Budapest, Hungary Day 4

Budapest, Hungary Day 4

We had to meet Josh at 11am, get food, and head to the baths. The train to Krakow, Poland was at 8pm, so things had to line up correctly. The treat of the day was surely the baths. They are situated in the park area on the north side of town and are fed by natural thermal water. The water comes out at 160 degrees F and gets channeled and piped into 20 different pools. Some are huge and some are small and the temperatures are varying. The hot springs are all around town and we decided on this specific location since it is one of the oldest and largest. Being a Monday, there were a lot of people enjoying the water, but it was not enough to make it unbearable. Once again, it was entertaining to watch the crowds.

While walking to the baths, we were again in desperate need of lunch. I love to carry my map in my hand and choose streets that might be interesting. This time we found a good one for sure. It was a little off the beaten path and we were sure of that by the lack of English speakers. First, we went into an electronics store looking for a headphone splitter and the young girl had no idea what I was asking. She pushed me off to the dude to help me, and his English was a little better. The item was way expensive and was not what I was looking for anyway. But back to the lunch thing. We love the little hole in the wall places that have great deals with local flavor. This time we found a corner shop that served meals and also had a meat counter. We saw that the prices were right and we went inside. Katherine's meal was a half a chicken and Andrew and I got the sausage and potatoes. Holy cow! The sausages were huge and immense. I have never seen a meal like that in the States. The people in there did not speak any English and ordering was a matter of pointing and nodding. I feel that is a skill we are developing and have put to much use. I guess grunts could work too, so I have to add that to the repertoire.

After that marvelous lunch, we made it to the baths. The walk was beautiful and we passed a few more monuments. This time, we actually made it past the Hero's Monument. This one was very large with many large bronze horses with men riding. We crawled around them for a while and booked it off to the baths. There were people walking the streets with towels, so we knew that we were in the right place. Yes, we took soothing soaks in the warm and hot mineral water, but our favorite was the outside pools. There were three pools with the center being the lap pool. The outer two were warm with one having some interesting features. The one that we had the best time in had a center ring with floor bubblers. Many older people were inside just chilling, but around it was a ring creating a channel of a circle. On the outside of it was a wide open area with more bubblers that come from the floor. The part that caught us off guard was when visiting the inner ring, the jets on the wall fired up and created a swirling whirlpool effect. People crowded in to join the fun. Some jumped in, others tried to go against the current, and everyone was laughing. There was one section that opened up to the outside main pool area where you could enter or exit. This made for a comical disaster of people bumping into each other. It was quite amusing to see people of all ages finding this funny, and it was so simple. My joke is that kids can go to these elaborate water parks, but sometimes such a simple thing of some water moving around in a circle can be so much fun. This lasted for around 5 minutes and then the pumps must have been diverted to blast bubbles in the open area floor. This is the part that was a little weird. The water was maybe 1.2 meters deep and the bubbles came straight from the floor. People would just stand over them and be still...... Uh , ok. The looks on people's faces was spectacular. The bubbles massage you, yes, but in a special way if you stand right over them. Some people might have been enjoying them just a little too much. It was difficult or even impossible to get on top of these jets. They were so popular, and let me tell you, those old ladies would not budge. Ewwwww!

Another neat thing was to go from the super hot sauna with a handful of ice, into the quick shower, then in to the super cold pool. The first time we did that our group of me, Katherine, Andrew, and Josh yelled like babies. It created a little scene, but the people watching wanted to see why. Once they got into the cold pool, they saw why. Who's freaking out now? Then we started it over again.... And again. We finished with a shower and hoped onto the subway back to the hostel. The Red Bus Hostel was holding our bags until we got back. Thanks!

We got a bite to eat with Josh, which would be our last time with him before we departed to Krakow. There was a little place we stopped at just by the hostel and we chatted for a bit. Then, we knew it would be close with time, and we started the trek to the train station. Josh wanted to go with us to see how the boarding would work since he would be leaving in a few days for Swiss Land. It was all good until we had to get our subway ticket. The auto machine was out of order and we had to go to the teller window. We needed 3 short tickets, which would be easy.... not! There were 4 people ahead of us and 2 were getting some kind of local year pass. This included pictures that had to be laminated and lots of money transactions. All we needed was 780 Forint worth of tickets, which is 3 dollars and time was beginning to be an issue. After a panicked wait, we got the tickets and were on our way. The 2 stops went quick, but the 8:05p.m. departure was coming up quick. We were quickly blasting through the train station with Josh poking fun. I am glad we had a little experience with trains so far. We had to find ours, and just wanted to be sure, because if we had to backtrack to a different platform, it could mean a missed train. Not gunna happen. We did make it with just less that 10 minutes to spare. We said goodbye to Josh and got inside. Whew!

We were in a 6 person couchette with a guy from Ireland, a Columbian and a Thai American. The conversations were great and we did get a little sleep during the travel across Slovakia into Poland. The Columbian dude, Luis, is an avid mountain biker living in Norway, so we had a lot to talk about.

Good times. We are now excited to see what Poland is all about.