We're back in Western Europe, back in a cultural context I can understand, and a language I'm at least nominally familiar with (what do you mean "non-indo-european?). It's almost like coming home.

Budapest was, well, Budapesty. We didn't really do all that much. I believe I've mentioned before that we've sort of gotten museumed and cathedraled out over the past three months (and geez, has it been that long?). We wandered around the city and marvelled at how cheap everything was. And that was pretty much the extent of it.

I forgot to mention last time, that on the train ride to Budapest I'd managed to lose our train tickets in a crack in the seat. I saw them on the floor, but I couldn't get my big meaty hand through the gap, and there were no small-armed children around that I could enlist for help, so I just sort of sat there and worried. Actually, I found out that I'd dropped them when a conductor came along and asked for tickets. Mercifully, he saw me digging for them, said something in Maygyar, shrugged, and walked off. I was on pins and needles until we got off the train, but it was all good. I just didn't want to get fined again, a la Paris.

We stayed in a hostel called the Aboriginal, which was infested by Aussies, but run by Hungarians. It was really quite good, and I highly recommend it to anyone travelling to Budapest. It's probably the second best we've stayed in so far, after the Marabou in Prague. It had free laundry, that they insisted on doing for you. In fact, if you tried to do it on your own they'd fine you. It was beautiful.

We got to Budapest a lot later than we usually do, at about 10:30 at night, but we'd made our reservations by phone from Kosice. As we were leaving the train station, this big guy who looked like Rasputin asked us if we had a place to stay yet, and we answered yes. I think I would have said yes no matter what the actual truth was, since sleeping anywhere near Rasputin has never been very high on my list of priorities, you know?

We wandered through downtown Pest looking for the hostel, feeling threatened and scared, and we had a devil of a time finding it. I was expecting a big sign on the street advertising it. Instead, there was a small 8 1/2 x 11 printout saying "Aboriginal" in the window of the right building. It's a good thing we had the brochure or we'd have ended up sleeping in the street that night. We really didn't do anything that night.

The next day, we walked around Budapest. We saw the Danube, ate some icecream, and called it a day. Following that, we went to this place called Statue Park. They had taken a bunch of old Communist statues from the city and put them in a park. Pretty straightforward. We thought it sounded pretty cool, so we embarked on a public transit odyssey in search of it. A tram, a bus, a missed stop and a twenty minute hike back later, we found it. Another twenty minutes and we were done. It was, well, pitiful. We made up for it by taking irreverent pictures, but really, I was disappointed. It was a waste of time, and would have been a waste of money if the whole thing hadn't cost less than 15 Euros.

The following day we climbed a really big hill to look at the castle, and some statues, then we walked back down it and had supper at this neat little restaurant. I've discovered that it's really all about the neat little restaurants, down side streets. They're usually pretty good, and a far sight cheaper than the ones in the tourist district. We ate our meal, and left the waiter a 200 Ft tip, which, we realized later, wasn't even a euro. We went back there twice, each time making sure it wasn't him serving that night for fear of finding something inedible in our food. We tipped better those times.

The last day we spent hunting for Christmas presents and books, since we had quite a bit of money left over from not doing anything but eating and buying McFlurries (count for Budapest, five each, including four in one day). We managed to make it out of the city with six new books, three of which we bought, including Pride and Prejudice, which for some reason I've been itching to re-read, and three of which we surreptitiously traded at the hostel. I've lost count of the books I've read since we left, and I know Will is two or three ahead of me, not counting re-reads. It's been, literary.

On Friday we took the 1:10 train to Vienna, and activated our second Eurail passes. It's so nice to be travelling by pre-paid rail again, it really reduces the daily budget in a lovely way. Now we're in the historical seat of the Hapsburgs, which is really lovely, and home to more McDonald's and Starbucks than I've ever seen. We're at three McFlurries each already here, and it's only been a day.

Oh, and I nearly forgot, we were standing in the entrance to our hostel, looking resentfully at the overpriced internet terminals, when I heard someone say "Jesse?" I looked over and saw, of all people, Lindsay Bisschop. Lindsay and I went to Trinity together, and I had just heard from Matt Senft that she was in Europe right now. Turns out she was staying in the same hostel as us. Turns out, same room. Hilarious. I've been hoping to run into someone I knew from home all this while.

Current Location: Vienna, Austria