Day 7 & 8

Day 7

Well, we know many of you were wondering when it was going to happen, but today was officially the firstaste of the difficulties of traveling. Not surprising to 2 people who like to take advantage of an opportunity when they see one, we decided to squeeze in Vienna for the day between leaving Prague and heading to Budapest. After a really great weekend in Prague we got up at 5am to take a 5 hour train ride to Vienna. We slept on the train and woke up groggy and very hungry. Firstly, the Vienna train stop was the first weve encountered that you need to take a train to get into the city. We put our bags in a locker and take off into the city. Tim was determined to find a restaurant he read about in the guide books and while yes we did find them, they were either closed or not there. After an hour of walking around in desperate need for food and coffee and trying to avoid over priced touristy restaurants we sit down at an Italian restaurant...then Tim pulls out the guidebook and convinces us to make one last attempt to find a restaurant in the book, which makes it seem only 5 minutes away. So we leave the restaurant, minutes away from ordering a big bowl of homemade pasta and walk not 5 minutes but 20 minutes to finally find the cafe. We sit down and out comes a waiter in a full nice waiters outfit to hand us menus where the cheapest thing listed was coffee for 5 euros. Exhausted, hungry, hot, and frustrated we managed to keep it together and ate at the cafe. But, by the end of the meal, we managed to laugh and realized today was the first real test.

For those who love Vienna or have special ties to Vienna, were sure it's a beautiful city, but based purely on our moods, we decided together that we did not like it there and spent the day counting down the minutes until we could leave that evening. We did, however, find St. Peters church, which is absolutely beautiful and an amazing choir concert was going on.

That evening we made it back to the train station, missed the 6:00 train to Budapest, but met 2 really friendly American backpackers and 2 European girls who we made plans to go out with tomorrow night. Got on the next train, found our hostel (with the help of our new American friends), which at first impression was a little sketchy, but are safe, showered, and happy we passed our first travel test.

Day 8

Realizing we needed to take it slow today and recharge the batteries we grabbed breakfast from the grocery store across the street and then headed towards the Szechenyi Baths. These were about 7 subway stops away located in large city park. These baths are the largest in the world and have every type you can think off large--small, hot, cold, inside and outside. Tim made us go in the sauna 55 degrees celcius then directly into the coldest bath, 18 degrees celsius....that was an experience. For over the next fours hours we hoped in and out of bath but finally settling on a large outdoor pool that was a very comfortable 27 degree Celsius making it even enjoyable in the rain showers of the afternoon. We saw our American friends John and Carly by chance at the baths and planned to meet up with them for dinner. Tim also showed off his otterbox, waterproof case, where he made several new friends, mainly because they thought we were crazy for taking an iphone in the pool. NeverthelessTim was exstatic that we were making new friends and could talk about his iphone at the same time.

We decided to meet John and Carly outside a certain store, but we both went to different ones and thought we both were standng each other up. Finally, we met up with the and since this was Jon's second time to Budapest so he acted as the tour guide. Taking us down to the river front walking for a few hours finally grabbing a few starters and drinks at a cafe. Jon and Carly had made plans with the two local girls they met on the train and we decided to join and headed towards the club. Realizing by 3am that the club was never going to close and Kate was about to fall asleep we left the group and grabbed a cab back to the hostel--well Tim did find a gyro shop before we got in the cab.