I must admit that I’m becoming a bit of a Leicester Square junkie. The main attractions being the overwhelming number of tourists, the crowds and the congestion at Leicester Square tube station. But ever since Chinese New Year kicked in a few weeks ago, I’ve made every excuse to stop by to eat roast duck noodles (now a frequent patron of “China China” and “New World” restaurants) and buy my little Chinese bakery items, drink coffee while reading The Guardian in one of the myriad of Soho cafes, and browse the numerous bookstores in the area, my favourite being the enormous Waterstones near Piccadilly Circus with its thematic displays of books, and the rather hip non-struggling-independent bookshop Foyles.
I’ve had a good start to the Chinese New Year so far. Despite deliberately avoiding the masses for the actual celebrations, Chinatown looks absolutely splendid with the streets lined with criss-crossing lanterns. It’s a spectacular sight to behold, and certainly very pretty. I’ve had numerous dinners out with my relatives in Chinatown for the new year, although David was good enough to drag himself and a decent bottle of Australian red out to Woolwich for dinner at my flat.
But as a very auspicious first, I ordered in Chinese for the first time in my life. Usually when I eat Chinese in Melbourne I have one of my parents to do the ordering. While waiting for my uncle, and with my halfie-cousins sitting next to me (with apologies to David who can actually speak fluent Mandarin), I was left to fend for our table in ordering the fish, the crayfish (on noodles with ginger and spring onions), the beef hot-pot and the roast duck. I could feel the perspiration drip down my back as I bumbled along, the rather ungracious Chinese waitress repeating everything back to me in English to make sure that what I said I had actually meant. Success! The food came out as planned, and I was felt the need to call my parents to finally tell them that their son had survived in a Chinese restaurant – ordering Chinese food.
Pity the Caucasian or non-speaking Chinese person who wants the real Chinese food!
It’s been a few good weeks settling into my new role at the NHS Counter Fraud Service and I feel that I’ve managed to get a grip on what’s expected of me. It’s been a bit of a shift again for me to work on policy work which is really more of corporate services work than actual policy-wonk detail, but I’m keen to start travelling around England and Wales for the research for the project that I’m working on.
Outside work of course has been quite breezy as well. It’s starting to get somewhat warmer now, and the sun comes up earlier which means it’s not dark when I leave for work. The South Eastern trains are hell as always, and to illustrate, I have copied part of an email I sent to Rob one morning at work:
“I was in a grump this morning - me and this other girl were gunning for the last remaining seat on the train (luck would have it that someone got off at my stop today! unbelievable! never happens). She cut in front of me and got the seat. Not happy Jan. I spent the next 35 minutes silently criticising her hair (greasy), her skin (pale and clammy), her dress sense (a 30 year old chick in 80s clothing), her coat (hideously pink, lint-covered and very dirty - heard of a drycleaner?), her shoes (she's had sartorial advice from Margaret Thatcher, I suspect), her handbag (i can't believe a crocodile was sacrificed for that monstrous red thing on her lap) and her choice of newspaper (the Sun - says it all, really).
I felt better after all that and hoped she had a comfortable ride in.“
I have no qualms about being a bitter old bag about this. That girl was the deserving target of my acidic wit.
Speaking of Rob. Rob and I decided to go out to see some comedy one Sunday night and met in Leicester Square. My trains had been cancelled so I was forced to take a bus, and was late. Fortunately, eagle-eyed Rob had discovered that comedy tickets were selling for a fiver at some hotel near the Square. There was no argument when we discovered that there was a 2-for-1 deal as well on drinks. Needless to say, the beer deal was a bit too much for me – at one stage I was tripled parked with beers and getting decidedly cheery. Cheery enough to create another first – chipping in when the comedians asked for audience participation. A good night was had by all, until I missed the train home. Rob was home even before I got on the next train home.
Does anyone see a common theme here? I love trains.
