Very Surprised in Vienna and Salzburg

Vienna, Austria- May 27th
We arrived in Vienna around 5:30 and Liesi, our couchsurfing host had other obligations so we couldn’t meet up at her house until 9. We dropped our bags in the luggage lockers before heading out to explore Vienna. We came to Vienna without too many expectations, as we knew it was a big city but we were pleasantly surprised. We first stumbled upon a gorgeous park where tons of people our age were milling about and laying around drinking juice and beer and just relaxing outside.



We sat and people watched for a while, enjoying Austrian fashion and getting a good feeling about Vienna in total, before heading to the Museumquartier.

We knew most museums would be closed since it was after hours but we found a museum opening which was free and since it was the opening, there were free beer and wine so we took part in that trying to understand the exhibit which was something about technology and participation and art, but it was mostly in German so we were pretty confused. We liked being part of the art world though and watching the other Austrian artists interact. We walked into the main square and were taken at again, how many people were just sitting outside with their friends on these really cool purple sculptures that were created for people to lounge around in.

Vienna just has amazing art that you sit on everywhere. We never realized it would be so artistic. We read about a restaurant close by in our guidebook and we were starving and once we got there we were not at all disappointed. I had zucchini spelt cakes with pumpkin chutney and Ellie had a tofu stir-fry and coming from Eastern Europe is was so nice to have proper gourmet vegetarian food.

A sign on the way home from dinner(apparently a lot of people confuse this street for the street that Dr. Freud lived on, it's only a few letters different. I'm guessing these people got sick of people knocking on the door asking if this was Freud's house)

After dinner, we headed back to the train station where our lockers were stuck and we had to get help from security, but we successfully got out our things and headed over to Liesi’s. Liesi’s flat is in the centre of Vienna and is absolutely huge and amazing. Liesi is a university student studying sociology and working as a music promoter. She has the cutest dreadlocks we have ever seen and was really nice. She explained that she was super busy so we would get a key and we had a strawberry drink with her and then we went bed.

The next morning, we decided to attempt to do laundry at her flat since it was free. The washing went fine except the dryer wouldn’t work and just kept steaming our clothing and making it sweaty and stinky and not dry at all. It was pretty classic because all of the cycle directions are in German so we have the translator and are trying to decipher what each cycle means in German when we sort out that one is called beautiful cycle and Ellie brought up the point that maybe we put it on that one since our clothes are beautiful. Either way, we ended up draping our clothes all over the spare room that Liesi let us sleep in.



We decided to walk everywhere that day to get a good feel for the city. Vienna has bike rentals located around the city that are free for the first hour and then only 2 euros each hour afterward, but we didn’t have a credit card for deposit. Everyone uses bikes in Vienna and they have huge bike trails that are the same size as the sidewalk, all over the city.


We went back and had a salad at the museumquartier and walked around the Ringstrasse which is a famous circular street in Vienna with most shopping and main attractions. We saw the Vienna Opera House and a bunch of gorgeous architecture.

opera house at night




Some construction was being done on this palace like city hall



We bought some gourmet cheese and ate it in a park and then walked to the KunstHausWien which is a museum built by an environmental artist who built the entire building without a straight line and the floor is not flat because he believed that humans lose their senses if they don’t engage their sense of balance and touch when they take every step.



It was gorgeous with lots of tiles and crazy colors. We saw GUY BOURDIN, an amazing fashion photographer who took really subversive photos for early French Vogue, etc. It was an amazing exhibit.

one the way home we found a barge on the river that had a swimming pool and a tiki bar, if we had a little more time, we would have loved to jump in for a while.


After, we bought some gorgonzola gnocchi from the grocery and cooked Liesi dinner and drank red wine before calling it a night and heading to sleep to prepare for our trip to Salzburg the next day.

The next day, we took an afternoon train to Salzburg, birthplace of Sound of Music and Mozart, where our host Christiane picked us up from the train station in her car with her son Yoshi. Christy is an amazing artist who is getting really well-known and is having exhibits in Barcelona this summer. She does awesome photography as well as “happenings” which is art that involves spectators. She drove us to her cute little flat where we met her boyfriend Felix and we all sat outside in her garden where she showed us her portfolio, made us chocolate ice cream with peaches and talked about traveling from the US and Austria’s politics, including their position on being part of the European Union. We talked for ages and we learned a lot about Yoshi and her and found her laid-back parenting pretty interesting.


