Hungary - Budapest

Hello my wee crumpets,

Next stop on this most lengthy journey is none other than Hungary. Heading into Hungary, our group had to split into mini-groups of four. In these groups we had to make a play-doh model of something to do with Contiki and draw five things that first come to mind when we think of Hungary. Needless to say, pretty much everyone draw a crappy diagram of an empty stomach or a ham or something. One group brought to the table something most unique and individual though - The story of Hungary. Although I can't remember the story word for word, it went something along the lines of:

This is Gary and this is Hung.
His name is Hung because he has a big willy.
Gary and Hung are in love with each other, but one day a girl saw that Hung had a big willy, so they had sex.
Hung was very angry, but also very rich, so he showed off his money to the girl and so she had sex with him too.
The girl gave birth to a child, but no-one knew who the father was, so it was named Hungary.

It may not seem like much, but combined with the dodgy drawings that went with this story, it proved to be a laugh.

The city? Budapest. Unlike how everyone on the coach thought it was pronounced, Budapest is actually supposed to roll off the tongue as Budapesh. Surely if everyone is saying it how it's spelt, you'd just accept that it's pronounced that way. I suppose not.

On our first night in Budapest, I felt like it was about time I introduced the group to The Moocher. Now, for those of you who haven't found out what The Moocher is yet, I shall explain the story. In December 2009, I was given a Christmas/Going away present from Callum and Ben for my big Australian road trip by myself. The reason they bought this particular present for me was "Just in case you get lonely, two months is a long time". It's a male sex toy made from a latex fleshy kind of substance. To put it simply, it's a rubber vagina, that can conveniently fit into your pocket. Sonja suggested that I take it with me to Europe and take pictures with it instead of the usual toys that most people take travelling with them. And so, I took it with me, and have taken pictures of it in most of the countries I've been too. You can imagine the awkwardness if I was going through my bag one day and it fell out on the Contiki coach, so to skip this awkwardness, I had to bring it out and explain the story. My open-minded group accepted it immediately and fell in love with it. She was passed around the group and fingered, fisted, shoved in a torch, broke a magical wand and slapped multiple people in the face.



In the morning, we had a group photo overlooking the city of Budapest, and everyone requested that The Moocher be present in the photo, so here it is:



Our day in Budapest was a large one, but we really didn't get a lot done. For those who don't know Budapest, it's basically two cities, just called one. Splitting the two cities is a massive river. One side is Buda and the other is Pest. Our first stop was on a big bastard mountain on the Buda side that overlooked both sides of the city and had various markets, war memorials, monuments and statues covering it. I loved it! Some of the statues were very different to the kinds that I'm used to, and they all had their own little story. This was was by far my favorite:



Down in the city, we had the day to ourselves, but due to some of the people we hung out with who needed to relieve their bowels and bladders, we found ourselves in search of some food as soon as we got there. One thing common across the entire of Europe is pay toilets. Unless you're eating or drinking in a pub, cafe or restaurant, expect to pay a fee to use a toilet. By the time we got our food and ate it, we'd eaten up half of our day already. Soon after though, we visited the TERROR museum. Inside held everything about how Hungary was involved in WWII. The museum itself was an old torture house in the war which made it twice as confronting. After a good couple hours, we made it out and took to the streets for some ice cream.

If someone were to ask me "What's the worst Ice Cream you've ever had?" I wouldn't have to think for more than a second. Hungarian Ice Cream is absolute filth. Every flavour that was available tasted nothing like what it should have. My vanilla tasted like the coconut Ice Cream Andy was supposed to get, and my chocolate tasted more like the banana version Benny Boy got. Don't be fooled by what I say though, they all had this similarity. With some discussion with everyone else who bought an Ice Cream, it seemed that there was a common trend amongst this dairy delight (or disgust). Turns out everyone's Ice Cream tasted like ass. Lesson learnt! I didn't want to risk it, so I didn't get around to trying it out, but this Ice Cream look much more appealing. Old Mate Petie had some though.



Night fall hit and the evening's plans involved a night cruise through the river to see the city from the water by night with a buffet style dinner. It was a lovely evening and most of us went back to camp afterwards for some cheap wine drinking. After a relatively quiet night in the social circle, we hit up the tents and smashed up some slumber.

In the next edition we move forth to the home of the musical legend, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Austria, where German is the language and the schnitzels are large. Moving closer and closer to Germany, the beer gets better and better.

BYE!!

The chaps with The Moocher