So we arrive in Budapest at the weeee hour of 5 am. Sunrise number one! As my dad said "sunrise in Budapest sounds like a song", indeed! Well we get off the bus and the metro is closed so we decided to take a taxi to where we were staying. Luckily Alda, who helped me in Paris and has helped me SO much with all of my travels- she studied abroad last spring- told us to stay in an apartment since it's safer. We did and it cost the same as a hostel so it was definitly worth it! Well this taxi...disaster. We get in, the guy hardly speaks English, no biggie. He takes us to our apartment which was literally only 10 minutes away, so easy! Well, then it comes time to pay. This guy was such a jerk and tried to charge us WAY too much and when we're telling him no he reaches over and takes it right from my wallet- seriously?! Grrr at this point I was getting afraid and there was no one around so I didn't want to do anything and just walked away. Me and Kelley were devastated but too tired to even try and fight this impossible battle. We wobbled up to our little apartment and slept for an other 2ish hours before getting ready to take on Buda and Pest. The city is actually divided, by the river, and the two sides are called Buda and the other Pest. Pest is the side we were on and its much more flat whereas you cross the river to Buda and it's hilly and has the palace and such.
Once we got up and ready we wanted to make sure to buy our train tickets for the next day to Croatia (stop #3 ;)). It was a long walk but we'd be able to see a lot of the city so we took off cameras in hand. It was about a 45 minute walk to the train station where we somehow were able to manage to buy our tickets from a lady who I'm not sure spoke really an English. From here we kept the walk, which literally turned into a massive loop, around the Pest side. Budapest is known for their Turkish baths aka hot springs! We of course had this planned in the trip and needed to visit the cream of the crop for these baths. This was an other 20 minute walk to a ginormous palace looking building with a whole bunch of steaming pools right in the center!Heavennnnn. We sat and soaked for the next 2 hours in these pools full of old European men wearing tiny little speedos, ew. But it was worth the disturbing views. After relaxing it was time to keep moving and see the rest of the city.
We made a pit stop at an amazing pita place for some yummus Hummus for some much needed fuel. Then we kept walking and got some beautiful views of the massive Parliament building and across the river of the palace on the Buda side. We walked back along the river and were able to get some good sights Buda too. By this point we were so pooped, we'd literally just walked in a huge circle around the whole city. We headed back to our apartment to rest a little before deciding what to see next. Well this turned into us being so dead we layed down and couldn't get up for a good 2 hours. We were so entranced by Hungarian TV even though we didn't understand a word we were too dead to move. We both ended up falling asleep for a little too but once we woke up we knew we needed to see the Buda side and forced ourselves up to walk across the river. By this time it was a little after the sun had gone down so we had all the lights on the bridges and buildings illuminated along the river. We walked over to Buda, walked along the river and realized we were so dead still and just decided to head back and call it a night since we had to wake up so early the next day to catch our train. We were nervous because this was also the day the time changed in Europe so we were praying our phones would change and the alarms go off on time.
Lucky for us we were in the clear! Alarms off on time (4am) and at the train station just on time for our 630 departure. We get on the train and luck ducks us ended up getting our own little cabin, this meant SLEEEEP. We were so in need of sleep it wasn't even funny and we spent the whole ride passed out since we had the whole cabin to ourselves. Glorious! It was a long day since we were on a train literally the whole time but it was a nice break from all the walking we'd been doing.
We got into Split, Croatia at about 8 or 9pm and had directions to walk to our hostel. Split is located right on the ocean and we had a nice little walk to our hostel, only about 10ish minutes. Once we got to our hostel we were welcomed by the nicest person I think I've ever met in my life. This hostel is run by a precious Norweigan lady who goes by the name Ladybird. No, I'm not joking. The door was opened and we are introduced to Ladybird and she announced herself. She's a short little lady with firey red hair, that were in pig tails, she had a fluffy yellow robe with pink flowers all over it and she was wearing huge elephant slippers. Love at first sight. When me and Kelley got settled in our room we both burst out loud laughing at the sight of where we were staying- this was truly a first. All of the walls were decorated with her artwork as she paints a lot and used to be an artist in Norway, more about her life story later. But we were pooped and didnt stay up to socialize and fell asleep right away.
Next morning we get up ready to conquer as always. We were hoping for some nice weather so we could go to the beach! ahhh so we got dressed and first decided to stay exploring the old town part of Split since this is where Diocletians palace's remains are and we could get a feel for the city. The remains are AMAZING I'm mystified as to how something from the 3rd century could last this long but it's literally all still standing! But it's definitly a maze in there. The streets in the palace, which is basically the downtown part of the city, they literally built shops, restaurants,etc inside of the palace remains- very cool! We walked around, had some espresso for energy (yum), and tried to catch all of the important sights of the palace as noted by our travel guide. For lunch we found a delicious Vegetarian restuarant mmmmm where we feasted. Now that it was the afternoon it was getting nice outisde and we were determind to be on the beach. We went, got some smoothies to cool us down and headed out to la playa! Their beaches are a little different than what we're used to, not a lot of sand, but we posted up our towels and basked in the sun. It really wasn't that warm out but once we were laying there a while with the sun it was perfect! We were soon greeted by a cute little local who was going fishing for octopus. He was hilarious he had a fully body wetsuit and I can't believe he got in the water I felt it and it was COLD. But he jumped right in and soon came back out with a crab, ick. He said "no octopus- but I found crab!" So hilarious he made us hold it and then take pictures of him on his cell phone ha ha. He was funny. Soon it got kind of cold so we headed back to our little hostel to freshen up. When we got back we ended up talking with Ladybird for a while, shes definitly a TALKER. And she told us allllll about her life and the reason shes now working as "hostel mom" as we called her. It was almost heart-breaking because she told us she has a daughter who's all grown up and doesn't need her anymore (awww) so now shes in Split, happier than ever taking care of everyone! It was too cute for words. She thrives off peoples "energies" and thats how she paints too, with a little bit of everyones energy in her work. She was adorable and literally would of sat and talked with you all day if she could. In the morning she did Yoga to "wake up with the sun", she was just so happy and felt like a Mom always checking in on us which is something we've been missing for the past 3 months. We ended up just walking along the beach and grabbing something quick for dinner before heading back to our hostel to talk some more with hostel mom and sleeeeeep.
Next morning we got up and I made Kelley go for a run with me (hehe) but it was COLD and windy- sun where did you go?! But Kel made it halfway with me- yippie! But I kept going for a while along the ocean- beautiful view! We headed back refueled with some breakfast and had a hilarious discovery. Two of our friends from school here, one being Kelleys apartment mate here, were in Split the same time as us, staying at our same hostel- taking our room that night! Such a small world, but we called them and met up for some coffee on the beach front where we just ended up sitting at for a long time because it was getting nicer out and they have the most comfortable chairs ever! After this we explored a lot of the open air markets, had some delicious fresh fruits. We headed back to our hostel to pack up our things since that night we were taking a ferry to Italy that was overnight. We truly slept on every kind of transportation this trip!
Of course Ladybird ended up talking to us for a while and she was so sad to see us go- it was heartbreaking! But she of course found us on facebook and had many new peopel to replace us :). When we left she gave me definitly the best hug that I've gotten in the past 3 months since being away and it made me so happy inside. It was one of those hugs where you could tell the person truly meant it with their whole heart and it's one I'll never forget. From here we trekked it over to the ferry port to get ready for our overnight adventure!
Italy is next on the list :)
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