I left the hostel in Sarajevo on Monday morning and got a lift to the airport from Ivan the hostel owner, cos Bosnian people are nice like that. I shared the lift with Kim, an Australian mum of five who had was doing a Europe backpacking trip before going to visit her daughter living in Berlin. We got to the airport, which consists of one room, and tried to go through security. Wizz Air, new found budget airline, only allow one piece of hand luggage. Kim has two bags and I only have one small bag…and so I’m very sorry Mother but I did a stupid thing. She asked me to put my bag inside her bag and go through security with one of her bags. You can’t say to a really lovely woman that you’ve been chatting to for hours that you won’t help her to avoid paying a ridiculous amount of money to put her bag in the hold can you?! So anyway I jokingly said “Hope there’s no drugs in there or I’ll end up in prison like Bridget Jones did” (recently watched them all on the plane- classics) and we both laughed. I put her bag through security and walked through and of course it gets pulled up. “You have bullets in your bag” says the security woman. I’m sorry what?! Turns out Kim had bought her son some bullets from the Bosnian war as a souvenir but failed to remember that they were in this bag. I got very flustered because she had a padlock on her bag that I didn’t know the code to and tbought oh my God I’m going to get detained in Bosnia and I’ve broken the number one rule of the airport…don’t let anyone tamper with your stuff. Luckily the security woman thought it was all hilarious and Kim was so apologetic she bought me a beer and told me not to tell my mum about it. Never a dull moment at the airport.

I arrived in Budapest and found my way to the air bnb with no issues. Then I couldn’t get in. I’m just not good at technology. I tried all the combinations for the door, got really overheated and then went to stand outside Starbucks to use the wifi for free. I called the air bnb guy through whats app and he told me, in a tone that I felt was passive aggressive, that he was nothing he could do for me because the code was correct. Eventually I managed to crack it and spent a few hours downloading music and speaking to people before Carolyn came to join me. Carolyn and the bump, who is now 17 weeks. 

Most of the time we walked around and I navigated and tried to stop Carolyn from getting lost,  getting run over, getting heat stroke etc (you’re welcome Mike). Here’s some things we saw: 

The architecture is wonderful and one of the things we enjoyed the most was all the statues. They’re everywhere and they’re really detailed and have great expreasons.  We also saw the WW2 memorial for the 3500 people who were asked to remove their shoes and were then shot at the edge of the river Danube.

It was a thought provoking memorial. 

In the afternoon we went to Rudas baths, one of the thermal spas in the city. We went there because it was ladies’ day and therefore seemed like a good idea because we are ladies. Rudas baths is a weird place. Call us dramatic, and we kind of are, but I felt like we were entering into some kind of underground cult. There were a ridiculous amount of ticket choices so that took a while, and then the place is like a maze where no one makes eye contact with you and there’s a lot of rules. For example you can only swim breast stroke in the swimming pool. It took us a while to calm down and enjoy the experience but when we did we loved it. 

The women’s only part was pretty cool. Never seen so many naked women before. It was chilled. We ended up having a deep and meaningful because that was the vibe. Everything was fine until we wanted to leave and we couldn’t find our way back to the changing room. We went in and out the same entrance about five times, found another lost woman, walked through this uncomfortably hot foot bath more times than we really wanted to and eventually found our way back. Then Carolyn (yes I am naming and shaming you) locked the towel deposit receipt in the locker and this is apparently a huge crime in Rudas baths. They wouldn’t let us have the deposit, Carolyn wanted to accept it, I refused to accept it and kept on repeating the same thing about the locker until the man gave up and went to get a woman instead. Then there was a long conversation between three staff members. Surely we can’t be the only people to lock paper in a locker? Seemingly we were. Eventually we won and got the money. It pays to be persistent. 

After this I ran up and down some hills trying to catch the sunset but failed. However I got these photos:

The next day we did nothing apart from go clothes shopping and lay in a park all day. We ate some amazing food of an insane portion size at Lesco. Definitely go there it’s great. In the evening we went to check out the ruin bars but as the only one able to drink alcohol it wasn’t quite the same as the nights out we are used to! However I wore make up and a dress which is a novelty these days.

And that’s the end of Budapest really. Thursday morning Carolyn left at 3am to go to the airport and I didn’t sleep at all during the night. Probably the espresso martinis I don’t know. It’s THAT time of the month so obviously I got up depressed, on the verge of tears and told several people I didn’t want to go to Madrid. I felt paranoid no one really liked me, had a banging head ache and was now alone in Budapest. So I did what anyone with PMS would do…took an hour to leave the house after deciding my life wasn’t really worth living  and then got a KFC zinger burger with extra chicken strips and ate the whole thing. After that I felt better and walked around a lot of Budapest taking photos and mulling over my life…cue an Honorary Title song or something. Throwback.

We loved Budapest, it’s grand, it’s large, it’s cheap and it isn’t crowded. I could have spent more time there and I think I’ll go back when we can go out properly. Currently on a plane to Madrid and not feeling quite as sorrowful as I was earlier. Listened to the new episode of “My dad wrote a porno” and it didn’t disappoint. 

Oh and I spoke to my family who now all live in one house (lol) and turns out Belle is a beer lover now and the cats are all being quite adventurous.

Next stop: Madrid where there’s apparently an important football match occurring on Saturday.  Right up my street!