Sorry for the incommunicado these last few days. We’ve been running around so much, I’ve had no time to get on the net. I don’t have a lot of time, we’re going out for a nice dinner tonight so I’ve got to get ready, but I’ll try to sum up. So we took the long train ride from Passau to Budapest, stopping twice for a connection. We got to Budapest on Wed afternoon and checked into our hostel at the Backpacker’s Guest House which has actually been really cool and a lot of fun people are around. We took the tram to the Royal Palace to have a look around and found out there was a wine festival going on throughout the length of our stay in BudaPest. So we of course spent the next 4 to 5 hours there, drinking wine, eating food and listening to authentic Hungarian music. THere was an accordian that almost made me cry he played so well. And this acapella group of five guys that was very good and funny. They sang Billy Jean by Michael Jackson in Hungarian! We left there to go on an evening water cruise on the Danube to see Budapest at night. The guide guy who took our money was a really laid back and outgoing Hungarian named Baliant. We ended up going out with him and his friend *also named Baliant* to drink pallinka, the typical Hungarian liquor which was kind of like vodka but flavored and not as strong, like a smirnoff. We sat on the banks of the Danube, laughing and drinking and hitting each other with sticks. On Thursday, we went to the Great Market Hall which is HUGE and has all sorts of fresh foods and souvenours to buy. I bought way too much stuff. Then we went to the Gellert baths. Budapest is known for its natural thermal baths flowing underground and Gellert is one of the nicer ones if not THE nicest, so of course we went there. We spent about 5 hours there and I had to pry Jenny from the waters so we could go see something else. There was hot water, cold water baths, air bubbles, steam rooms and a bunch of other stuff. Afterwards, we walked up to the Citadella to see the barracks and a cool statue which overlooks the city. From there, we went back to the hostel to get dressed up and eat. We couldn’t get a table at the restaurant Jenny’s mom had sugested, so we made reservations for that place which I’m going to soon, and went to a place on Castle Hill which is called Pest-Buda. It was good, but kind of pricey. I had some goulash that was delicious but still doesn’t beat lamb stew at McGann’s in Doolin. That night, I think we just went to bed after that. Fri, we got up to do the city bus tour which we meant to do our first day but hadn’t made it. It was nice, it was basically us and a bunch of old folk, but we got to see some parts of the city we might not have seen otherwise. After that, we went to the meeting point for the cave tours and almost missed it cause we took the wrong bus. The caves are huge, the second longest sytem in the world and are about an hour outside the city. The first largest is actually in Kentucky, USA. We were underground for about 2 hours squezzing through some pretty tight spots. Jenny wasn’t sure if she wanted to do it in the beginning but I convinced her and she’s happy to report that she’s not claustrophic. B) After the caves, we went out to eat at a place called Okay Italia with a couple of brits, Andy and Jess, that we met while caving. The food was really good and reasonably priced, and the company was great. Today, we meant to get up early, but we’d met some people back at the hostel when we came back home and ended up staying up till 2am talking and trying to juggle sticks. B) So at noon, we headed up to castle hill again to visit some museums which turned out to be litte more then a few rooms. We couldn’t find them at first and then Jenny said, Museum! and there was a closed door that just said Museum on top of it. We walked in and the lady turned all the exhibit lights on and gave us sheets to read and let us walk through. It was kinda funny. Afterwards, we went to the Labrynth which is some tunnels that snake through the bottom of the castle in the hill. It was kind of wierd. They’ve sort of turned into more of an existencial self realization art peice which was lame at first but it got cooler. No time to go into details. After that, we wandered around in the art gallery for a bit, then cam back to the hostel. that’s it for me, laters.

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