I now use the Central Line to get to work which is ridiculously packed – not to mention the enormous gaps between the train and the platform. I do enjoy using the Central Line though – it’s a hell of a lot faster than the ulcer-inducing slow South Eastern Train service.
What was also fast was Alex's time in the UK. With his Uni holidays over, he was going back to Australia via London, and what better way to celebrate his last night in London with a cheapy dinner in Chinatown (yet another variation on a theme) and a night of culture. Being a Monday night, Alex had decided he had wanted to see the Phantom of the Opera. We decided that we would embark on the last-minute-cheap-ticket strategy - with success. We managed to get some £25 tickets which was great - up in the circles, but right in the centre. Unfortunately, a combination of it being a Monday night and sitting in the circle meant that we were beset upon by hordes of rude tourists who talked throughout the performance, opened packets of crisps in moments of quiet, took photos with flash illegally during the performance, and put their feet on the seats during interval. It was certainly an all class audience. I had seen The Phantom before (aged 11, in Melbourne) and had heard the music before, courtesy of parents who enjoy the music, but it was a very good performance indeed. At some points it was thoroughly creepy, but I suppose that was the intended effect. Bravo, you have made a culture-literate happy, and brought a manners-impoverished audience to its feet.
A standing ovation for all. Except for those heathen philistine neanderthals sitting behind and next to me.
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Friday, 15 February 2008
the essential vocabulary
For a while now I've been nursing a little dream in my mind - of wandering down the Danube, sunlight on my face, humming "The Blue Danube" Waltz as I amble down the river. My little dream wasn't quite fulfilled, but when 3 boys set off on an adventure to Budapest one long weekend, there are bound to be stories that go on their own little tangents. These are some of their stories.
Last Friday I bid farewell to my colleagues at the Health Professions Council - I was excited to be moving on, but I was a bit sad at the same time. Every time I move on, it's always at the point where I feel comfortable and I feel like I'm starting to make friends. It was nice to end my contract with some drinks with some colleagues at a local Kennington pub, and I'll definitely miss some of them. After working in a basement office with Gemma for a month, I'll probably be feeling rather perplexed by anything different. We've had some great little chats, many of them lamenting the substandard South Eastern trains service - we are joined by 5 others in the Fitness to Practice team who live in the Greenwich/Lewisham/Woolwich area. I've learnt a lot too - I feel more comfortable dealing with difficult members of the public, and I've learnt sometimes that despite the sad stories I read about in my cases that a job needs to be done, and to be done with a clear head without being swayed by personal circumstances. Indeed, some of the cases I dealt with covered everything and anything from drink driving, sexual assault, theft fro hospitals and some other more morbid stories which I can't mention in my blog. Ask me about it one day.
But Budapest it was. I had mentioned a few months ago to my cousin in London, David that I wanted to take a trip with my cousins - and with Alex in Leeds on Uni holidays, it was an opportune time to see somewhere not on the Western Europe map.
Our arrival at Budapest airport may have provided a clue of what was to come. Getting off the plane, we boarded buses and was driven less than 100 metres to the terminal. It took less time to drive to the terminal than to walk down the steps off the plane. Efficiency is probably not a strong point in Hungary - as EU nationals breezed through 4 immigration desks, the Australians, Americans, Chinese, Singaporeans and other assorted unhappy non-EU citizens waited for 1 desk to process us. We waited (I fumed) as I watched an immigration clerk chewed her fingernails and looked as us blankly. I then had to suffer the indignity of having the immigration clerk complain about my new chip-technology passport, which according to a British immigration official takes forever and a day to scan. Then we waited for half an hour for our bags to get driven less than 100 metres to the carousel. Clearly, EU expansion didn't taken into account German efficiency or Dutch speed.
