Ok, on a count of the fact I'm travelling alone (and loving every minute), this had sort of become my outlet for whinging. I'm getting mighty sick of this money business. It's such a nuisance. I have befriended a group of Aussie lads from Melbourne, and we talked for a long time about how good the Aussie Dollary Doo is. I can't even remember what colour the notes are (#Dice). Right now, in my wallet; I have a mixture of USD, the Croatian Kuna, Euro and now the Hungarian Forint. Oh, and I found about 10 bucks in coins in the Canadian dollar. That's five very similar-looking currency coins all swimming around in there, and it makes for the most interesting time at the checkout. Just sort of 'what will we get today'. So I've really got to clear up the money stuff, #firstworldproblemsofatraveler. The conversions are getting hard to though, for example 1119.25 FT = 5 USD = around 5.70 AUD.
Yeah, so you buy a delicious goulash for lunch, and it's like 1300.00 FT, and you're trying to do the conversions in your head and it drives you crazy. I'm not even kidding. You go into shops, and things are like 3934.68 FT...which is 20 AUD. I don't know why their currency is so difficult to grasp, but it keeps me on my toes, I'll tell you that. You get 200 and 500 FT coins. It what universe can you get a 500 dollar coin?! It really screws your mind over, carrying 10,000 in your wallet is only around 50 bucks. Not helping the situation, is of course me, because I just sort of rock up to a new country and I don't research the currency sitch until I get there, and have to look for a shop sign, breathing a sigh of relief when it's Euro...or not. For example, Hungary is part of the EU, but has it's own currency. Thanks for that.
Yikes. Anyway, yes, still plodding along here, and I love traveling by myself because when things go wrong, I have no one to blame but myself :-)
Exhibit A;
Honestly. There were three things I came to Budapest for. Even though, as I have blissfully discovered, there is so much more you should journey to this city for; in America when I would daydream about this far away place, three things came to mind;
1. Goulash
2. Budapest Baths
3. The Cat Cafe
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| Baths - courtesy of me |
Of course food was the number one priority, my Oma makes delicious goulash and egg noodles, and they always bring back sweet memories of my childhood and being feed too much. With the weather cold and me often getting caught in the rain (I'm also a little sick atm), it's comfort food. Goulash is delicious. The Hungarians know food. Dat all I'm saying. Actually, just whilst we're on food, these guys eat a lot of stuffed cabbage, minced pork, stews, goulash soup, curd dumplings and onion soup. Everything was pretty good. Apart from the onion soup. WOULD NOT GO BACK FOR MORE ONION SOUP. They have this Hungarian wine called Bikaver - translated to bull's blood wine. Ok, I let that one slide, I doubt it actually contains bull's blood but I'm just not keen to risk it.
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| Forever alone at the Cat Cafe. Even the cats have deserted me. |
The shoes are a memorial for the thousands of Jews ordered to take off their shoes before being shot into the Danube River during WW2.
The Budapest baths are something I've been hanging out for. They just sound so magical and unique. I visited them twice over my four days in Budapest, they were just so relaxing and after you got out, you honestly felt a whole lot better about yourself and everything else in your life. The Szechenyi thermal bath is the largest medicinal bath in Europe. Two thermal springs supply the H20 - and their natural temperature is 74 - 77 degrees celsius. Budapest is actually quite a city of baths, the city sits of heaps of thermal pools, and the bath houses were all built in the 1900s, in beautiful Neo-baroque style. Honestly - they lived up to everything I was expecting. They're medicinal - so good for degenerative joint illnesses and orthopedic problems, but there's like 15 or so different pools, inside and out, and they all range from 27-38 degrees. And there is a whirlpool. I repeat - there is a whirlpool.
Like I said, I went twice; once with the Melbourne lads, and secondly with my American friend Charlie. The second time I went actually, we ran into a whole troupe of English and Australian friends we had met the night before at a pub - and the baths became a little hub of social activity and everyone reunited, and more people rolled up who we knew. You gotta go there with mates - the first day I think I was there for 5 hours! It was really fun. The time just passes...it's so relaxing, man. The outside bath was probably the coolest, but we sampled all of them. Obviously. When in Budapest. The thing I enjoyed was that it was half locals and half tourists. The locals will literally go there from opening to closing in Winter (9am - 10pm). You can just sit there and hang about, people played chess in the water, there's a bar and restaurant...you can just hang out in the medicinal thermal pools when it's cold out. I think this is the single best thing that I've seen in my life. No, a close second to Pop Tarts.
There's a special way to use the baths, and we tried them. When in Hungary;
1. Shower
2. Relax in warm pool
3. Cold pool
4. Sauna
5. Ice bath
6. Steam bath
7. Cold shower
8. Pools with different water temperatures
9. Shower
10. And repeat
Le sigh. The sauna and ice bath were mine and Charlie's favourites. We did that routine about 5 times...so good. What was not, however, so good, were the photographers. Hate to say it, but when older men seemed to be taking a photo of the baths, and so you move out of the way (you know, to get out of the photo) and then you see the lens follow you... So that's why most of the photos are snagged from the net, cause a) it was dark both times I went and b) I just didn't want to be that person with the camera.
If you do one thing in your life - go to the Budapest Baths. They are arguably better than Space Mountain and Pop Tarts.
~Copyright Caty Gierer, 2014~
~Copyright Caty Gierer, 2014~
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