well, i've been in budapest for nearly a week. i'm quite in love with the city really, and more so the hostel. if not THE best one thus far, damn close. the atmosphere is just so amazing, there's no wonder why they have a records board, with the names of (tons of) people who have stayed here 20+, 50+, or 100+ nights. people just stay, and then return. i myself was not planning on staying so long, i had really been excited to keep moving towards romania and such, but it was nice to be in a place where i really didn't need to do anything. it was quite relaxing really. i'm not sure that i even saw everything that budapest has to offer, but thats ok really. i've seen every major museum in western europe over the past 3 months, i didn't think missing one or two in budapest would be a big issue. soooo, here i stayed, relaxing on hammocks and reading and writing and sleeping in and watching movies. such is life here at the backpackers guesthouse. i will return.
yesterday, however, we did manage to head out of budapest. on this infamous records board i mentioned, there are also a number of records pertaining to a small hungarian town called EGER. records like 'most people lost in eger - 9 out of 19'.. and 'most people arrested in eger - 3'.. and 'most people sleeping in cemetary in eger - 9'.. with records like that, we HAD to check it out. aparently, the deal with eger is, that theres this valley, called the 'valley of the beautiful women', where there's an entire row of small wine cellars. so people go, and they go door to door, tasting wine, and buying up extremely cheap liters of it. sounded like fun. so a group of us, about 10 or 12, gathered up, and headed to eger for the day. well, not so much for the day, as for the early evening. you see, its a 2 hour train ride, and we missed the noon train. sooo, we get there at 5pm, and have to leave on the 8pm train to get back. not a problem really, seeing how we were all pretty silly after about 15 minutes of wine tasting. it was really quite funny to me how incredibly fast the whole thing went. but it was an absolute blast. we finished our time in eger by buying up some nearly 11 liters of wine (for like $5 or some ridiculous amount), and then being rather loud and rowdy on the train ride home. and then more craziness when we got back. what a good night.
and a fitting way to end my time in budapest here. everyone i had hung out with for about the last week took off yesterday morning, for destinations all over europe, so i figured it was just about time for me to move on as well. so move on i will. to romania. i've been talking with 2 girls the last few days about it, and they had just a wonderful time both there and in bulgaria, so i'm quite excited about it. and just recieved and email from some guys that were in vienna with me, and they should be there in brasov tomorrow when i get there. should be good times. i'm loathing the 12 hour or whatever train ride that i have to take tomorrow to get there, but what can ya do. aparently night trains are out of the question in romania (too dangerous or something), so i'm gonna tough it out and sit through the day. FUN. oh well. its time to leave hungary, so thats ok.