Deciding to save money, we decided to take the local buses and trains to the city centre being careful to validate our tickets. The train was a scary old jalopy, painted in Soviet green (i.e. the colour of bronze gone wrong), but it was very fast. It was in fact so fast, that every time we came to a station we lurched to a massive shuddering brake-squealing stop. Leaving the station we were pulled aside by 3 ticket inspectors who asked to see our tickets, conveniently letting past all the other passengers except for, oh, 3 of us. I confidently passed my ticket over and the lady looked at it very carefully. She motioned over the head inspector (the biggest, fattest, most Eastern European looking one) where he was busy interrogating David and Alex. Turns out that our tickets were invalid once we had changed lines. He told us gruffly that the fine was to be 6000 Forint each, which is equivalent to something like 20 pounds each. Outrageous! That is a huge sum of money in Hungary. We tried to reason with him saying that we weren't to know - that we had already validated our first ticket and we obviously made a mistake. He wasn't backing down, and was wanting our passports (as if, buddy!). By this stage I was getting very nervous and I told the man I would show him my passport number so I could withdraw money from an ATM. David however, had other ideas. As the next wave of people came long, David pushed Alex and I to the side to have a discussion on what to do. Or so I thought. One of my cousins (I'm not going to name which one) went up to the man and made the universal sign for cash with his fingers. The man looked at him carefully. "18,000 Forint!" he demanded. My cousin countered with "I'll give you 5000". A standoff ensured. He relented with an offer of 9,000 Forint which my cousin had originally said he didn't have, but now we did. As the other officials walked towards us after checking other tickets, the man sent us packing. I ran.
Despite our little setback, we put our best foot forward to begin our adventures in Budapest. Our hostel was located in a loft on the top floor of a large apartment quadrangle. An enormous wooden door guarded the entrance to the grand old building, hiding the slightly decayed courtyard and what felt like its many secrets. A rickety old elevator took us up to the third floor, and we had to climb to the fourth floor to reach the hostel. I wasn’t particularly enamoured given my fear of heights – peering over the edge into the middle of the quadrangle was enough to make me suffer numerous bouts of vertigo every time we left or entered the hostel.
My first sight of the Danube wasn’t the giddying, twirling-around-with-open-arms experience I had wanted it to be. It was cold, overcast and windy. And what’s more, we were hungry. But crossing our first bridge in Budapest to the Buda side from the Pest side (we ended up crossing all 4 bridges in Budapest over the 3 days), I was surprised at how cold, fast and wide the Danube was. My visions of East European children splashing around on the banks was replaced with imaginations of me falling into the swirling murky torrent – ever the sunny optimist, I know. We passed the supposedly famous Gellert Baths and kept on wandering down a random street, stopping for coffee in this cute little café with a rather grumpy but bored proprietor who sold us scalding hot coffee. It was nice to rest a little and relax, despite having not really done anything except haul Mr Grumpy out from bed at 4.30am to Luton Airport.
We climbed to the top of the Citadella where we found some big monument which wasn’t particularly spectacular, with Alex stopping to buy hot wine. I have never really liked mulled wine, but the Hungarians seem to do it better than the Czechs – it was more of a nutmeg and cinnamon flavour to enjoy, rather than the Czech tartness which I had been bracing myself for. By then it was getting dark and we headed back to more well-lit areas. By the time I left Budapest I think I had said to David and Alex that there were more scary graffiti-covered, piss-smelling tunnels than I had experienced anywhere in my life.
Lovely.
The hostel was good enough to recommend a small but very cute restaurant close by, and we wandered over for a fabulous meal of goulash. Goulash, being a meat casserole style of dish is served either with potatoes or dumplings (the dumplings being more like tasteless rubbery gnocchi rather than the pork “Soi Gao” dumplings that you or I are accustomed to in Melbourne). Now I want dumplings (as in the real Chinese ones) and I’m a million miles away from Dumpling King in Box Hill. What a strange craving – never had this one before. Damned blog.
