Budapest for a Weekend

So at the pre party for our “student club nights N2N” I found out alot of people were going to Budapest the upcoming weekend March 5^th to 7^th. So Me, Oystein, Chris, Ruann decided that we were going to go to Budapest that weekend. (and yes we actually went not like my drunk decision to go to Amsterdam). I found myself planning the trip so it was a little chaotic at first (ie no return ticket). But the trip ended up working out well and everything fell into place.

We left in the morning at 9am and arrived in Budapest at 5pm. Budapest is very similar to Prague, it’s cheap, has a castle, Old buildings, old town etc etc. In Budapest we stayed at the number one party hostel in the world Carpe Noctum, they were super friendly at this hostel. When we got there the guy just lead us right to the room and made us some tea, we didn’t pay till like an hour later, and we also didn’t have to check out till 11 at night on Sunday!

The first night we had delicious dinner, ribs and potatoes deff tasted just like they do at home in a restaurant, and we sat beside a live band which was cool as well. The food I ate in Budapest was by far the best I have had anywhere so far in Europe. I ate

- Ribs and Potatoes

- Goulash Soup

- Some traditional Hungarian meat

- New York Pizza

- Thai Food (Kung Pao Chicken)

The first night we went to this bar Zimpla . This is probably the most famous bar in Budapest, it was really bizarre. Spiral Staircase, leaf rooms, radio rooms, rooms with 1 seat inside, Bars made of wine bottles etc etc, At Zimpla we met up with lots of the other exchange students from VSE at Budapest. The next day we had planned to go to this free walking tour, so we woke up maybe 2 hours before it started but somehow we missed it, so instead that day we just saw Budapest famous castle and walked around a little bit. It was good we went to the castle that day because the museum was free that day for students. That night we went to the Rudas Bath Party with everyone from our hostel. What this was is its a Bath Party that Budapest has 4 times a year (and we picked the right weekend by chance :D) In case you don’t know Budapest has many hot baths throughout the centre of the city (similar to the Harrison hot springs) so when they are about to change the water at this one bath the rudas bath, they throw a giant party with a lights show, belly dancers, etc. It was a great time, they gave you money pouches so your money didn’t get wet, you could buy beers and such at the bars, and there were multiple bath rooms you could go to with different music. All and all it was a fun night, and something i don’t think i will ever get to do again.

The final day in Budapest, we set out again to make the 1pm guided walking tour. Again we woke up around 11am and again we missed the walking tour. We decided our punishment was we had to pay for the hop on hop off Bus tour. It was a good decision, the day ended up being cold and rainy and it was cool just hearing about the city from inside a bus. The bus took up to the 3 parts of Budapest, Buda, Obuda, and Pest. After our Bus tour we saw the parliament buildings (which is the 3^rd largest in world), and then we went to the most famous baths in Budapest the Szechenyi Bath. We end up catching the bus home at 1130pm. It was funny when we got to the bus station there was about 12 other VSE students heading back from Budapest as well. This bus was also super cool as it literally had a stewardess and you could order anything from beer to Chips from him.

(Me and Chris playing Chess at the Budapest Baths)

All and all Budapest was a cool place and I could definitely see myself going back there again.

My Patriotic Weekend (Bratislava)

So I have been super busy with travelling and exams and I haven’t had time to update my blog but i will try to update it a little bit now.

So from February 26 – 28^th, me and 7 of my new buddies from VSE went to Bratislava, Slovakia. Bratislava is probably 5 hours from Prague, the city is about half the size of Praha, but it is definitely not as nice as much of it was destroyed in WWII and such. The prices were good too, and even though the currency was on the euro, prices weren’t too much more than prices in Prague.

So with this trip I literally decided to go the night before, and I definitely did not know what to expect for instance

1) I forgot to bring my passport

2) I brought my travel backpack (which was WAY too big)

So the main reason we decided to go to Bratislava was to watch the Semi Final Olympic Hockey Game between Canada and Slovakia. Slovaks are super passionate about their hockey so we figured that since we were missing watching to hockey game in Vancouver that we might as well go to Bratislava to watch the hockey game wearing our Jerseys and Canadian Capes on the projection screen in the Old Town Square with 4000+ Slovaks. It was an absolutely incredible experience the people of Bratislava were soo surprised to find Canadians in Slovakia and we got sooo many warnings from nicer Slovaks saying that many people take their hockey too seriously and that we could get beaten up. This was very true some Slovaks were quite hostel and since the game started at 4am Bratislava time (thus people had more than a couple of drinks in them), because of this (and that is was fricken cold) we decided to leave after the first period (where we were up 2-0) in retrospect I am very glad we did this as we were even followed home after the we left.

(Mike and Chris (two good BC boys), The Scandinavians, Pictures from the watching the game)

On the second day we saw the city....kinda. It was the first nice day I had seen in my month in Europe (practically t-shirt weather) so to start off the day we walked to the Danube river and had a delicious meal while watching the Danube river. After lunch we walked around the old town area, we saw the castle and walked down some pedestrian only streets. What I found really cool about Bratislava is they have lots of funky random statues like this around the city in odd places.

After this we had some traditionally Slovak food. Which is Perogies and a mac and cheese like dish (which was dumplings (thick bread), goat cheese, and klobasa). It was good and super cheap I think it was only 4 euro’s at the restaurant.

So being with 7 other heavy drinking guys we started our epic pre party. This included 32 beers 16 shots and 4 Liters of Vodka between us. We finished the 4 Liters of Vodka in under 2 hours so it was pretty impressive.

The next morning we were all hungover and just like the first day Kerry started the day by shot gunning a warm beer, which was very impressive as we were all so doneskies the night before.

The rest of the last day we just walked around the city just dying / killing time / being tired from our 5 hours of sleep each till our bus came at 4pm. This trip was quite funny as we had 7 bus tickets for the 8 of us in a full bus. Somehow we all got into the bus and the bus driver drove even though I was sitting on the ground in the aisle for the first 2 hours till we got to Brno, Czech Republic second biggest city.

Immediately after we got off the bus we went directly the Canada US hockey game final which started at 9pm Czech Republic time. This game was awesome we watched it on projection screens at our campus bar. At one half of the bar there were 70 Canadians watching the hockey game on the one projection screen, and right behind us there were 70 Americans watching the hockey game on the projection screen. When we won we went absolutely crazy, people started getting shots and beers in rounds of 20’s. After this we declared Monday was a No school day because the fact that we are Canadians so we all went to Chapeau Rouge and jersey cape and all. Once there I met a lot of Americans and I rubbed my cape in there face, all and all i had a very drunk patriotic weekend.