I came to rest in Budapest

BUUUDDDDAAAAPEEEEEESSSHHHHHHHHHT!!!!! Woohoo I had finally made it. The place I had randomly chosen as a final destination purely based on the fact that a former communist country may give me a few cheaper nights out at the end of my travels. It turns out I was not wrong. On Thursday night i had a four course meal and three beers in a restaurant for about £10. Niiice!!!

Walking around the city itself was certainly an experience. Looking on all the signs the Hungarian language is a bit like when you get dealt a crap hand at scrabble or you forget to ask carol for a vowel. There's a kind of security of being in a country where you could at least attempt to pronounce what your ordering to eat or where you are going? In hungarian every word is like clearing your throat when you have a cold. I learnt phonetically how to say the following,

Say-p oh sy-med = you have beautiful eyes
Egen, hall saga von = Yes, It smells like fish
Meg.foug hah tom AH pop-shit dat? = Please may i fondle your buttocks?

Nostalgia wise i was delighted to see the C&A clothing shops are still going strong over here. Everything else was distinctly early 90's much like ................ (fill in a crap town near you live).

On a slightly more upbeat note all of these subtle differences made budapest a delightful city to visit. Out of all the places i have been it is the place i will most likely return to soonest. Buda is one one side of the Danube and Pest is on the other. Buda is on hills with older buildings whilst pest is more organized and communist as it is very flat.

On the first night i stayed in a hostel called the "red bus" as i wanted a safe haven and the name gave out images of a nice hot cup of tea followed by question of sport. That was the case and i managed to get my clothes cleaned, my body showered and made a few friends for a quiet drink. After that one night of rest i moved hostels to the 11th hour hostel to find a livelier scene. It was here i met an Australian called mike who i went for a walk with. We walked over to Buda and up the largest hill we could find. The view was pretty neat. We wandered around for a bit and this guy was dressed up as robin hood and I paid him £1.20 for 5 shots with his bow and arrow. Good value i reckon compared to the local market for bow and arrow shooting. It was another one of these cities where i walked and i walked. I have the most horrendous blisters on my feet but it was well worth it.

The evening was certainly entertaining. Everyone at the hostel was back from their day of roaming the locality and feeling the thirst that only a beer can quench. We had a good solid group of about 15 of us and we sat in the kitchen and played international drinking games. I was the resident Brit so i was determined not to let the queen down. Thinking about it the Australian's should have been doing the same haha. It was also a bonus as Ive found on my travels that American girls seem to like my British accent. I often got asked to repeat words in my cute British accent. For some reason "fire fighter" is a favourite. Its not an angle i get to use often so it was quite useful. I probably played up to it a bit much by talking about how i missed roly poly pudding with custard. Anyhow it turned out to be a ridiculously cheap night. From your local shop a bottle of beer was about 40-50p. Everything tastes better when its cheap so we drank a lot until Captain Red beard led us to a club that turned out to be a Hungarian folk barn dance. I got lost on the way home and found a kebab somewhere. I woke up in the morning in a panic about my wallet but it was hidden under my bed. Its probably a good sobering way to wake up.

Anyway that's about enough of this blog. Ive written a lot and spelt very very poorly. I have drank different beers, with different people, in different cities, in different countries. I am now at home and have enjoyed a fry up, I have a 2500 word essay in for friday, the football season for the llamas has now finished, one of my friends has left the sunday lunch radio show i do and life moves on but back to normality.

I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as i have writing it. The whole experience has made it the best two weeks ever. The people i have met have been amazing and if i retain atleast 10% of the knowledge i have gained on this trip then it will be ace. Its also nice to see that with Lloyds doubling sponsorship money ive raised somewhere between £700-800 for the princes trust. If anyone has enjoyed reading this and would like to add to that total then http://www.justgiving.com/richardlees85/ is a good place to go.

Thank you very much and hopefully cya all soon,

love Rich x

The Final Hitch

For one final day I pulled out my thumb and headed south. It only took one hop to get to Budapest but this lift was probably the most stressful one yet. The guy driving the car was a complete fruit cake. All silence had to be filled and he had no radio in his car. He quite liked beat boxing so he would occasionally go off on one and we also sang songs to each other. Turns out we both knew the pink panther theme tune so was hummed that for a good 10km. He also taught me the Romanian national anthem. In between songs we mostly shared Michael Jackson impressions. This was all taking place whilst his car ran out of oil and started making disturbing sounds. We had to crawl down the motorway to each petrol station hoping to find the right oil for his clapped out golf.

