Budapest...

Coolest, hostel, ever. We stayed at a place recommended to us called Grandio Party Hostel. The online description starts with ‘You can sleep when you’re dead, so don’t expect to get any here’, and it held up to its description pretty accurately. With an on site bar, and the most relaxed atmosphere I’ve come across yet in a hostel, we got there at 9ish and were hitting the less-than-1-euro beers half an hour later. Then they took us around Budapest, visitng a few different places including a club with a live big band (which was surprisingly awesome). A few of the guys were getting quite loose, including an Aussie from perth. Anyway, so we got back in the early hours and went to bed. Untill we got woken up.

“KNOCK KNOCK, IT’S THE PIGS”. Nah they didn’t actually say that. But we did get woken up by 3 Hungaian police coming into our room and arresting said guy from Perth, who apparently ripped a number plate off a car that night. It was pretty interesting, a talking point for the rest of the day. The guy had made himself pretty unpopular that night, and was being pretty roudy so we were all quite relived when they popo took him away at 8 in the morning so we could all get some sleep.

So we had decided, as much fun as Party Hostel was, that it’d be good to get some sleep the next day, so we changed hostels to nice quiet boring place, and then spend a few hours walking around Budapest. Untill then, we hadn’t realised how great a city it is – it really is one of the more beautiful cities I’ve ever visited. The old town is amazing, with a combination of huge monuments, huge parks, huge olden style buildings, all with a really genuine and not so touristy feel. We liked it so much we decided to delay the rest of our trip by a day to spend another night there. So that night we once again met Hugh, and spent the next day sightseeing. The sherrin made an appearance at a park, which is always good. Last night was quiet as well, a couple of good nights sleep has helped us feel a little better, I’m not even a third through my travels yet, so I’m trying not to be too wrecked.

So as per normal I’m writing this on a train, this time on the way to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. We’re all pretty excited; Croatia has been built up to be something special. We’re spending 2 nights there, then heading down to Dubrovnik for another couple of ngihts, where we’ve got our own small appartment for 2 nights, and is where I’ll be spending my birthday. Should be tops.