But back to goulash. Alex had a good idea to send a few postcards to our relatives, and in the course of one postcard had clearly forgotten how to speak English. As postcards are ideal places to write the traveller’s guide to War and Peace and Goulash, a sentence that was supposed to read “for dinner we ate goulash” turned out “for dinner, we goulash”. When in Rome, speak in pidgin East European English. And with Alex’s uncanny ability to imitate a Russian accent, our new motto for the day was “we goulash”, pronounced, ‘wi geulesh’. Unfortunately, with all “in” jokes, I don’t think anyone will understand what I have just written. David/Alex – are you there? We rock, because we goulash.
Walking back to the hostel, we passed a jazz bar but decided that it was a little bit too seedy and camp. Even worse, the hostel owners recommended this awful looking jazz bar to us, so we decided to check out Budapest nightlife ourselves. One recommended bar was solidly booked, and by chance the bar next door looked both classy and had a jazz band playing that night. We took a chance and went in and found our new local.
Avocado was a small bar which had a restaurant part, a bar part, a lounge mezzanine and a nightclub downstairs. At about 9pm when we arrived the jazz was intoxicating and smooth and our drinks selection matched the music. Upon looking at the prices there was no point in ordering the cheap beer and we headed straight for the spirits. For a couple of quid we enjoyed local spirits too, with roll-off-the-tongue names such as Zwack which we classed as a heavy duty chai latte. It took a concerted effort from 3 of us to finish a double shot of Zwack. Zwack may be fun to say, but not so fun to drink.
Zwack. Zwack Zwack Zwack. OK enough already.
About 3 hours later and many drinks we had racked up a bill of 11,000 forint. When we slowly did the maths in our heads (I never got there, but physicist David eventually got there) we laughed and laughed when we realised that a top night of 3 hours on the spirits only cost us 10 quid each. We planned our next round for the next night, then stumbled out the door to walk the 500 metres to our hostel door.
I have complained many times before of the loud, obnoxious hostellers who return home at 3 in the morning to discuss their drinking prowess outside the door for all to hear. Unfortunately that night, despite the best of our intentions, our muffled laughter and chat morphed into a full-blown drunken Aussie yobbo conversation which I’m sure would have annoyed even the most alcoholic of Australian yobbos. It was well past 2 before we decided that the rest of the hostel could do without our noise and racket. Apologies. Not. Now all you drunks know what it feels like to listen to inane drunken hostel chatter!
This blog is sponsored by 3M earplugs.
A restless sleep later, we stumbled out of the hostel in search for food the next morning. Setting out for breakfast, we discovered that most of Budapest was closed, and as we walked further and further we were getting desperate. Walking by the beautiful cathedral shimmering in the morning light, the appearance of oasis turned into reality. A jazz café serving breakfast popped out of nowhere, and we were starving. It was for me the hippest breakfast place I have ever been to. Dim lighting, passive smoking and black and white pictures of famous jazz musicians covering the walls added to its ambient atmosphere. I was very much unused to eating while trying not to breathe deeply, and I didn’t last long before the search for oxygen outdid my desire for funky breakfast atmosphere. We continued on to the enormous parliament building with its resplendent gothic spires, walked past various statues and walked through the island park. David and I vetoed Alex’s request to ride on a 4-seater bicycle in due deference to our dignity and masculinity, but now I am thinking that perhaps it would have been a laugh after all, despite how bad and shaky the bike looked. We shopped at the local supermarket for lunch and headed up to the castle which itself wasn’t very interesting save for the stunning views of Budapest in the soft afternoon sunlight.
That night was a much quieter night – there didn’t seem to be any concerts on to see and we had a much quieter dinner. We did however end up at the Avocado again and had a few drinks – where I rediscovered the joy of Amaretto. Mmm. Pure almond goodness.