When we finally drew close to Budapest he mentioned that he would drop me off by a bus station to get into the city. I wish that had been the case. Much to my panic he pulled up along a slip road on the motorway. He wouldn't take me any further so i had to jump over a fence and get away from the motor way as quickly as possible for my own safety. It was a weird situation to be in because had no clue where I was and I cant speak any hungarian. Worse still i had not yet changed my euros into foirints. I ended up walking through these woods and i stumbled upon a small road. I followed this traffic less road for about 4 miles and i came across a small village. In this village i saw a sign telling me of a tescos 8km away so i thought if the worst happens i could probably walk to it. Luckily the village turned out to be a small town with a bank and a train station. Salvation.



Just thought id attach a great picture from last night. Budapest update tomorrow after i get home.

cheers,

Rich

The soundtrack

Ive just got back from a really long walk around budapest and im currently sat with a local beer called a dreher in the 11th hour hostel i am staying at. The hostel has its own film room where the project films onto the wall. Its a pretty random place. I helped shift a fridge for the owners earlier today. It made me feel well manly. I like to think they thought there looks like a guy who can shift stuff!! I also fulfilled a childhood dream of being shouted at by a man in a communist style hat today. I was ambiling along quite peacefully next to the parliament building when i was apprehended by an extra from goldeneye with a stern face. It turned out that i was in high security zone and i didnt have a permit. How cool is that? I complimented him on his hat and slinked away to the nearest pedestrian zone.

Budapest is a city of stark contrasts and communism hangs over the city like a dense fog. Even though its approaching 20 years since the free market took over there is still much that has remained the same. Rust and pot holed pavements are long down the list of things to fix. The result is a startiling combination of old and new. I havent been in a city with such a high amount of beggars and luis vuitton shops. Theres one women with a horizontal back and a weathered head scarf that i have seen 4 times today in different places. If anyone can remember the droopy the dog cartoons its a bit like that how she keeps popping up wherever you go. Much like subways or greggs.

Moving on I briefly wanted to touch on music that has fuelled my march accross europe.

1) My most listened too track has to be spinnin by speech debelle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Bd8d8DSDo . I can see why she won the mercury prize.

2) Another favourite has been hard sun by eddie vedderhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZbiZxA9b5k . This is from one of my favourite hitch hiking films called into the wild. It embraces the spirit of the road perfectly.



3) comedy award goes to a track by a guy called frankie knuckles. It has the most horrendous synth sandwich and walking bassline. It builds and builds and builds till this creepy voice tells us in quite an erotic way that he cant let go. Cue the whip noises. Funny stuff. Ill fish that link out at a later date for a treat.

Its bye for now. Im home tommorow so only reallistically two more days of me being a self indulgent blogger. Its embarrassing how much i enjoy it. I depise myself haha.

take care folks,

love rich x

Coffee and cake

I spent the whole of tuesday roaming round vienna with only my book for company. It was a rather odd read about a sheep that kept crawling up inside of people and using them for its own political gains. It didnt make much sense but i polished it off in a day and it is handy to have a book with you when sat in places by yourself. I was sat on a park bench at one point and an old lady came and sat next to me. I read my book whilst she just sat there gazing into the distance. This happened for half an hour without a word between us. Maybe old people have so much time they dont have to be doing stuff. Either way as soon as we started talking she discovered i was english and then she moved to another bench. I guess there is still a lot of history in europe.

I wont spend too long on vienna. Its a place i regard highly and is the prettiest functioning city i have been in. However most of my interesting stories are unfortunately fuelled by alcohol and coffee was my liquid of choice in vienna. I did however stumble across a chain of classical toilets. It was quite an experience to listen to mars whilst taking a leak. It makes the whole procedure more epic. Maybe oneday i will build my own in Sheffield playing a medly of the human league, ABC, def leppard and pulp. The other mildly suprising thing in vienna was a protest march that went through town. Ive seen communists waving red flags and chanting in Koln, A facist rally in munich (it was a bit like footage from a hitler speech) and a march about jobs in vienna. Times are not great in europe as a whole it would seem.

Anyway im delighted to tell you that i arrived in Budapest last night. It was probably my most eventful day of hitching yet. Ill fill in that story at a later date. Im off for a swim in a bath stroke spa thingy that was built when everything was in black and white.

cheerios,

Richie (every australian calls me it for some reason) xx