When I woke up I made two ham and cheese paninis because I had decided to try to do one packet of each per day, rather than per meal. Maybe I've gone soft, who knows. But I thought it was enough to get me through until dinner.
I walked around Buda in the afternoon, which is the more artistic and bohemian side of the Danube while Pest is the more commercial. And, I have to say, I like Buda a lot more. It feels much older, probably by virtue of it not being the commercial side, but it also feels a lot more communisty-- the buildings are taller and the streets are wider and it just feels dark and foreign. I suppose those could also be reasons to like it less, but for me it had the desired effect. In addition, the trams on the Buda side are older and feel more like an Eastern European train, whereas the trams on the Pest side feel like you're on the monorail at Disney World.
When I went back to Marvin's place I asked if I could use his internet for a little while, and he said OK. When I sat down at his desk, though, the internet was open to a porn site. Now, it was just regular porn, so it didn't officially prove or disprove the gay theory, but seriously-- he didn't think about whether or not there was porn on his computer when he told me I could use it? He was in the other room at the time, thank God, because otherwise it would have been incredibly awkward. As it is, though, I decided to go to an internet cafe from that point on.
I had two more paninis for dinner, and asked Marvin if he still wanted to climb Citadel since he had mentioned before that he wanted to. He said he was still drunk, though-- the dude is the biggest light-weight in the world-- and so he passed.
Citadel itself is an old fortress atop a hill on the Buda side of Budapest and when people talk about "climbing Citadel," they mean climbing the hill. I had heard that climbing Citadel was one of the coolest things to do in Budapest, and that sunset is the nicest time to be at the top, so I figured I had to do it.
The walk up Citadel is pretty nice, but it's a mix of path, which I like, and steps, which I don't care so much for. Incredible views all the way up, though, which is always nice.
At the top of the hill is the fortress, which is pretty cool but has been turned into a huge tourist trap-- there are street vendors everywhere and restaurants and bars line the street. Once you get inside the fort, though, it's pretty old and historic and there's a cool exhibit of about eight panels that tell some of the history of Budapest. And they're in English, which means it's the most history I had learned during my entire time in the city.
However, the selling point of Citadel, of course, is the view. And the sunset. Which is absolutely spectacular. When the sun begins to set the view from the top is lovely enough, but at 6:00 the city lights turn on and it is just an incredible moment. And when the sun is finally completely down and it's just the moon and the city lights, it's like the city is practically glowing. It's unbelievable, and maybe the most breath-taking view in all of Europe. Really.
They say that Budapest is the most beautiful capital city in Europe, and while the architecture and buildings are definitely incredible I think that "most beautiful" might be a bit much during the day. But at night, from Citadel, then you really get it. It's the ultimate "wow, I'm in Budapest" moment. You can see Buda Castle, Parliament, St. Stephen's Basilica and the Chain Bridge, and they're all glowing. It's the closest thing to a Disney World fireworks display in all of Hungary-- making it, ahem, magical.
(That's two Disney World references in one post. Never saw that coming, did you?)
When I got back down from Citadel I walked around for three hours. This was my first time really walking around downtown Budapest at night, and boy do I wish I had done so earlier. I'm serious, at night there's no more beautiful place in the world. At least, not that I've been to. The night gives you a whole new appreciation for the city.
(I also tried to talk my way into a Sausage & Palenka Festival. It cost 1500ft and I tried to talk my way into it but failed. It wasn't a language problem, I just wasn't good enough. Go figure.)
I went back to Marvin's place for my final two ham and cheese paninis-- it lasted the whole day, I couldn't believe it-- and found that the Italian roommates had returned. They said that I couldn't sleep there again, which I had expected, but I left my stuff in the apartment for the night. Which, as you all know, is half the battle.
I went back to Szimpla, which is the tourist bar I had gone to during my first week in Budapest, because I figured I'd be able to find a place to crash easily. That was a good call because I was able to talk to just about everyone. But it was a bad call because, since it was a tourist bar, nearly everyone was staying in a hostel. And you can't really crash in someone's hostel.
At one point I started talking to this one Australian girl and I mentioned that I had climbed Citadel for the sunset but wanted to climb it again for the sunrise. Since I had no place to sleep that night I figured it was as good a chance as any to do so, and she said she wanted to come too. In a drunk way, yes, but also in a this-is-my-last-night-in-Budapest-and-that-sounds-nice way, since it was her last night in Budapest. Of course, during the course of the night she went back to the hostel with some Australian guy, and that was the end of that. Unfortunate, except she had the biggest mole you've ever seen on her right cheek. So I guess you have to give her something.
