What a wacky but fun day! Once we arrived in the Budapest city center, we went to Fat Mama’s for lunch where I got some delish veggie pasta with Parmesan. Then we walked around and saw some sights and made our way to the hostel to check in as early as we could. We created a Google Maps checklist, you could say, of everything we want to see while we’re here, so we just have to plan the most efficient way to walk between all of our stops. I think it’s a pretty genius way to travel- doesn’t take much forethought or preparation, it’s easy to understand and pick back up the next day, and it ensures you don’t miss anything big.

Gracie and Allison took a little afternoon siesta at the hostel while I walked around some more and thrifted myself this really ugly pink jacket because I was FREEZING. When you’re walking around in rainy 36 degree weather wearing jeans (which are only making you colder because they’re sopping wet) and a thin fall jacket, with no umbrella because you didn’t even think about bringing it, it’s pretty easy to get pretty cold pretty fast. I did bring my hat, which was the only thing I had going for me.

We all left the hostel around 5:30 and accomplished a few more sightseeing stops on the 50 minute walk to the river for our unlimited Prosecco cruise. Coldest walk in recent memory: it was still raining and I’d borrowed an umbrella from the hostel in the hopes of it getting sopping wet again. However, the umbrella was broken and was honestly more of a pain for my ice block fingers to carry around than it was a hep for keeping me dry. Needless to say, we were all wet by the time we got to the cruise, but it was nice and warm (and fancy!) on the boat. I knew this in advance, but I paid $30 to sit on the boat and watch other people enjoy their prosecco as we wound slowly up and down the channel. I managed to drink maybe two glasses when I combined it with lemonade.

I’m getting really tired so have to hurry it up, but afterwords we wandered a bit looking for somewhere for a small dinner that could accommodate some slightly louder and more giggly than usual college kids. We settled on this gyro shop on a big street and proceeded to be super confusing and annoying for the guy working there. Whoops, sorry Gyro guy! After we finished, we endured some drama trying to get a taxi but finally managed to call one on Uber. Unprompted, the driver started narrating his entire life story to us, including how he almost died last year in a motorcycle accident when he ran into a bus, but how that also saved his life because one of his nurses became his girlfriend. He’s a full time driver now while he heals, but soon he’ll be able to go back to school and finish his law degree.

Things were just really, really funny during and after that but we all locked in when we got back to the room to make sure we didn’t wake anyone up.