Yoshi is 3 and has a funny habit of ssaying “Shiza” (which means shit in German) every 5 seconds.

It was really weird playing with a little kid who doesn’t understand that you don’t speak the same language. It felt bad not being able to answer him when he asked us questions, but it was cool how much we could communicate even with just hand gestures.

The next day, we took a day trip to Werfen to see the famous Werfen Ice Caves. We got on the train early, enjoying the really pretty train ride to Werfen next to the River. After we got off the train, we had to take a shuttle to the ice caves which was really funny because as soon as we sat on the shuttle, a huge group of high school kids from the states gets on with thick Southern accents, like not South Carolina or Texas, we’re talking Alabama and sure enough, they were from Mobile Alabama. And I bet you can’t guess what they were doing in Salzburg? Oh, just a little mission trip, helping the poor unfortunate souls of Salzburg. Salzburg is nothing like Africa or a 3rd world country and is far more beautiful than almost anywhere in the states, but the kids from Alabama in their Jesus shirts are doing their part for Austria. That aside, the drive was twisted and turned and steep, but we arrived and then had to hike 30 minutes to take a cable car to the top of the mountain and then hike another 30 minutes uphill.










We wore lots of layers because we were heading to the Ice Caves, but it was very hot outside. After an hours hike, we were breaking a sweat.

Our thighs were burning and we were huffing, but the views were shocking and probably the prettiest mountain views we have seen so far. Once getting into the ice caves, Ellie was chosen to be a lantern holder so she held a fire lantern which was a little scary as while in the ice caves we have to climb 1400 steps, no joke.


The ice caves were really cool though and go 42 km deep into the cave and we only walked 1 km of it. The ice was glittery and magical looking, as well as huge and made shapes. It was totally worth the climb and the trip and the freezing cold weather change from the summer heat outside.










Upon arriving back in Salzburg, we got some Indian food and walked around town.


Salzburg is really pretty and there were some tourist attractions but it already mid-afternoon and we were tired from the ice caves so we explored near the river and watched an animal rights protest in front of some big chain store. We also made a pit stop at HM so I could buy some new shorts and then headed back to Christy’s to see what the plans were. Christy was working on a project with her art partner, a dance student also named Ellie. We hung out with them, drinking a few beers and they invited us to this Milk Festival that was happening in Salzburg that happens every year.


It’s a celebration of dairy so you wear all white and they sell things like cheese and yogurt and milk and vodka in milk cartons. It was odd and there were people dressed in different exciting white costumes.




We got there a little late since Christy had a hard time finding somewhere to send Yoshi, but we stayed for about an hour before heading with Felix, Christy and Ellie into the Salzburg countryside to go to their friends house party in the woods. When we got there, there was a bonfire and a dj with a proper turntable, playing weird techno. We couldn’t sort out how he was getting electricity without a generator in the middle of the woods but he was doing it somehow. We had some red wine and hung out amongst all of Christy and Ellie’s interesting art friends who didn’t speak much English until we were exhausted and went to sleep in the back of Felix’s camper van with his 8 yeard old daughter who had been sleeping their the entire time we were at the party. I told you parenting was a lot more relaxed in Europe. Felix woke up Sandra(his daughter) and he and Christy slept at their friends house while we slept in the van’s pull out bed.


Waking up the next morning in the mountains was amazing and we took some photos and waited for Christy, Sandra and Felix to wake up and drive us back to get our train.



Our trip to Salzburg was really amazing because it was so nice doing what the locals do and not just seeing Mozart’s house, as well as feeling inspired by Christy’s amazing political art. She gave us two of her photos with nice messages on the back and invited us back whenever we want this summer. We were so lucky to get her as a host to show us a different side of Salzburg.

Sleepy Slovenia

Upon arriving in Ljublijana, we actually sat in a McD’s for a ½ hour waiting to catch our bus to the small lake town of Bled. We would have liked to walk around but until you are wearing a backpack that is ½ your weight and carry 2 sleeping bags, a laptop, and a jar of peanut butter and/or olives, you can’t understand how nice it is to sit on a bench with your belongings. We caught the bus for just 6 euro and the ride was really lovely as we snaked through the Julian Alps, arriving in Bled just in time as a crazy Slovenian woman who smelled horrible and was speaking rapid Slovenian to herself sat in the seat next to us.
We found our hostel with little problems as Bled is tiny and centered around one huge lake. We couldn’t check in until 6 for some reason so we left our stuff behind the bar, went to the grocery and got some more peanut butter and nasty thick white bread and made some sandwiches while sitting next to the lake.




