Buda side of Pest

Today we concentrated our sight seeing to the Buda side, starting on castle hill. It was much of the same as yesterday with big, pompous buildings and statues of important people. Although it was nice, one of the most beautiful sights was the parliament building from across the river. Some sdectio0ns of very decorative walls next to the Mathias church were also impressive.

On the way down from castle hill we had some lunch at a local café and I had some pasta with poppy. It turned out to be pasta with a big pile of sweet poppy seeds on top, not so nice for lunch, or in any way actually. From there we ventured on to Gellert hill with the large freedom monument on the top and an old citadel. But it was a small detour on the way up that was the nicest. A small church built in to a system of caves, a crucifix and an altar closed in by bare rocks.

We got a small audio tour that was rather bad but the solemn atmosphere, mild temperature and beautiful light inside was great. Later on, when we headed down from the hill the clock was nearing five and the market hall that we were supposed to see was closed. Instead we stopped at a café to plan our future trips and walked slowly back to the hostel.

Tonight we will have some Hungarian/Thai fusion for dinner and join the hostels daily pub crawl, I suspect that Jethro Tulls Budapest might be the theme song for tonight.

First day in Budapest

After we got to our hostel in Budapest we were rather tired and felt kind of icky so we each snuck a quick shower, even though we didn’t have our beds yet. The hostel, which is located in an old apparent building in central pest (for those who don’t know, Budapest is split by the Danube into Buda, and Pest) , is a really nice place, clean with a smart design and nice staff.

We left the hostel around 11 and headed to a restuarant for som Goulash brunch. After that we to a walk along Andrassy street, visited the rather disturbing house of terror – a museum of communist and nazi atrocities – and ended up on on Hero’s square. Hero’s square is a big plaza with a bunch of statues and monuments honouring kings of old and other hero’s.  We continues from there to a large park and checked out the castle inside and some famous baths although we didn’t go for a bath since we didn’t have any swimwear.

So instead we headed over to a train station with a name that I can neither pronounce or write, it was a nice old building and we found a small vendor selling sweat breads. We bought a small bag and sat down in the grass for a bit of a rest. From there we continued on to see the parliament building, which was huge, and really awesome to look at. Something that was even better to see was the view of castle hill and the river. We walked along the river front until we came up on a bunch of shoes. It turned out to be a monument over the many Jews that were shot by the river bank so that their bodies would just fall in the river. I think a series of bronze shoes left on the bank is a very appropriate way to honour those people.

That was pretty much the end of the day, we had some dinner, bought some breakfast and went back to the hostel.

Train troubles

Our continued journey to Budapest started out Ok and we got to Hamburg then Berlin with little trouble. Our next train was going to take us from Berlin to Prague where we would get on a sleepertrain to Budapest. At around 10 minutes to seven we rolled in to Dresden station, schedualed to leave 20 minutes later but after a short while we got a message that we were stuck in Dresden for 60 min due to border problems with the Czech republic. During this time Yini and I decided to have some dinner but as it turned out they could only serve cold food, which was OK but rather boring.

60 minutes increased to 70 and our window for stocking up on breakfast in Prague shrank to half an hour. As we rolled through the beautiful German landscape in to the Czech republic we slowed down rather a lot and I was getting more and more nervous as we got closer to Prague much too slowly. When we got off we had just a few minutes to find our train and ran like crazy, big bags on our backs. We managed to find our train and as soon as we go on we cheered happily. We shared our compartment with a bunch of British guys and had pretty good night.

We got to Budapest finally after some 24 hours on the train and despite our troubles we were happy.

Kort stop i Köpenhamn

När vi kom fram till köpenhamn viade det sig att Yini var tvungen att skaffa ett första klass kort till tåget vilket blev nära nog dubbelt så dyrt som planerat. För att råda bot på detta sökte vi andra alternativ och fastnade till slut för standardbiljetter till budapest och sen vidare med lokala biljetter därifrån om vi fick för oss att resa runt i landet. Dock blev vi tvungna att stanna i Köpenhamn en natt och får ta tåget vidare imorn.

Så, nu sitter jag på ett hostel i Köpenhamn och skriver efter en eftermiddag på Ströget. Hoppas att resten av resan blir trasselfri.

Taking the train to Europe

Having realized I will finish my book far to quickly if I keep reading, I am now writing some stuff of my own. I am sitting on the train and we have just rolled in to Lund. In about one hour me and Yini will get off in Copenhagen and from there continue out in Europe, first goal Budapest. Right now we don’t know much more than that, more updates will follow.

Exploring in slippers

The first week of Yinis visit was spent mostly on walking around, parks, downtown, museums and that kind of stuff. And when we were not walking around, mostly staying at home relaxing with a Stig Larsson book in our hands. Yini introduced me to the trilogy and even though I dont usually read criminal novels or the like, i am completely caught in them.

However, on Monday it was time for something a little more adventurous. We hopped on a tram out to Saltholmen and picked an island in the archipelago rather much at random. We ended up on the small island Köpstadsö with a parking lot by the ferry pier full of wheel barrows – the only form of transportation on the island. After a short walk we found a small wooden platform on the edge of some round cliffs, full of kids and families. We got a spot on the far end of the platform and while Yini finished her book, I went for a swim in the sea, slightly chilly but refreshing.

So far, pretty much the same as any other day except the change in scenery but when i had dried up we went for a stroll across to the other side of the island and, according to a badly drawn map there was supposed to be a path from there back to the pier. we did not find the path but decided to climb on the cliffs by the water all the way back. This turned out to be more of an adventure than we had hoped and we ended up climbing over cliffs and going through thick forests in a way that we were not prepared for. Exploring the rocky terrain and stinging nettle covered forest floor in slippers and shorts is not a good idea. Poor Yini had to suffer for my bad choice of way back. Perhaps there is a reason why explorers on TV always have proper shoes and long trousers.

In the end it was a nice day though and we had fun.

Yini is back, yay!

My girlfriend finally arrived in Göteborg this morning. So far we haven't really done much but having her here makes me very happy. Will tell you more when anything fun happens.

 

As soon as a girl comes to stay in my flat it becomes overwhelmed with cosmetics, just look at my table.

mountainboarding

I really like mountainboarding in the rain. A mountainboard is essentially a skateboard but with big knobbly tires that enables it to go on grass, gravel, mud, dirt and so on. I borrowed one from my friend a few days ago and it is great. I love going down a grassy hill without being restricted to the roads. And doing it in the pouring rain is even better. There are less shouty people in my way and the rain keeps me from getting hot and sweaty when carrying this rather heavy piece of kit up the hill all the time. Also i like the feeling of being able to go skateboarding in the rain. With a normal skateboard you feel like going skateboarding then you look out the window and see it is wet, silently  you mutter “oh cock” under your breath and that’s it. With this thing though, when you feel like skateboarding, you just go skateboarding. I wish i had my own, and I wish i had some breaks for the really steep hills.