Good Ol' Budapest

I'd say it's been a pretty productive past few days since my last post. First, my roommate Ruben got engaged in the city square of Timisoara. My job was to scare the pigeons so that the pictures would turn out even better, but for the most part I just looked like a dork who's trying way to hard to ruin a priceless moment. He drops down on his knee, pops the question, she says yes, we all get excited; oh, and did I mention that it was jam-packed with people? Afterwards, they wanted to go get KFC and see How to Train Your Dragon in 3D at Ilius Mall, which has to be most awesome engagement celebration of all time.

The next day Danny and I went to Budapest to schedule tours/find restaurants for when the group comes over in June. We had to get up at 4:15 AM on Sunday, but we missed our train that left at 4:50 because it left 25 minutes early. And it was the only train to the next train station until 6 PM. Who does this? Seriously, why would you leave 25 minutes early at 4 AM on a Sunday? After much grumbling, we had to go wake up Ruben to drive us to Timisoara, but we made our next train and arrived in Budapest six hours later. We arrived and immediately put on our swim trunks to head to the Szechenyi Baths, which was the best thing in the whole world since sliced bread. What is it? A thermal bath where old people wear Speedos, others flaunt their belly rolls and saggy arms, and where you hear at least four different languages while sitting in one hot tub. After four hours of pure bliss, I realized that this is the reason why I love Europe.

Everything else went well. We planned everything out, found great places to eat, to sleep, and to see for when the group of 50 comes. We loved this saxophone player in Hero's Square, who would frequently play Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. We also loved the goulash at Cafe Intenzo (which, by the way, had a beautiful Hungarian waitress who was top notch). We never stopped walking around or climbing the hills on the Buda side, but it was a great experience. So we get back last night at 12:30 AM after a 9 hour journey home, and after a short night sleep we got up to do some manual labor in Susani painting some pipes. Our reward? Eating homemade Romanian food.

This weekend I'm going to Frankfurt from Friday to Tuesday to pick up a van that Ovidiu got a good deal on and desperately needs, which means we'll be driving back through not just the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, but also on the German and Austrian autobahn. I'm crossing my fingers that I could possibly drive, even if it's for just one mile, so that my life could officially be complete. Speed limits are for wussies.

And a funny story: While in Budapest, we found a super, super cheap hotel (22 Euros cheap) that even had breakfast included. Little did we know that we were sleeping below a group of very loud and very drunk Germans who would sing "Tribute" by Tenacious D, followed by deep laughter and a subsequent "Owww!!" This was all while sleeping in a room that was maybe five feet wide, on a bed that felt like concrete, all after walking around Budapest for 14 hours straight. We happened to see them the next morning, and when I say morning I mean 2 PM.