When the bar closed, I had been talking to some English dudes who were in Budapest for their buddy's bachelor party-- a "stag party." There were four of them, and two were really cool and one was lame, and the other really didn't care for me. They said I could crash at their place because they knew about a back door to the hostel that I could sneak into.
Unfortunately, it was a long walk back, which gave the dude who didn't care for me time to go on and on and on and on about "fucking American" and "American asshole" and just really being a dick. And, I mean, I don't really give a damn, I really don't, but he just wouldn't shut up about it. And it was driving me nuts. So finally I say "well, at least I'm not a dumb-shit fucking Brit."
He didn't like this. And neither, it turned out, did the lame friend.
I stopped to pee in an alley at one point because the walk was long as hell, and when I got back to the main road I saw them all running away. Hell no. This was NOT about to happen. So I took off sprinting and overtook them easily because they were rather drunk, and when I did the two who liked me were happy to see me. But the Dumb-Shit Fucking Brit and his lame friend were, well, pissed. So they all got into a cab and sped off.
Now it was 5:00 or so and I was, for all intent and purpose, homeless, since I couldn't go back to Marvin's and all the bars were closed and no one was even on the streets anymore. So what did I do? What all the homeless do-- I went into a metro station.
And wouldn't you know, there were five homeless dudes already there in that metro station. I sat down with them and one of them spoke some English. He asked if I was hungry and he passed me some potatos. A little while after I was holding myself and shivering because it was freezing, and he said he had an extra jacket. I put it on, and now I was fed and warm-ish and still drunk and exhausted, and the homeless guys were talking and I couldn't really understand a word. So I started to drift off to sleep.
And the next thing I know, the homeless guy who spoke English-- and who had been pretty nice and given me potatos and a jacket-- was on his feet and, the next thing I knew after that, he kicked me in the face. I mean, a full, wind-up-and-kick kick to the face. It laid me out and my glasses flew off my face, and I reached to get them and then stood up, and then the homeless dude horse-collared me to the ground.
(A horse-collar tackle is when, in football, a defensive player grabs a dude by the shoulder pads or the back of the collar and pulls him down from behind. I mean, this dude literally pulled me down from behind by my collar.)
(Also, during this time, the two police officers standing at the other end of the station gave me a real frowing look and shook their heads, like what could they do about it. Great.)
This guy, the one who spoke English, had literally been smiling at me a minute before he kicked me. I mean, I never saw it coming. NEVER.
So I booked it out of there. At this point Fight or Flight had taken over, as it does, and quickly thinking I decided that I could have taken the guy who spoke English, and I was pretty sure I could have taken a second one. But there were five of them and I didn't like my chances in a 5-on-1 Hobo Battle Royale. I really didn't.
Once I got outside I was thinking to myself, this dude had just kicked me in the face. I was pissed. So I walked back to the station and, from halfway down the stairs, started yelling out shit to these dudes, you know, "you're fucking homeless, guy!" and "bet you miss communism now!" Just shit, because, again, he had fucking kicked me in the face.
And you know what's funny? What's funny is that, although I had meant to be yelling this at the guy who kicked me, I didn't actually check to see if he was there. If I had, I might have been ready, but I hadn't. And so when he was right behind me and horse-collared me AGAIN, boy, I had no idea. And this time it was just me and him, and he had fallen down too, and looking back I could have given him a wicked shiner. But this time it wasn't even Flight or Flight, it was just get the fuck out of there. And so I did. And I found myself a phone booth and called it a night.
************************
Three points:
1) Remember when I was in Belfast and I told that one girl about how I might die on this adventure, and she kept going on about Americans always thinking they're going to die? Well, here I was, two inches from a kick to the face shattering my glasses and one false step from a fucking 5-on-1 Hobo Brawl. THAT is how I might die in Europe.
2) Let's be real here. I was homeless for the night, I was, but I don't look homeless. Of course not, I look like a pretty affluent dude. But the fact is, I had nowhere to sleep that night and needed a warm place to be just like the homeless dudes. The problem, though, is that when you can't explain yourself in this situation, the homeless dudes don't realize that you need a place to be, just like them, they just think you're a jerk who's hanging out because he has nothing better to do. That's the risk you run when you're homeless in a foreign country.
3) Don't eat someone's food if they're probably hungrier than you. It doesn't matter how hungry you might be, just don't do it. End of story.
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