Lake Bled is truly the stuff from fairy-tales. It has an island in the middle with a church that gondoliers take people out to visit and a castle that sits on a cliff overlooking the city.




The lake has tons of ducks and swans and after our picnic, we walked back to the hostel, met our friend Amanda( who we met in Manchester) who was meeting us in Bled for two days and checked in. Guess who we see while walking back to the hostel? The same rude Canadian at the same place we are. He seems to be following us and it is not good! Good news though was we got a 6 euro discount each for the owner being late to check us in so we decided to have dinner at what appeared to be a swanky and very modern place on the lake. Slovenia is dirt cheap even though it’s on the euro now so we got two huge salads, 3 chai teas and a huge fruit parfait for 25 euros and enjoyed the fact that it felt like we were on real vacation, eating real vegetables and fancy things like sundried tomatoes instead of backpacking. It was such a nice night and then we went home and caught up, getting to bed early.


The quaint little town, from our hostel window.


May 24
The next day, we booked a white water rafting trip on the River Sava Dolinka which is said to be about a Class II or III rapids. The trip was really cheap and we were on a boat with 2 middle-aged Israeli couples who thought they were really clever by “forgetting” to paddle leaving us 3 and the guide to paddle the whole time. How you “forget” you are on a rafting trip is beyond me, but while this was annoying, it didn’t bother me too much until the guide explained to us that if we didn’t get the next rapid right, we would all die if we fell off since the rocks would suck us under. Even that couldn’t get through their head and since it was our scariest rapid, I found myself screaming at them as the boat is sideways heading for a huge rock and the guide is shouting expletives at them up front. We made it though, surprisingly. After the rafting, which was calm otherwise, the company gave us a shot of traditional Slovenian blueberry vodka with blueberry’s actually in it before driving us back. We looked around and got some sandwiches before taking a nap in the hostel for 2 hours and then getting ready for dinner. We went to dinner in this little pub that was recommended to us by everyone and I had spaghetti while Ellie and Amanda had seafood risotto for so cheap. Then we headed to this other restaurant to try Bled Cream Cake which was invented in this restaurant. It was the best cream cake I have ever had and we pigged out on it, putting in a coma and clutching our bellies, heading back to the hostel with any plans of going out foiled.

May 25
We left Bled this morning to head towards Vienna, Austria by train. I spilled my bottle of water all over my purse which caused a minor flood in the Ljubljana train station and caused minor panic as I tried to air dry Ipod’s and travel reading lights while Ellie is argued about the train timetables with a Slovenian woman but as I type this, the two of us are sitting in our own little car with our bags propped up around us and the green Slovenian country side around us as the Julian Alps fade away, loving train travel and freedom.

Ahoy Matey!

Arriving on Providinost, our boat for the week, was really exciting. We had to climb over a ton of boats to get to ours, but had some help from Max and Tony, the Croatian crew guys who work on our boat. We met our Irish tour guide Kathryn and a couple other passengers and then found our absolutely tiny room below deck next to the fuel tanks in what we lovingly referred to as the “dungeon” the place for everybody who was to cheap to upgrade to the deck. The dungeon was small but cute and something we came to love throughout the rest of the week. The basic set-up of the sail is that we leave the port early in the morning around 6, sail all day, stop for some random swims off the boat in the Adriatic and arrive at our island or coastal town around 4 everyday to explore the tiny towns, have dinner and drinks and fun. The places we went were a bit of a blur and we had some itinerary changes due to bad weather but being on the boat was the best bit. They rang a bell for breakfast and lunch. Lunch was always amazing and homemade with fresh soup, salad, bread, roasts(they gave us some extra veggie stuff) and if we were lucky, sometimes some cake. They had a bar on board and a couple of sundecks. The thing that made this trip for us though, other than the rugged mountain landscape floating by in contrast with the blue sea and quaint islands, were the people. The minute we met the people of this trip we knew we were going to have the best time. We instantly bonded with Emma, a girl from Glasgow(who would become our best friend on the boat), Joel and Amy(a couple) from Australia who were two years younger than us, Megan and Jeff(another Australian couple) who were 5 years older than us and Ang and Kelly(a pair of best friends from Australia, living in London). We all slept in, ate lunch together, egged each other on to get into the freezing Adriatic, got sun burns and had dinner and drinks together everyday. Ang, who is deaf also taught us a bit of naughty sign language and told us that she was the youngest person in Australia to ever wear hearing aids. It was her birthday on the boat so we had a huge party for her and the crew did a BBQ so that was also a lot of fun.

