June 11, 2008Today was a long travel day. We left Villach about 8:30, and didn’t arrive in Budapest until about 6:30pm. The drive was pretty once again; we saw lots of vineyards and rural Austrian countryside. We stopped in a small Austrian town for lunch…and got gelato again! Typical cuisine appears to be more along the lines of sausage and potatoes. The guys like to call it “man food.”
I’m not sure exactly when we cross over the country line from Austria to Hungary, but when I woke up from a nap and looked out the window to see really long words with lots of consonants and accents, I knew we were close to Budapest. It’s difficult to describe Budapest; it’s definitely way different from any city we’ve been too so far. The city much more modern than anything I saw in Italy, but there are still some older elements to the city that you would never see in America. They use the Hungarian Forint for their currency, and 1 USD is worth about 157 HUF. It felt strange when I pulled out 7000 HUF for the two days we will be here. Overall things are cheaper here than in the US, which is a very nice change.
Our welcome dinner was the best we’ve had yet. We ate salad with vegetables, which everyone has been craving for a while. I can’t remember the last time I ate a serving of corn! After dinner we went exploring the area around the hotel. Unlike past cities, we are right in the heart of the city. There is a long street full restaurants, bars, and coffee shops that are very eclectic and fun to visit. We went to a coffee shop/bar called “IF” and ordered tea and coffee. I had forgotten how much I missed going out for coffee! The atmosphere of the place is great, and the best part is that they have free internet. We will be visiting them often over the next two days, that’s for sure.
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