On our last day in Budapest we found ourselves running out of time after a slow start in the morning. We had an expensive stop for tea and carrot cake in a café, but we eventually made our way to the Szechenyi Thermal Baths (that spelling is wrong, so don’t blame me if you end up at the wrong baths if you follow my advice). Budapest is famous for its thermal baths, but apparently the one we went to was one of the better ones. I was a bit nervous at first changing in front of a whole lot of gawking Eastern European men, and I was even more nervous standing in my boardshorts staring at the freezing cold pool which you had to go through before entering the spas. A men sitting on the edge motioned us in – and it was now or never. I plunged into the cold pool trying my hardest to not scream like a girl and ran out, straight into the sauna which was so hot that I didn’t even make it through the front door. By then I was now a mixture of shivering and sweating and feeling mildly ill.
All was made better when I plunged into the green thermal pool, thinking hard to stop thinking hard about the discolouration and hygiene of the baths. It was certainly relaxing, but of course, the Eastern Europeans don’t make it easy for you. Running outside into 3 degrees (where I had been wearing 3 layers of clothing, plus a goose-down puffer jacket), wet, in wet boardies and with wet hair, it was a dash to the steaming outside pool to warm up in the pool which was 38 degrees. Aaah. Signs warning us not to stay longer for 20 minutes ensured a series of us legging it between the heat, the freezing cold, the warmth in the indoors pool and then back outside again. In one pool, there was a circular partition where you entered into the jet stream which propelled you around in circles around another spa. Giggling and screaming like a girl, the old men laughed at me having such a good time. My first attempt to stop going around in circles failed as the jet streams pushed me back into the strong current. Funny but then I realised that people were laughing at me, and my inane effort to get out of the pool.
Two hours later and 10 prune fingers later, we left, smelling of thermal baths and with a clinking of coins into the turnstile as we left. Bonus! We had stayed under 3 hours which entitled us to a partial refund of our entry fee. By then we were running late and we powered by yet another hideous monument, a quick lunch of sausages, and a very careful journey to the airport making sure we validated a new ticket for each new mode of transport.
Our flight was delayed and we were getting nervous for Alex who had to catch a train to Leeds that night. Luck was on our side – for the first time ever I was the first in the non-EU line for immigration, and I had a lovely chat to the immigration official. I had written “civil servant” for my profession on the landing card, and it turns out the immigration officer had himself worked in policy for the Home Office. I explained to him what I had done for previous jobs, and I was astounded when he congratulated me for how well I had done! My jaw dropped when he said that I had a promising civil service career ahead of me. Perhaps it was my nice smile, but it was a nice change from the interrogation I usually get from British immigration.
Two hours later on the very slow train back to London Bridge (I had stupidly decided to go straight to London Bridge rather than taking the express train to King’s Cross), I was home exhausted and happy. Happy because the following day was a day off for me before I started my new job at the NHS Counter Fraud Service. A chance for me to go the West End for a cup of coffee and a newspaper, and a stop by the Chinese bakery for goodies.
Who said that money didn’t buy you happiness?
Last Friday I bid farewell to my colleagues at the Health Professions Council - I was excited to be moving on, but I was a bit sad at the same time. Every time I move on, it's always at the point where I feel comfortable and I feel like I'm starting to make friends. It was nice to end my contract with some drinks with some colleagues at a local Kennington pub, and I'll definitely miss some of them. After working in a basement office with Gemma for a month, I'll probably be feeling rather perplexed by anything different. We've had some great little chats, many of them lamenting the substandard South Eastern trains service - we are joined by 5 others in the Fitness to Practice team who live in the Greenwich/Lewisham/Woolwich area. I've learnt a lot too - I feel more comfortable dealing with difficult members of the public, and I've learnt sometimes that despite the sad stories I read about in my cases that a job needs to be done, and to be done with a clear head without being swayed by personal circumstances. Indeed, some of the cases I dealt with covered everything and anything from drink driving, sexual assault, theft fro hospitals and some other more morbid stories which I can't mention in my blog. Ask me about it one day.
But Budapest it was. I had mentioned a few months ago to my cousin in London, David that I wanted to take a trip with my cousins - and with Alex in Leeds on Uni holidays, it was an opportune time to see somewhere not on the Western Europe map.
