Continental #7 - Budapest

Fisherman's Bastion; the last time I came here was in 2014

At this point I've lost track of how many times I've visited Budapest. Sometimes travel has a tendency of blurring lines and memories. For me, this time was no different.

I spent a week in Budapest but one entry is all I have to show for it. I was very happy here, and I enjoyed my time there, and at the end nothing changed how I felt about Budapest. It has and always shall be, my Budapest. Budapest is one of those cities that you can't resist coming back to; not just because of wizzair, but because it's so beautiful. As my Budapest friend said, Budapest is different every month, and there are so many different shades of Budapest. The city's quite large and there's so much to discover and explore. What was different about this time's Budapest, to me? It was very Baroque, and straight lined, and there were a lot of roads, and kebab places. It was an easy city to walk in, but it was also very stuffy and a little hot, and I really do prefer Budapest in the winter months. In the spring and summer months it is dusty and can get extremely stuffy, and I don't like that too much. But, irregardless - it was Budapest before me and will be Budapest after me, and I don't think I have ever loved any European city as I loved Budapest, nor shall I ever love as I love Budapest. I found Budapest when I was younger and more impressionable. Maybe I would have liked Prague as well if I'd had the chance to come back again and again; but I doubt it. Budapest is so much larger, more sprawling, more baroque, more magnificent, and it's the stuff that dreams are made of.

Buda Palace

"Oh, he invaded Bosnia. I don't think I like this city after all."

The apartment we rented

St Stephen's Basilica

Cuba libre and I got a free shot here

Nepliget bus station, oh the tears and tantrums. This bus station is very new, when I was here before it was always the old, ratty, Communist version. Good going, Budapest

Nyugati train station. "There are loads more crazy people here than there are in Sarajevo."

"Sh sh sh, the way they talk is sh sh sh."

Outside of the first apartment we stayed at

Kebabs

He was obsessed over this poster

The apartment we stayed in

Continental #6 - Prelude and Budapest

I feel that I have become less eloquent of late, especially over the past few years or so ever since I started working, but I will certainly attempt to put my feelings and the things I experienced, into words. I am taking this so seriously that I've migrated my work back to my older laptop, which I find easier to type on, and by extension write on. It is difficult to maintain your train of thought when you cannot type properly and have to divert your attention to applying the right pressure on the keypad, and constantly stopping to adjust for typos. It is extremely tiresome.

I stopped to write a raw account of how I felt, and the things that struck me most deeply, in my personal journey yesterday. I was fresh off the plane and jetlagged and exhausted, I hadn't slept for 24 hours and I hadn't slept properly for about 72. I typed on my new, hard-to-type laptop, and I will not be retyping my experiences again because timing is important and I can never recapture that snapshot of a feeling or emotion again, but it was tiresome enough for me to type yesterday that I'm using the laptop I'm more comfortable with now. The words are flowing, and that owes no small debt to the fact that this keypad really is much easier to type on.

I planned this trip whilst working one of my most strenuous, fulltime jobs, and this was the longest trip I've been on yet. I've covered so many cities it makes my head spin, I have climbed mountains and seen enough Renaissance paintings and frescoes and murals to last me for at least two years. I say two years because I like Renaissance art; Caraveggio and Raphael, not to mention the incomparable Michelangelo. I haven't had enough of Italy yet, but one week this time round was enough. I got rather sick of their buses not being on time.

When I left for this trip, my soul was sick, and now it's whole again.

Budapest, of course it's always Budapest. I always return to Budapest. I saw Beniamin again, as I always do every time I come back, and it was wonderful. He took me around his uni and we met some of his friends, had lunch together at a delicious local restaurant close to the university, and one thing he said really stayed with me - "Budapest looks different every month." We then had waffles at a small but incredibly popular (and also eye-wateringly cheap) booth near to the Ferenciek tere metro station, then he went with me to the post office to enquire about some stamps. All in all it was a really nice day.

Beniamin's university

The pretty tiled roofs reminded me of Sibiu, which probably isn't surprising

Back in the hostel..

Beniamin said this was built to be a nuclear reactor, but was later abandoned

The CEU library. Probably my favourite location in the university.

Of course I had to return

Not Budapest, but Gyor, which we passed on our way to

Hungarian goulash soup

The diner where Beniamin and I had lunch