in our feet tingling with the cool refreshing water. After the initial shock, we kept bouncing between extremes- hot & cold. We are proud to announce that a lot of very manly men screamed in pain when entering the cold pool. We waded in with few comments 😀

After a relaxing 4 hours, we went home and showered to get ready for the night ahead of us. Only the ladies went to the baths. We were expected to meet up with some of the boys after dinner. We got dinner at Bors bistro bar, a wonderful Hungarian street food place that was decorated with Star Wars memorabilia (close to our hearts). Hannah got Hungarian sausage with cheddar, onions, and bbq sauce in a baguette (bors hotdog). Alura got “the french lady”- chicken, cheese, and blueberry jam. Hannah has been 2/2 in food picking so far. Surprisingly the Guys met up with us then. We proceeded to eat our sandwiches and then walked to a street food garden.

What is a street food garden? It is where food trucks meet in a back alley of a building and open up for people to buy food. We all sat around had some after dinner drinks and discussed the nights plans.

The guys went off to go shower. The girls went to be classy.

Sorry this just had to go in somewhere, no filter.

Enter three women to the beautiful Aria hotel, atop which sits the beautiful rooftop bar.
They set us in the back corner-us being plebs and all- which entailed wonderful cushioned seats and an out door couch. Behind us the beautiful Saint Stephens stood, with the sunset washing light over the beautiful building. Can say it was a gorgeous view.

Drinks:
Alura had the Mr. Armstrong (some gin and cranberry) and the Champagne Cocktail I (no Prosecco this time).

Hannah had Maradiths Kiss (tequila, cotton candy, sour cherry, and some other red things, it looked like Dracula’s drink), and the Tuscan lover (chocolate shavings, gin, lemon, and some more juice type flavors).

We sat up there talking about random things until the guys finally showed up about 1.5 hours later-aka 1 hour later than they said they would be. We had our second round of drinks and stayed until it was almost midnight. The night then went from extra classy to trashy (dear family, not really).

We went to Instant, a club/bar/dance floor located in an abandoned, run down building. The place is massive, with underground rooms and outdoor bars. Each room had different music playing. After wandering the rooms to get a feel of the place we stuck to the main room, which played mostly EDM (or more specifically three songs mixed repetitively with Martin Garrix’s “Animals”). We danced there until 2:30 and then headed home.

We made it back to our Airbnb ready for bed when we encountered a small problem. The other guest in our place locked the bottom lock on the main door, which we did not have a key for. Panic struck us. We luckily got in touch with the host but felt really bad about waking people up at 3am to let us in. There was a moment there.

Day Twenty Two

We slept in and started our day at about 11am. We got breakfast at Fekete. There we ordered shaksuka, a matcha latte, and a regular latte. At 11:15 our food arrived, but not our drinks. At 11:30, we asked where we pick the drinks up. At 11:45 we got a free brownie and tart, because they forgot our drinks. Overall, the food was amazing. the coffee was amazing. All was forgiven 🙂

We then searched for a book Hannah has wanted for a while. She finished the first in the series on the bus to Budapest so she wanted to get the second in the series. Alura is about to start the first one and will probably be equally obsessed soon. (*yaaasss*)

After two failed attempts in book stores we made our way over to the Buda side of the city. According to Lucas, the city has two sides-the Buda and the Pest side.

While on the Buda side, we climbed another bell tower and looked in a church. When getting the tickets we met the worlds slowest but best ticket salesman. He over explained everything in detail, while taking his time & repeated things over and over again. That being said he was extremely kind and was a nice old man. Would not necessarily want to be around his holiday table though.

Any way at the top of the bell tower We took our time and on the way down we almost got locked in. Nobody mentioned that the tour party was departing. We were sitting looking at the view for a couple of minutes before we realized that we could only hear the wind howling. We quickly walked down all 197 steps.

After almost making some security guards angry, we made some security guards angry. We entered Mathias Church in our tank tops. We made it to the other side of the church before a woman came walking up to us quickly. She looked disgusted and harshly asked if we could cover our shoulders. We were horrified- we had nothing to cover our shoulders with and didn’t know what rules we were breaking (Alura should have remembered this, she’s a bad Catholic). She told us we should have been handed paper covers. We walked back to the entrance where we found our marathon victory covers. We continued on fully clothed, learning about the history of the building.

After finishing that we decided to walk to the citadel. we got side tracked, had to go down a mountain to go up a mountain. We walked through swarms of little gnats. We climbed over thirty stories. We walked up ramps, we crossed streets, we jumped stairs. Finally we reached the top and were rewarded with great views of the city.

Celebrating we climbed back down the mountain, got some coffee at Kelet coffee, a beautiful cafe + bookshop + art gallery. On our walk back Hannah was victorious and found the book! We continued our marathon walk to Hummus Bros, back on the pest side, where we enjoyed hummus, falafels, mushrooms, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Our bodies thanked us immensely considering we have not had an entirely vegetarian meal this entire trip. Or more specifically, a vegetarian meal minus immense amounts of carbs and cheese.

Yes you see carbs, no it was not the entire meal.

The next stop was near Saint Stephan, where we went to Gelato Rosa, thanks to a Instagram post Hannah saw from a friend, Zoher. We ate gelato applied to a cone in the shape of a flower. It was gorgeous and tasty.