Our tour went to Makarska, Mijet, Korcula, Dubrovnik, Hvar and back to Split. Our two favorites, aside from Split were totally Hvar and Dubronik. Dubrovnik is really cool since it’s the only walled city in Croatia with walls still intact and you can hike around them with fabulous views and Hvar is really posh and slowly becoming jam packed with celebrities like Paris Hilton. Hvar is really cute though with the whole town centered around the marina. Below you can find a ton of photos from all the islands and I will let them convince you that Croatia is somewhere you have to visit, instead of writing about every single day in painstaking detail.


Providinost! Our home for a whole week...


Bridge to Dubrovnik


Dubrovnik from the tower on the city's walls


Kelly sticking her head out of one of the towers on the Dubrovnik city walls, with the sea crashing below.


Ellie recreating that moment


Since Dubrovnik is a walled city still, you walk by everyone's roofs and even pass a little nursery school on your way around the walls. Homes on one side and an amazing view on the other.


The sea view


Ellie, Emma and Kathryn, our tour guide hanging around on the walls waiting for the group.


Kelly and Ang in jail




Dubrovnik from the walls again


one big happy family, although there were a few exceptions to that rule.




You can drink directly from this fountain in the town because the water comes from some nice stream or something.


Concentrating very hard because if you can stand on this tiny little platform for ten seconds, you are guaranteed to come back to Croatia and get married or some other folklore. It is very very hard and we both failed miserably.


Kelly, Emma, Megan and Ellie enjoying a cocktail from a hip little bar inside the walls.



our first swim in the Adriatic and it was freezing. It is fair to say we could not feel our toes at this point.



Waiting for a towel.



Still smiling because I haven't jumped in yet.



The island of Makarska.


Entrance to Makarska's downtown


on the way to Mijet


Our first swim off the boat. The water is gorgeous.






Kelly and Emma, relaxing.


Amy, Emma, Megan and Ellie freaking out about a fish.


Drinking frozen drinks on top of this very cool tower where you have to climb a ladder to sit on top and the waiters bring the drinks up and down by a pulley system with their hands.


The bar.


The sunset from the roof terrace.


This may look like an ordinary hill but on the other side of this hill lies Bosnia, believe it or not and we were very excited about this for some reason.

All of the below pictures are from Ang's birthday on board.


Ang and Kelly


Amy, Ellie and Jeff


Megan, Kelly and Joel


The birthday girl at midnight with her straw necklace, loving handcrafted.


Public Transport, Croatia style.


Test tubes of beer, similar to Poland.


The Croatian Dalmatian Coast


Pizza Party on the Rocks in Hvar. One of the last nights of the cruise.


Later that night in Hvar at the Kiva bar, they do this thing called Tequila Boom Boom, involving shots of Tequila and wearing a big helmet and getting your head banged on by the bartender and surrounding patrons.

Emma hardly surviving a Boom Boom.


Amy in action.


Amy, Sally, Kelly and Joel


Back in Split, saying good-bye and eating our last lasagne together. Emma and Ellie.






At the end of trip, we all went out to lunch together even though the trip was over before crying like teenagers leaving summer camp and vowing to keep in touch. Amy and Joel actually ended up catching the train with us up to Zagreb before heading on to Budapest. Emma was heading for Hvar for a few more days and then to the states for a month with her Scottish friends, but is luckily moving to Melbourne, same as us, so we will live near her there hopefully. Kathryn offered us her mom’s B&B in Ireland for future visits and we left feeling so lucky that we signed up for round trip sail with these people.

