Travel: Budapest and Vienna

Last summer, Irma and I went on a Eurotrip. We visited 9 cities. I've decided to write mini-guides to each of these. Keep in mind that as the trip went on, I sort of lost energy, so I remember a lot more about the earlier countries than the later ones.

Budapest
Budapest kind of reminded me of Barcelona - lots of pretty old buildings alongside ugly 1950s-style buildings. If I were in charge of Budapest, which I'm sure will happen soon, I'd demolish all the ugly buildings (I guess the residents would have to just fuck off) and let trees grow there and soon it would be gorgeous.

Budapest Pros/things that were fun:

• The people were really friendly. If they see you looking lost or confused, they help you right away.
• Everyone in the service industry spoke English
• It's very walkable
• You don't find a lot of religious crap here. The statues are mostly of kings, not Jesus. I like that.
• The Semmelweis Medical History Museum was fun, and it was in this very pretty residential area. It's a small exhibit, but they've got some really gorey stuff, like a chastity belt and a birthing belt and weird models. You're supposed to pay to take pictures inside, but I did not, and this fat lady heard my camera snapping and ran up to me and I told her I had no idea what she was talking about, and then she started following me from room to room. How ghey. The best thing about this museum by far is that they act like the Hungarians basically discovered medicine, like, "And here is some medicine that the Hungarians invented, and these famous Hungarian doctors were the first to treat any disease ever." You find that attitude everywhere in Budapest, like, you go to the Hungarian National Gallery and it's all paintings by Hungarians I've never heard of (to be fair, I really don't know much about art), whereas our National Gallery has all kinds of crap in it. (Can you tell I like linking things?) Anyway, their outlook is hilarious and awesome and of all the countries we visited, Hungary had the foreignest people, which I feel is the whole point of traveling.
• The labyrinths were super-creepy, just like labyrinths should be. They're under the castle and they're all damp and gross and at the end, there's this imprint of a sneaker and a sign that says it's an ancient footprint that can teach us about early civilization and then another one that asks what people 2,000 years from now will think of us. It's supposed to be meaningful, but I don't care.
• Margaret Island was pretty and crawling with Goth kids. We took some boat ride along the Danube that ended up there, and along the way, we had these audio guides we were supposed to listen to, and the whole thing was this educational dialogue between a British woman (Pest) and a Hungarian man (Buda), and Buda kept saying stuff like, "If you look to the left, you will see a beautiful new building," and Pest was like, "Oh, Buda, you always go for the younger buildings when you and I have been together for so long," and it was hilarious and not very informative.
• Their money is pretty. I saved a 200-forint bill because the guy on it was cute.
  
• The Gellert Bath was so wonderful. They've got some thermal spring and the water just made me tingly all over. Irma and I went to the women-only baths and floated around naked, and I got the greatest massage where this lady kneaded my butt and played '90s dance music.

Budapest Cons/Things I didn't like

• Their subways are retarded. I can't believe how retarded their subways are. First of all, the one you take from the airport is in this building that looks like an abandoned warehouse. I was standing right in front of it and I had to ask someone where it was. And there are no signs.
• There are too many cars, compared to other cities. Maybe if their subway didn't suck so hard, people wouldn't need cars.
• The food is disgusting. They just cover everything in paprika. There is no reason for pea soup to be red. My advice is to never eat at a place that says Etterem on it. Those places serve Hungarian food, which is inedible. Only go to places that say Restaurant.
  
• Nobody goes out at night. Irma and I would be walking back to the hostel and the streets would be completely empty. Every now and then you'd run into a group of scary-looking men, but they never noticed us. They were pretty involved.
• They're not attractive. Even the kids aren't pretty.
• They try to rip you off all the time. Everyone assumes you won't do the conversion from forints to dollars because it's kind of awkward, something like $1 is equal to 350 forints, but if you actually do the math, you get overcharged all the time.

Vienna
I don't have nearly as much to say about Vienna. The food was delicious, it was very clean, I really liked the Imperial Crypt (it was underground and it had these really pretty coffins with skulls on them and it was totally creepy), a million people dressed as Mozart roamed the streets selling concert tickets, and the Imperial Silver Collection at the Hofburg Imperial Palace is astounding (what is a duck press?). Generally, though, Vienna was pretty boring. It was too clean.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired now, and I guess I'll continue this some other time, maybe.