Day 25 - Fooking Starvin

Our final day in Hungary started with disaster, we headed out to the tourist information recommended water park, and it was catering for a slightly younger target audience, despite the trek, we made a decision to bail and go to the one we had originally had in mind. Once back in town we decided to hit the “house of terror” first.

This is a museum dedicated to the persecution, torture and execution of Hungarians under the Nazi and Soviet regimes from 1944-1945 then 1945-1989. The exhibit was interesting; however by the end we agreed that the histories of the entire eastern bloc were much of muchness in the 20^th century.

Mick wasn’t feeling his best so he didn’t join us for the second water park. We knew this was a trek out of town, but we weren’t sure how much of one. Needless to say, we were in for an experience. We got the metro to the end of the line, switched to another train and started getting that a mammoth 14 stops. However it didn’t really stop at stations, in fact to quote Colman “this isn’t a stop, it’s just a place where the doors open”.

But eventually we reached the infamous “stop 14” where we dismounted onto a deserted “platform” in the middle of fooking nowhere. We then rang our taxi number and he arrived, explained it was a fixed rate to the park and took off on the world’s smallest paved road which went through various floods and over a mountain. It was looking bleak until there stretching out in front of us... was not the water park, but the huge Hungaroring formula one circuit, where just the week before Filipe Massa had been involved in a 125 mph crash.

My day was made, but the water park was icing on an already far too sweet cake. Rain earlier meant the place was empty, but the weather had improved. Over 1 mile of slides, and needless to say, we hit every one, and a lot more than once. Perfect.

We headed back to Budapest and started packing for our 4am get up.

Day 24 - Even more Hungary

Hungary day 2 was my first real active day in Budapest, I was well rested and well pumped to see the city. Our free tour was at 2, so we started with some light shopping. Bantered around in H&M and Pull & Bear. After that we headed to the apartment for lunch and tried to reach our tour. We were late of course so when a low chain blocked our way we simply jumped it, before the fat Hungarian guard tried to kick us out of the British Embassy for being terrorists...

We got to the tour anyway and started walking around the city guided by our native tour guide. Her English wasn’t great, the route wasn’t perfect, and her style involved too much lecture. Because of this the tour was really lacking. What was humerous however was the horsemen on top of the castle hill. Every year local students touch the horses balls for good luck in their sex lives. Because of this the statue has gone green as copper does, but the balls remain gold. Lol.

After the tour we decided it was time to experience the baths. Several pools and saunas in once facility made it fairly expensive at 12 euro for 2 hours, but really worth it for health and fitness reasons. I guess I was the only one disappointed there were no really cold pools. Most were around 38 Celsius, with saunas as hot as 100 Celsius. I’m not very heat resistant, so I bailed on the hot ones, the others tried em out, didn’t last long. We finished the trip with some lengths before messing around in the 38 degree outdoor pool.

Thunder and lightning rolled in, so we bailed on the two hour mark. On our way home however we passed the victory monument, in the back ground lighting flashed every few seconds but it was dry right at that moment. It has to be one of the most impressive things I have ever seen.

That night we ate in TGI Fridays, needless to say I destroyed free refills.