Hello from Budapest!

Hey everyone! Got to Budapest two days ago - no problems with my flight, the train or finding the hostel. The hostel I'm at is crazy - it's down a little side street in a residential building. There's no sign or anything, and you wouldn't know it was here if you weren't looking for it. Anyway, there's only 20 beds here, so it's quite small, and everyone hangs out - it's like staying at someone's house with a bunch of other people (who are mostly from Australia). So I'm liking it.

Anyway, about Budapest. One of the first things I did was go to the baths - it was awesome. There are several baths here - the one I went to is in this huge old building and has, I don't know, 20 or 30 different thermal baths, both indoors and outdoors, with different temperatures and water types. People who live here go often, some of the old men play chess at these permanent chess tables in the pools. I saw the hairiest back and the biggest mole I've ever seen in my life. But it sure leaves your skin nice and soft.

Oh. I also bought some realllllly ugly shoes. It was pretty funny actually - I decided to go out the first night here, and all I brought with me were my everyday walking shoes, so I figured I'd need to go get something else (some places don't let you in with tennis shoes). So by the time I got done with the baths, everything was closed, except for the crappy shops in this underground area that connects to the trains. You know - those shops that sell absolute crap. Well, there was one shoe store, not much to pick from, a saleswoman who spoke no english, and one uuuugly pair of shoes that fit my feet. Luckily they were only like 1400 forints, which means something like 7 bucks (that might be way off, actually - I can't keep the money conversions straight, and basically I've had no idea how much money I've been spending here). But yeah - they are not cute (seriously, like gray faux suede with big buckle straps in a mary jane style), and I'm not even going to take them with me. But they got me into the bar, so it's all good.

So other than that, ate a de-licious meal that consisted of a big pile of meat and potatoes. Not really my kind of meal, but it was good.

Better get out of here - the sun is finally shining. Oh, did I mention, it's warm here? Ah yes.