theatre of the absurd: Budapest, part III - Salvatore bar and Ferenc Liszt International Airport

After dinner, I walked back to the hostel, where I bumped into some of my hostel roommates again - a Chinese guy my age who had just finished a master's degree, and a German guy who was in Budapest for a seminar. There were a couple other people there as well but they didn't really stand out to me. I talked to them animatedly, but had to regretfully cut this delightful dialogue short as I was meeting up with Beniamin and I didn't want to be late for that. I also thought I could buy some more forints, as I was running short.

I walked across town slowly, as Salvatore Bar was about half hour's walking distance from the hostel. I wondered at how different Budapest seemed this time round - it was the same city, but different. Though of course, that was a different year, and a different me, and different places too. Budapest is not a small city and three days apiece is not enough to do it justice, if you want to walk all over the city.

I found Salvatore Bar, and the currency exchange office, which was right across the road and offered the best currency rates in town. After having being thoroughly ripped off at Ferenciek Tere, this was a welcome change. The Hungarian woman gruffly offered me my forints, and I took my newly minted HUFs and sauntered back into the bar and ordered myself two strawberry coladas to start my evening off. After I'd taken my first sip, I thought - yes, this is it, this is the reason I flew halfway across the globe.

I indulged myself rather that day, I must have ordered about 7 glasses of the stuff. Beniamin arrived, and we had a very nice chat. He's a good kid - we don't talk at all when we're in different cities, or during what I like to call the interludes - but whenever I'm in his city I message him and we see each other. We talked a bit about travel friends and I asked him if he'd met anyone else whilst travelling that he'd met up with, and he said, no, just footnote friends that he had on Facebook that he'd never see again. 'This is the third time we've met up,' he remarked, and we both grinned.

'So see you in two years,' he said, raising his beer.

'Not that long, I hope,' I said. The thought of being away from Europe for that long horrified me.

'Well - you don't need to be in Budapest, for us to meet up,' he said. 'You know how much I like travelling for cheap, and Budapest is such an easy starting point for most parts of Europe.'

'Thanks to Wizzair,' I grinned.

'Yes Wizzair,' he said, also with a chuckle.

I went back fairly early, somewhere around 10 or 11. Beniamin was kind enough to walk me back to my hostel, which I really appreciated. I'm still somewhat wary of wandering around European streets on my own well after dark, and the bar hadn't exactly been what you'd call a straight walk from my hostel. We had a good conversation on the way back, though. When I got back most of my hostel roommates were already on their beds, and the room was completely dark, but few of them were truly asleep - most of them were on their phones, the luminescent glare of the screens reflecting their intense faces. I grabbed my gear and went off to wash, then joined them in Intense Phone Perusal, and after about half an hour stowed my phone under my pillow and went to bed.

I woke up at around 7 or 8, and decided that I'd leave the hostel around 9. I planned to take the metro to the terminal station - Kobanya Kispest - where I could catch a bus to Ferihegy, and then my Wizzair flight to Stockholm. I wasn't very happy about being on two flights within 24 hours, but there was nothing else I could do about it. I walked around the Pest part of the riverbank for a bit before heading back to the hostel and packing up. Farewell Budapest for now! I will be back, and I know I'll be back. It would actually be difficult not to go back to Budapest, not least because Wizzair is headquartered there, and it's in such a central location. I arrived at the airport well ahead of time, and walked around a bit. The aiport Wifi was sketchy and not particularly usable, but the airport itself seemed to have been completely redone - it was swankier and larger and shinier than I remembered.

I saw THIS drink being advertised, and I bought it, and let's just say it did look like the pictures, but it tasted absolutely dreadful. I managed through get through about half of it, then threw the rest away because I didn't want to do that to my body.