A Day at Szechenyi

So let's talk about the Hungarian Language for a moment. To say, "Hello" you say "See-Ya" and to say "Goodbye" you say, "Hello". Thank You is "Goose-O-Nam" and "Thanks" is "Goosie". It's fun! If you go up to a bar and say, "T-Shirt" that means you have just ordered 10 beers. I guess that it all I wanted to say about that topic.

I slept in until 10am; I needed the sleep from the long night before. I decided that I would start my day by heading to the store to pick-up something to eat and drink. I also picked up a candy that was recommended to me called, "Turo Rudi" which was explained to me as cottage cheese coated in chocolate. It actually translate to "Cottage Cheese Bar"....or so I was told by the Hungarians at the hostel. I headed across the city to a place called, "Central Market Hall" which is a warehouse-type building that contains a large market. The ground floor had a lot of produce, the basement level had fish and meat, and the top level had cheap souvenirs and a food row. Now is as good as a time as any to talk about how cheap things are here. The answer: VERY! The only thing I saw that is expensive is mixed alcohol drinks. A pint of beer costs $3.00, roughly. The souvenirs where pretty cheap too! Sadly, I didn't pick-up anything because I need to be light and mobile. I could buy some stuff and ship it, but shipping costs are enormous! I'll have to do most of my shopping at the end of my trip. Anyway, the Central Market Hall is a cool place! I looked around for a long time and then decided to find a food vendor that made, "Langos". Langos is a popular food in Hungary. It's like a thick pizza bread that is deep fried and then they put an assortment of stuff on top like cottage cheese, garlic, olives, ham, mushrooms. Like a personal sized pizza, but deep-fried. It was good: tasty, greasy, and filling. One for this trip is plenty! It made me very thirsty and I didn't see any unique drinks so I bought a coke. Oh, when you haven't had coke in a long time and you take a sip.....oh, it tastes gooood! So sweet!

Central Market Hall

Langos

My next stop was on the other side of the city and I told myself I had to walk to work off my lunch. So, I started the long walk across town. On the way I found a post office and mailed some postcards. Honestly, I haven't been too good with mailing my postcards in a timely manner. I mailed a big stack and some of them were from the UK...and let you do the math. I got almost to my destination and I realized that I had forgotten something at the hostel. I decided that I had done enough walking a took the metro back to the hostel, picked up my junk, and then took the metro back. The metro dropped me off right at the front of my destination. I was excited! This spot I picked was because it's a Hungarian past-time, I'd never done it before, and I needed to relax. I was about to enter the Szechenyi Thermal Baths. It has 15 different pools and is one of the largest bathing complexes in Europe. I paid, about 6,000 forints (about $30) for an all access pass to the entire spa which included all 15 pools, a sauna, and a 30-minute massage. Not only have I never been to a spa before, but I had never had a massage before. I walked in and went down to the lockers. I was getting a little frustrated with the locker because I couldn't figure it out, but as I'm getting myself together who should walk by but Sam and Jake from the night before. They had just arrived. Crazy happenstance! We headed into one of the main pools which had a hot water fountain pouring into it. It was relaxing! We were in there for a while and then it was off to the sauna. I didn't stay in the sauna long since it was super hot and I also had to find out what room my massage was going to be in. I showed my receipt to an attendant and he was nice enough to walk me to the room since the complex was huge and had many side doors leading everywhere. He walked me to the other side of the complex and I got to see all the different pools. Apparently, they are all at different temperatures and some of pools have special kinds of water. Some are used for underwater exercising and the like. When I arrived in my room I was greeted by a 300+ pound Hungarian man named, Zoltán. He didn't speak a word of English. For the next 30-minutes he would be by buddy. The massage was great! Hurt at times, but it was a good hurt. I felt like a giant baking roller had just rolled over me by the end of it. It was good!

Upon retuning to the main pool where I was to regroup with Sam and Jack they had ran into some old friends. They were in the pool with Chloe and Leia! What a another crazy happenstance! We hung-out for a bit and then after hearing how great my massage was they decided to go have one for their own. The guys and I hung around in the warm pool and enjoyed the occasional hot fountain. I had jumped out to take some photos of the place and there was this one area we had yet to explore. I noticed that there was this circular-type spa in the middle of this large pool. Around the spa was another ring that seemed to have jets that was pushing the water swiftly in a circular direction. People were inside the ring just letting the water take them around and around. I went back to the guys and said, "We got to try this!" We hung out in that pool for a while. Jake really enjoyed swimming around and around in the water-jet propelled water. I enjoyed it myself! We went back to the main pool and hung-out for a while. Sam was pretty intent on regrouping with the girls, but they had been gone a long while. I finally said, "I don't want to ditch them, yet I don't want to be here all night either in case they took off. While I'd love to stay and wait I need to find out where I'm going tomorrow morning. I need to go." Sam and Jake were ready to go too and decided to head out with me.

Szechenyi Thermal Baths

Szechenyi Thermal Baths

Szechenyi Thermal Baths

Szechenyi Thermal Baths

When we got dressed we started walking down the main street toward our hostels. We decided to grab some dinner before splitting up. Sam and Jake had tried this one place a couple days earlier that they wanted to go back to so we went there. It was quite a walk, but the walk felt good after the thermal baths. We arrived at the restaurant which was called, "Vendiak". The placed looked upscale.....very upscale! I threw up my hands and said, "I don't know if I can afford this guys!" They said, "It's cheap! It looks expensive, but it's cheap food." We walked in to this classy place and sat at a table. We had some beer and some food what we chatted about our time in Budapest. We were all pretty tried from the day at the thermal baths. I decided that it was time for that Turo Rudi so I pulled it out and cut it into three pieces. Now what I didn't tell you was that they say "cottage cheese" but it's not cottage cheese. They only say that because that is the closest translation. It actually tastes like cheese cake with a hint of orange. Not too bad.

Turo Rudi Bar

A Turo Rudi

We hung out until about 10pm which was a little longer than I wanted to be out considering that I had some planning to do and that I was pretty tired. However, Sam and Jake were pretty cool to hangout and chat with. After dinner we walked down the street to our parting point. We said our goodbyes, again, and went our separate ways. I went back to the hostel and did some planning. I met a guy named Joel who was a travel writer and we got talking about this and that. We even took a run to the store so he could grab a beer and I could grab some drinks and food for the train the next day. I got to bed pretty late because I had to arrange my hostel and train to Zagreb in Croatia.

Jack and Sam

Budapest!