Free Tour? There must be a catch... 7/21/08

Wallet: Day 15
Jeans & Sweatshirt

This morning we woke up and had the least nutritious breakfast I have ever had. It consisted of a single slice of white bread and some apricot jam from a jar made of brown plastic. It didn't exactly scream GOOD MORNING! That was all that was available to us at this Hostel, pretty pathetic even for Hungary.

After eating that measly meal Loyd and I headed to a nearby square where a free tour was meeting, when I asked the guy at reception at our hostel about it he had no idea it even existed...good to know. We had already gone a few of these tours but they were usually well known by the hostel staff. We needed something to do so we went anyways. As soon as we arrived I knew something wasn't right. The tour guide stood holding up a sign that as we got closer I realized was upside down. As soon as he saw us walk up he stopped, midsentence, and asked where we were from. When I said Seattle he looked confused and looked to Loyd who answered New York. He repeated "New York, very nice" tat he would start his presentation over, much to the chagrin of the others in the group. At first it seemed like nothing when everyone sighed when he started again but it only took a few minutes before someone else joined the group and just as he did with us he started his whole thing from square one. Oh yeah, it didn't help that the guy was Hungarian and couldn't speak English outside of his prepared speech.

Nonetheless, it was a free tour so we stayed on for the first bit. About an hour in the guy pulled out a map he made in High School to demonstrate the changes in Hungarian history. That was it, final straw, I'm not staying and looking at handmade maps. I bit my tongue as looked at Loyd, looking more board that I ever thought was humanly possible. As soon as the next intersection came up, we went the opposite direction of the group. I saw a bench nearby and sat down. I saw the group walking the other way so I felt it was ok to just chill. Not two minutes into my nap I got this strange feeling that someone was looking at me so I opened my eyes. To my horror, the tour guide was standing next to me, looking at me and said "You need nap?". I have never jumped up faster in my life. Loyd could hardly contain himself he was laughing so hard. Needless to say, we rejoined the group until we could see a place to escape from. The second we saw a street nearby we ran down and turned a few corners...free at last!

We hopped on a metro across town towards Heros Square. As we started to set up for another one of our jumping pictures we caught the attention of a nearby family. As soon as we got the picture taken, the family started to do it as well. We have officially started a trend in Europe. As we walked around the nearby park we spotted the two Parisians we met in the train station the day before. They waved us over and we sat down with the two of them on the edge of a pond. Both of them had these great attitudes towards Americans so I joked with them that they weren't living up to their Parisian reputation of hating Americans. They joked with us that its not Americans they hate, its Bush...touche

The Parisians headed off to the Turkish Bath nearby, we had to head home so we split up. Before I could leave I had to change back the $300 plus I had left in Hungarian currency. As I exchanged them back into Euros I could feel myself getting ripped off. Problem was I couldn't do anything about it. We picked up our bags and made it to the station a good 2 hours before our train was due to leave. We did a Budpaest summary video and spend some time just relaxing. About 20 minutes before we were set to board Loyd jumped up from the stairs we were sitting on. A bird had just pooped on his hand. As bad as I felt for him I had to make a commotion, I yelled EW at the top of my lungs. A few other backpackers offered some wet wipes and purell. Nice people, I just stood and laughed.

We boarded the train and were instantly confused. The train is supposed to be a sleeper train but there were only two beds. A few minutes later 3 Korean kids came into cabin. He spoke pretty good English so explained to us that there we 6 beds in the cabin, the conductor would come around and transform what looked like a wall and the benches
we sat on into two more. Craziness.

A few hours into the trip the conductor did just what they said and made the room into 6 beds. I had about 10 inches between my face and the next bed. Good times. Our train was arriving in Munich at 6 AM so we tried to get to bed as early as possible. So from a train traveling through the back country of Hungary, goodnight!