Our arrival at Budapest airport may have provided a clue of what was to come. Getting off the plane, we boarded buses and was driven less than 100 metres to the terminal. It took less time to drive to the terminal than to walk down the steps off the plane. Efficiency is probably not a strong point in Hungary - as EU nationals breezed through 4 immigration desks, the Australians, Americans, Chinese, Singaporeans and other assorted unhappy non-EU citizens waited for 1 desk to process us. We waited (I fumed) as I watched an immigration clerk chewed her fingernails and looked as us blankly. I then had to suffer the indignity of having the immigration clerk complain about my new chip-technology passport, which according to a British immigration official takes forever and a day to scan. Then we waited for half an hour for our bags to get driven less than 100 metres to the carousel. Clearly, EU expansion didn't taken into account German efficiency or Dutch speed.
Deciding to save money, we decided to take the local buses and trains to the city centre being careful to validate our tickets. The train was a scary old jalopy, painted in Soviet green (i.e. the colour of bronze gone wrong), but it was very fast. It was in fact so fast, that every time we came to a station we lurched to a massive shuddering brake-squealing stop. Leaving the station we were pulled aside by 3 ticket inspectors who asked to see our tickets, conveniently letting past all the other passengers except for, oh, 3 of us. I confidently passed my ticket over and the lady looked at it very carefully. She motioned over the head inspector (the biggest, fattest, most Eastern European looking one) where he was busy interrogating David and Alex. Turns out that our tickets were invalid once we had changed lines. He told us gruffly that the fine was to be 6000 Forint each, which is equivalent to something like 20 pounds each. Outrageous! That is a huge sum of money in Hungary. We tried to reason with him saying that we weren't to know - that we had already validated our first ticket and we obviously made a mistake. He wasn't backing down, and was wanting our passports (as if, buddy!). By this stage I was getting very nervous and I told the man I would show him my passport number so I could withdraw money from an ATM. David however, had other ideas. As the next wave of people came long, David pushed Alex and I to the side to have a discussion on what to do. Or so I thought. One of my cousins (I'm not going to name which one) went up to the man and made the universal sign for cash with his fingers. The man looked at him carefully. "18,000 Forint!" he demanded. My cousin countered with "I'll give you 5000". A standoff ensured. He relented with an offer of 9,000 Forint which my cousin had originally said he didn't have, but now we did. As the other officials walked towards us after checking other tickets, the man sent us packing. I ran.
Despite our little setback, we put our best foot forward to begin our adventures in Budapest. Our hostel was located in a loft on the top floor of a large apartment quadrangle. An enormous wooden door guarded the entrance to the grand old building, hiding the slightly decayed courtyard and what felt like its many secrets. A rickety old elevator took us up to the third floor, and we had to climb to the fourth floor to reach the hostel. I wasn’t particularly enamoured given my fear of heights – peering over the edge into the middle of the quadrangle was enough to make me suffer numerous bouts of vertigo every time we left or entered the hostel.
My first sight of the Danube wasn’t the giddying, twirling-around-with-open-arms experience I had wanted it to be. It was cold, overcast and windy. And what’s more, we were hungry. But crossing our first bridge in Budapest to the Buda side from the Pest side (we ended up crossing all 4 bridges in Budapest over the 3 days), I was surprised at how cold, fast and wide the Danube was. My visions of East European children splashing around on the banks was replaced with imaginations of me falling into the swirling murky torrent – ever the sunny optimist, I know. We passed the supposedly famous Gellert Baths and kept on wandering down a random street, stopping for coffee in this cute little café with a rather grumpy but bored proprietor who sold us scalding hot coffee. It was nice to rest a little and relax, despite having not really done anything except haul Mr Grumpy out from bed at 4.30am to Luton Airport.
