Living on the Island in Budapest

So the last time that I posted anything I was hanging out in Bologna going back to Florence. I did end up going to Florence and I also ended up getting to see a friend from home, Dan. Florence was pretty calm that night just watched a bit of the game and finally talked to the camp I was supposed to work for and found out that they had hired too many people. It was good to just know because then I could make plans for the rest of my trip, which the decision is to go home earlier. After a quiet night in Florence the next day i went to Cinque Terre for the day. I think Cinque Terre is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The low down of Cinque Terre is that it is a national park along the sea that has 5 little villages that you get to walk to. Unfortunately, that night I had to go back to Florence because I was unable to get a place to sleep there. Anyways, Cinque Terre was the last thing in Italy that I planned to see so it was finally time to move on from Italy. On my way to leave Italy I got to spend an evening in Venice while I was waiting for my night train to take me off to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

When I first got to Ljubljana at 2 am I found out that due to a miscommunication the hostel had cancelled my reservation and that there was no room for me. Luckly, this has happened before so the lady working there took me back to her apartment where I got to sleep on the couch. When I work up in the morning I got to meet all of her roommates and learn alot about Slovenia and the former Yugoslavia. There were all very sweet people and spoke great english so it wasnt hard to communicate with them. After staying there I got to see the sights that Ljubljana had to offer. I managed to find an outdoor market where they sold fresh fruit and veggies and I hung around the big park in the city. Unfortunately, it started raining so I ended up going out to a movie with some people from the hostel! Anyways, Ljubljana is pretty small so the next day I saw the rest of the city and then decided to go out to a Slovenian rock concert. Even though this concert was in the tourist book and everything, there managed to be only 8 people there. It was pretty good though, they mainly did covers of songs in slovenian and english. For the real fun of that night you will have to look at the video that was put up on facebook where the lead singer ended up making me go up to the front and sing Knocking on Heavens Door. haha. it was pretty terrible... and there is proof of this terrible moment. Anyways after the concert it was back on the night train to make it to Budapest, Hungary.

Out of my journeys I would have to say that Budapest is one of my favorite cities (except for the ticket system with the underground... grrrr). Lets just say that when I got off the bus to get to my hostel I was standing in the middle of a park. After following the directions to the hostel I am standing in front of the Blue Danube river where our hostel had a HUGE patio to hang out on. It was similar to a reallyreally cheap resort (only 8 euro a night!) but needed a good cleaning. Either way when I first got there I met a group of crazy English guys that I went to the waterpark with. Everything in Budapest was pretty cheap. The next day I went to the museum of the House of Terrors, which was a museum about the Nazi and Communist rule in Hungary and even had the original interrogation rooms and prison cells in the basement. Anyways, that was the night that I discovered how to make cheap sangria. Needless to say, we had a fun night. The next morning was my day to see the city, mainly Buda. Budapest was a pretty quiet city and it is very clean (quite different from italy). Unfortunately, the next day I had to leave the island. This was a sad sad day indeed.

The next city that I went to explore was Prague. I understand why this city is so famous, all the buildings are absolutely beautiful. It was pretty uneventful and the one night we went to check out the much talked about bar scene. They played weird trance music but the place was full (for a monday at least) and we tried some absinth... which was not what I expected. So thats what has been going on with my trip for the last little while. I really enjoyed Easern Europe and it was a good way to get myself back to London. Right now I am in Berlin, and then I have 2 more cities left until I go to Manchester to see my friend Shai and then to London to meet my aunt and uncle to go home. Its bittersweet to be getting to the end of my trip. I miss everyone at home and excited to see them but I love travelling and I am going to miss the backpackers life. Anyways, I love hearing from everyone!