A long day, a hell of a long day. Packing my bags Sunday afternoon before heading into work for a 12hour night shift, my flight flew out the next day about noon. So I was more than a tad tired when arriving. Marie and I easily found our hostel. Which I might add I highly recommend; it was friendly, common areas were comfortable etc. The minor draw back is that it is on the 4th floor so that heavy luggage has to be dragged up some flights.

Budapest looks like pretty much any other typical European city, but there was a distinct lack of people on the streets and although the buildings are of the same style, they have not been well maintained over the last 50+ years leading to them appearing dusty, faded and slightly run down. Giving the whole city a relaxing, slow feeling. Budapest was historically two cities, Buda being on the West side of the river Duna and Pest being on the East. We planned on splitting the next couple of days, first day in Buda and the second in Pest.

The first night I was pretty tired so we went for a walk along the water front, grabbed a meal and headed up Gellert Hill. The city has a Rio de Janeiro type statue at the top of the hill over looking the city. From the top, there are some brilliant night time views of the city with the water front and old (well rebuilt) castle being lit up. Upon returning to the hostel, I promptly crashed and burned out not waking up until late in the morning the next day. This in its self is a rarity given when I normally go traveling I am up at the crack of dawn as to not miss anything.