We climbed to the top of the Citadella where we found some big monument which wasn’t particularly spectacular, with Alex stopping to buy hot wine. I have never really liked mulled wine, but the Hungarians seem to do it better than the Czechs – it was more of a nutmeg and cinnamon flavour to enjoy, rather than the Czech tartness which I had been bracing myself for. By then it was getting dark and we headed back to more well-lit areas. By the time I left Budapest I think I had said to David and Alex that there were more scary graffiti-covered, piss-smelling tunnels than I had experienced anywhere in my life.
Lovely.
The hostel was good enough to recommend a small but very cute restaurant close by, and we wandered over for a fabulous meal of goulash. Goulash, being a meat casserole style of dish is served either with potatoes or dumplings (the dumplings being more like tasteless rubbery gnocchi rather than the pork “Soi Gao” dumplings that you or I are accustomed to in Melbourne). Now I want dumplings (as in the real Chinese ones) and I’m a million miles away from Dumpling King in Box Hill. What a strange craving – never had this one before. Damned blog.
But back to goulash. Alex had a good idea to send a few postcards to our relatives, and in the course of one postcard had clearly forgotten how to speak English. As postcards are ideal places to write the traveller’s guide to War and Peace and Goulash, a sentence that was supposed to read “for dinner we ate goulash” turned out “for dinner, we goulash”. When in Rome, speak in pidgin East European English. And with Alex’s uncanny ability to imitate a Russian accent, our new motto for the day was “we goulash”, pronounced, ‘wi geulesh’. Unfortunately, with all “in” jokes, I don’t think anyone will understand what I have just written. David/Alex – are you there? We rock, because we goulash.
Walking back to the hostel, we passed a jazz bar but decided that it was a little bit too seedy and camp. Even worse, the hostel owners recommended this awful looking jazz bar to us, so we decided to check out Budapest nightlife ourselves. One recommended bar was solidly booked, and by chance the bar next door looked both classy and had a jazz band playing that night. We took a chance and went in and found our new local.
Avocado was a small bar which had a restaurant part, a bar part, a lounge mezzanine and a nightclub downstairs. At about 9pm when we arrived the jazz was intoxicating and smooth and our drinks selection matched the music. Upon looking at the prices there was no point in ordering the cheap beer and we headed straight for the spirits. For a couple of quid we enjoyed local spirits too, with roll-off-the-tongue names such as Zwack which we classed as a heavy duty chai latte. It took a concerted effort from 3 of us to finish a double shot of Zwack. Zwack may be fun to say, but not so fun to drink.
Zwack. Zwack Zwack Zwack. OK enough already.
About 3 hours later and many drinks we had racked up a bill of 11,000 forint. When we slowly did the maths in our heads (I never got there, but physicist David eventually got there) we laughed and laughed when we realised that a top night of 3 hours on the spirits only cost us 10 quid each. We planned our next round for the next night, then stumbled out the door to walk the 500 metres to our hostel door.
I have complained many times before of the loud, obnoxious hostellers who return home at 3 in the morning to discuss their drinking prowess outside the door for all to hear. Unfortunately that night, despite the best of our intentions, our muffled laughter and chat morphed into a full-blown drunken Aussie yobbo conversation which I’m sure would have annoyed even the most alcoholic of Australian yobbos. It was well past 2 before we decided that the rest of the hostel could do without our noise and racket. Apologies. Not. Now all you drunks know what it feels like to listen to inane drunken hostel chatter!
This blog is sponsored by 3M earplugs.