After going to the beach for an hour with Joel and Amy and seeing some weird medical training class with this woman screaming on shore with “blood” on her arm that we totally thought was real, until she stood up wiped the blood off and laughed, we caught our train to Croatia’s capital Zagreb. On the train was unfortunately this stupid idiot Canadian guy who we met at a bar the night before in Split who asked us where we from and when I replied “America,” went on a diatribe asking “ Well are you Mexican, Peruvian, Canadian, from South America, Central America, North America? You have just confirmed my one big pet peeve about Americans, blah blah blah.” So rude and uncalled for that we responded curtly that we were AmericaN, therefore from America. He was just looking to pick a fight which could hardly be taken serious what with his striking resemblance to Gilbert Godfrey at the age of 20. Imagine my thrill when he gets the seat next to me on the train with his very 90’s Ray-Ban’s pulled down on his head. We suffered through it arriving in Zagreb before saying farewell to Amy and Joel, who were sleeping in the station to catch an early morning train to Hungary. We found our hostel in a quiet residential, slightly spooky neighborhood away from the city centre around 10 at night and decided that we were too tired to explore Zagreb’s nightlife, instead taking the hostel up on their free welcome beer and using their free internet before crawling in our room that strangely resembled Melissa’s room in Key West. The next morning, we headed to the train station from the hostel and caught a train to Ljublijana, the capital of Slovenia, leaving Croatia behind.

Plitvice Lakes, Split and Good-Byes

Upon arriving at the Croatian border, Carlos our tour guide was asked for some documents that he was nervous about and we had to wait at the border for about an hour until the border control asked Carlos where his passengers were primarily from and when he said Australia, UK and the states, they said “Two beers for us please and we let you go.” He gladly got them the beer from our cooler and they totally let us through! What a sweet job they have, just demanding beverages from motorists for border passage. We had a long laugh about that and Carlos was very relieved. We drove what felt like ages before stopping for a rest at the open air Balkan war museum in some tiny Croatian village. Apparently the story is that the Croatian people wanted to stop the Slavs from entering their town with the tanks and wanted to protest the war and they all fought against the Slavs and kept them out of the village for two whole days.





The tanks and other army machines are still in that spot to commemorate the people of the village. The building next to the museum is absolutely chock full of bullet holes and it’s so hard to imagine a huge massacre war happening right where we were standing in beautiful Croatia.

Along the drive you can see so many abandoned houses that the Muslims left or were dragged from and nobody still lives in them because they have been “tainted” by Muslims and nobody wants to live there.
The winding drive through Croatia was gorgeous and we stopped at a little town called Grad Slunj to take a look at these waterfalls that run directly through the houses that were built on top of them.




I couldn’t believe how well the infrastructure of the houses was built around the waterfalls and decided that whoever lived in those houses would probably have to pee 24/7. After Grad Slunj, we got into the Plitvice Lakes area and checked into our camp ground, including our cute bungalows that we would all be sleeping that night.





We were hoping to have a BBQ except there wasn’t one so we went with some people from our group to the restaurant and ate some overpriced spaghetti and bought some Croatian wine from the convenience store on the camp ground, took a shower and all sat around a picnic table, drinking our respective beverages and telling our funniest stories from back home. I began to really feel like I would miss some of the people on this tour even though some of them drove us absolutely crazy.



The next morning we headed to Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia’s largest and oldest National Park. It has something crazy like 80 waterfalls and the prettiest water that you have ever seen, which you are tauntingly not permitted to swim in. We walked around with a few girls from our group, enjoying the scenery and being the first ones in the park while it was still peaceful before it became crowded with Japanese tourists, making kissy-faced peace sign photos next to rocks and random trees. We hiked all over the places and I won’t write any more than that so you can just see the 4,000 photos we took of waterfalls and loveliness.



























After the park, we continued our drive down to Split, arriving in the late afternoon and checked into the private apartments the tour provided us. We got settled, made a card for Carlos to thank him for being wonderful and then went for a walk around the Riviera waterfront, all made of marble and shining.







We got some really cheap slices of pizza for dinner and some gelato, noting how much Split was inspired by the Venetians with their squares, winding lanes and minor confusion. We went to the Ghetto Bar where we were supposed to meet everyone and were so pleasantly surprised to see the cutest bar ever with fake roses, heart tables, all outside in the middle of ruins underneath someone’s clean laundry hanging from a line.
It has a book store, a salon and apparently hosts art exhibits as well.









We had the best hand-shaken Caprioska of my life and we just hung out with all 26 people from our tour until the wee hours of the morning when we headed back to the apartment, saying good-bye the next morning, packing our things and walking to the sailboat at the harbor, our home for the next week.

<3

Everyone! We love you all so much and are simply having the time of our lives and it takes us so long to blog and we have horrible reception a lot of the time, but don't worry. Some new blogs are in the works including Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. Keep checking back and don't think we have eaten to much spaghetti and died of a heart attack in Rome or married a Greek and are now drinking ouzo and breaking plates. We are still alive, still having the best time ever and still thinking of you all.

