Hi there!
First "travel diary" entry for a long time - I'm gradually getting used to the backpacking thing again!
Last night was horrific - Mrin suggested that I sleep in the airport to save some cash - my flight arrived at midnight, and since you're normally kicked out of bed by 10-ish at hostels it kinda made sense not to pay for just a few hours of sleep. I missed the last night bus from the airport (by about 2 minutes) so payed for a spot on a shuttle bus - that's the usual way to get into the city. Was planning to dump my bags in the large train station and roam around until dawn, but the train station looked closed... I ended up in a 24hr turkish restaurant/kebab takeaway and learned some hungarian while munching away. I was tired, and hostels are so cheap, so I ended up ringing hotels and hostels around 2:30 am, but most of them were not answering (what I expected) or full (arghh!!). I'm coming to realise that summer travel in Europe requires much more planning than my last stint in 2002 (because it was shoulder season). At the moment I'm planning on going on a relaxing day trip tomorrow, then I'll train out of Budapest on Sun afternoon and stay in a country villagey-place northeast. From there I'll try to travel up to the slovakian tatras, hiking hiking hiking!!! before going up to Krakow and then Prague, then probably Gdansk.
Will have to set these things in place soon - will look up timetables on the net a bit later. Will let you know what I've decided.
The place I'm staying in is a bit ugly, I'm yet to meet many people (not such a good atmosphere at this hostel but it's cheeap!!!) and it's been raining. Budapest is... well the stonework is amazing. It's nicer than Warsaw and Bratislava although doesn't yet have the character of Krakow. I'll see what the country bits are like - am planning to avoid cities a little more than I did last time I was on the continent.
I have met some nice people though. Before my hols had even started I met a kewl Korean girl on the train to Stanstead, and I spent some time with some Austrian lads - Christoph and Mandy thismorning. Tis quite annoying that many groups of Aussies and Brits are not really interested in meeting lone travelling strangers! ... perhaps lone travellers stick to western europe??? I'll have to see about that one!
OK time to look up train times. Hope you are all well! If any of you want to join me last minute in the East, let me know :-)
Posted by Sam at July 30, 2004 05:36 PM