Budapest

Well, we’re in Budapest! This place is amazing. It’s just like Paris except there aren’t any French people! Seriously, the architecture is amazing. The food leaves something to be desired though.

The first day here, Friday, was pretty much a wash. I was so incredibly tired, and we tried to get into Central Pest, but the metro system got the best of us. The second day, Saturday, was some sort of national holiday. We took the metro in and watched some airshow over the Danube. It was pretty amazing actually, the planes were quite acrobatic. Basically, the whole country was just out having a good time. I can’t argue with that. I will say this though, T-Mobile and RedBull appear to sponsor this entire country. The whole thing. Yesterday at the metro, T-Mobile was handing out free Diet Coke. Don’t ask me why! I digress

Yesterday the jet lag became more of a problem. I haven’t been able to sleep through a whole night. I think our bodies are still adjusting to the time difference. We went into Pest for a little while yesterday, and had a Hungarian meal.

The apartment hunt is starting right now, and I’m a little nervous about speaking to these people via the phone. I’m afraid I might enter into a binding agreement to purchase the apartment for a goat or something. Okay, basically, if they don’t speak English, I’m not talking to them. That may seem like a narrow POV, but its really simply practical. My Hungarian sucks!

Speaking of bad Hungarian, I had to buy another digital camera yesterday, as mine malfunctioned (permanently). The lense got stuck, and the camera entered some sort of diagnostic mode and told me to turn it on and off repeatedly. That didn’t work. Anyway, we went to Mediamarkt and I got a camera there. I managed to sputter some intelligible Hungarian phrases indicating to the salesperson that we wanted to purchase the camera. I got a camera, so everything worked out well! The taxes on the thing were a whopping 25%! Its amazing what VAT does. They set up the purchase to be tax free, but I think I have to leave the country with the camera to get my money. I’d like my refund, because it would save me 20.000 HUF ($100), but it seems like its going to be one of those ridiculously complicated procedures to get it back.

Anyway, I have to go start hunting for an apartment. The dorms are like eleventy billion miles away from Central Pest, so we’ve got to Metro in to do anything.

I’ll try and post some pictures with my new camera soon.