Bottom Line: KEEP CHECKING!

Hungry for Hungary

May 13
We left Poland, crossing the border into Slovakia, stopping for lunch at this rustic little rest stop along the road in the Donovally area. We all run into the toilets, much to the woman’s dismay behind the counter. Normally we have to pay to use the toilets everywhere so this was a treat because when your bladder is bursting, it’s not too fun looking for change at the bottom of your luggage. You even have to pay to use the toilet in bars you are patrons at.

the tour guide is required to stop for at least 45 minutes if her drives for more than 4 hours in a day, so Carlos is taking a load off


We continued to drive through the Slovakian countryside, enjoying the hills and the rape seed fields everywhere. We didn’t stop anymore in Slovakia though and pushed through to Hungary, arriving in Budapest around 4. We had huge hostel room dilemmas with some very prissy people on our tour refusing to sleep in a hostel room with two people that they didn’t know, so we ended up trading just to sort it out and let them shut up.

our not-so-bad hostel


Fed up, we just wanted to spend the evening alone so went out for falafel at this place that was recommended in our book and was conveniently a 10 minute walk from our hostel.

Church (or something?) next to falafel place

It was amazing, they just give you the pita and you put whatever you want in it. The area around our hostel was so hip and student-filled. We found some absolutely fabulous bars that were perfect for us and places we would go if back home. Hungarians are so trendy and beautiful that it’s fairly unreal. We went to a place called Szimpla that looks like a garage from the outside until you go in and it’s the biggest bar you’ve ever seen with live music, cool graffiti filled room with vintage furniture and even a car that you can sit in while sipping your delightful Hungarian beer.



from our photos you can't tell how busy the place was. It was just huge! there were at least 15 different rooms through out the warehouse of a bar.

We also went to Kaplung, which was so relaxed and had free wifi and people just showed up on their bikes with their puppies after going to art gallery openings down the street. We were in love. I swear if I spoke Hungarian, I would move to Budapest in a flash. Ellie’s great-grandpa is actually from Hungary, we found out when we called her mom that night.

Kelly in front of the Opera house on our way bck to the hostel

After a few beers, we walk back to our hostel around 11 just in time to check out Kristine doing some karaoke to Cher in the hostel bar and then we turn into bed for an early morning of sightseeing.



May 14th

The next morning, we wake up early, eat more shitty bread and cheese, make sandwiches for lunch out of the bread and cheese. We head towards the synagogue which is the second oldest synagogue in the world and the largest in Europe. It was absolutely stunning, we peeked in the main room, but didn’t do the tour to save money.




After the synagogue, we headed down to Danube River that cuts Budapest into two parts, the Buda side and the Pest side. The Buda side is the bit that has the older sights, like Castle Hill and the Citadel. The Pest side is where we were staying and has the cool bars, universities and residences. Buda was not a disappointment though as we hiked up to the top of Castle Hill, taking the view, peeking our head into the art gallery that used to be the castle and enjoying how absolutely breathtaking Budapest is, both agreeing it’s the best place we’ve been so far.



cathedral on our way to Buda


the ORIGINAL Bridge of Lions



some views from the bridge between Buda and Pest




Budapest Castle


on the way up the hill



At the top of Castle Hill:







The citadel





After walking around, exhausting ourselves we took the metro, after some a Hungarian couple gave us free metro tickets, to the thermal baths. The yellow metro line we rode was the oldest metro system on continental Europe!

The entrance to the Baths

Once at the thermal baths, we were so excited, changing in our private cabins and then taking full advantage of the different temperature baths and the waterfalls that gave massages, as well as the indoor pools and jacuzzis and the sauna. It was so fun and different, but very much like a community pool housed in an absolutely huge and fantastic building. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done.



we saw our far share of speedos




We took the metro back to our hostel, got more falafel and went to dinner with the group and got a beer to keep them company. We went back to Kaplung for some more beers and wifi and headed home, wishing we could stay in Budapest longer, but knowing we’ll come back someday.


The next day, we left Budapest and continued on en route to Croatia, but we stopped first for a swim on Lake Balaton, enjoying the sunshine and the freezing water.



Lake Balaton is sometimes called Hungary’s ocean, because it’s huge and looks like an ocean. We played catch with a ball with the group before saying good-bye to Hungary and heading to the Croatian border.