A restless sleep later, we stumbled out of the hostel in search for food the next morning. Setting out for breakfast, we discovered that most of Budapest was closed, and as we walked further and further we were getting desperate. Walking by the beautiful cathedral shimmering in the morning light, the appearance of oasis turned into reality. A jazz café serving breakfast popped out of nowhere, and we were starving. It was for me the hippest breakfast place I have ever been to. Dim lighting, passive smoking and black and white pictures of famous jazz musicians covering the walls added to its ambient atmosphere. I was very much unused to eating while trying not to breathe deeply, and I didn’t last long before the search for oxygen outdid my desire for funky breakfast atmosphere. We continued on to the enormous parliament building with its resplendent gothic spires, walked past various statues and walked through the island park. David and I vetoed Alex’s request to ride on a 4-seater bicycle in due deference to our dignity and masculinity, but now I am thinking that perhaps it would have been a laugh after all, despite how bad and shaky the bike looked. We shopped at the local supermarket for lunch and headed up to the castle which itself wasn’t very interesting save for the stunning views of Budapest in the soft afternoon sunlight.
That night was a much quieter night – there didn’t seem to be any concerts on to see and we had a much quieter dinner. We did however end up at the Avocado again and had a few drinks – where I rediscovered the joy of Amaretto. Mmm. Pure almond goodness.
On our last day in Budapest we found ourselves running out of time after a slow start in the morning. We had an expensive stop for tea and carrot cake in a café, but we eventually made our way to the Szechenyi Thermal Baths (that spelling is wrong, so don’t blame me if you end up at the wrong baths if you follow my advice). Budapest is famous for its thermal baths, but apparently the one we went to was one of the better ones. I was a bit nervous at first changing in front of a whole lot of gawking Eastern European men, and I was even more nervous standing in my boardshorts staring at the freezing cold pool which you had to go through before entering the spas. A men sitting on the edge motioned us in – and it was now or never. I plunged into the cold pool trying my hardest to not scream like a girl and ran out, straight into the sauna which was so hot that I didn’t even make it through the front door. By then I was now a mixture of shivering and sweating and feeling mildly ill.
All was made better when I plunged into the green thermal pool, thinking hard to stop thinking hard about the discolouration and hygiene of the baths. It was certainly relaxing, but of course, the Eastern Europeans don’t make it easy for you. Running outside into 3 degrees (where I had been wearing 3 layers of clothing, plus a goose-down puffer jacket), wet, in wet boardies and with wet hair, it was a dash to the steaming outside pool to warm up in the pool which was 38 degrees. Aaah. Signs warning us not to stay longer for 20 minutes ensured a series of us legging it between the heat, the freezing cold, the warmth in the indoors pool and then back outside again. In one pool, there was a circular partition where you entered into the jet stream which propelled you around in circles around another spa. Giggling and screaming like a girl, the old men laughed at me having such a good time. My first attempt to stop going around in circles failed as the jet streams pushed me back into the strong current. Funny but then I realised that people were laughing at me, and my inane effort to get out of the pool.
Two hours later and 10 prune fingers later, we left, smelling of thermal baths and with a clinking of coins into the turnstile as we left. Bonus! We had stayed under 3 hours which entitled us to a partial refund of our entry fee. By then we were running late and we powered by yet another hideous monument, a quick lunch of sausages, and a very careful journey to the airport making sure we validated a new ticket for each new mode of transport.
Our flight was delayed and we were getting nervous for Alex who had to catch a train to Leeds that night. Luck was on our side – for the first time ever I was the first in the non-EU line for immigration, and I had a lovely chat to the immigration official. I had written “civil servant” for my profession on the landing card, and it turns out the immigration officer had himself worked in policy for the Home Office. I explained to him what I had done for previous jobs, and I was astounded when he congratulated me for how well I had done! My jaw dropped when he said that I had a promising civil service career ahead of me. Perhaps it was my nice smile, but it was a nice change from the interrogation I usually get from British immigration.
Two hours later on the very slow train back to London Bridge (I had stupidly decided to go straight to London Bridge rather than taking the express train to King’s Cross), I was home exhausted and happy. Happy because the following day was a day off for me before I started my new job at the NHS Counter Fraud Service. A chance for me to go the West End for a cup of coffee and a newspaper, and a stop by the Chinese bakery for goodies.
Who said that money didn’t buy you happiness?
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