Kieran's Gap Year: Budapest, Hungry

Entry 5.

We arrived in Budapest at 10 pm and took the metro to the center of town. We walked for about 30 minutes until we realized that I had led everyone in the complete opposite direction. After finally pulling out our iPhones and using our precious data, we got to the hostel only to learn that they were booked. After calling about 5 hostels we finally found one about 2 miles away that said we could sleep on their couches.
That night we met a bunch of really drunk Brazilians who had an early train so they were just going to go clubbing all night and we could sleep in their beds. That night at 4 am I awoke to a Norwegian asking me why I was sleeping in his bed. Apparently the Brazilians were so gone that they didn't know which bed they were sleeping in. Thankfully the Norwegians didn't mind switching beds.
The next morning I went to the market for breakfast while jose and Guy chose Starbucks. We then hiked up a large hill to The Citadella, an old fort that was a sight of a major battle in WWII and had an incredible view of the city, except it was pouring rain. We then walked along the Danube to Országhaz, the Hungarian parliament, taking the long way to cross the oldest bridge in the city. When we got to parliament they said that they were sold out of tickets for that day, but we could come back tomorrow. (The Budapest Parliament is one of the biggest in the world and is absolutely incredible.) We also learned that the bridge we had hiked an extra mile to get to actually wasn't the oldest one, but rather the bridge we specifically avoided to get to that one. Hungry, exhausted, and wet we headed back to the hostel to change clothes.
We then went to Széchenyi-Gyógyfürfö, the biggest bath complex in Europe. For three hours we explored the multitude of pools, thermal baths, and saunas. My favorite was a 100 C sauna and right next to it was a 16 C bath tub. The ultimate Polar Bear. After the baths we went took the Metro over to the Royal Palace where we had an incredible view of the city at night and were among the only people there. By the time we got home it was already 1 o'clock and were were exhausted from walking all day so we went straight to sleep.