If you didn't know that a bridge connects Buda to Pest raise your hand!


Lets put it this way, I had to wikipedia this fact to prove to my family that I wasn't making it up. It is pretty crazy actually. I stayed on the Pest side while I was in Budapest this past weekend and to get to Buda, I had to cross one of three bridges-- the most well known being the Chain Bridge-- over the Danube River and wa-la, I was in Buda. However, if the bridge doesn't throw you off, the difference in landscape most certainly will. For one thing, Buda is full of greenery, is extremely hilly, and rather picturesque in almost any direction that you look. Pest, on the other hand, is pretty grey, and much more "metropolitan" with large roads and speeding cars. In fact, I thought some parts of Pest were down right ugly, but then again, it isn't as if every building in New York City is a gem either. 


Oh, but before I continue with my rant on the differences between Buda and Pest, let me tell you how my trip started off. I was meeting three of my friends in Budapest on Friday afternoon. My flight landed around 12:30 and rather than dealing with the metro and bus option to get into the city, I decided I would sign up for the group shuttle (I highly recommend this by the way!) and call it a day. Well, one would think that you can't exactly mess anything up when someone is dropping you off at the doorstep of where you are staying. Think again. I, the super prepared person I am, decided I would write down the name of the hostel, the address, the directions, what it is across from, what it looks like from the outside, and so on, so that when I got there I knew I was in the right place.


After about a half hour in the van, the driver pulled over and low and behold, I saw the yellow sign I was looking for letting me know that I was at my hostel. I looked in front of me and saw what looked like to be 100 stairs-- the hostel posted on their website that unfortunately there were 100 stairs to be climbed before reaching the "penthouse"-- and once again knew things were going according to plan. That is until a woman with black hair that looked as if it had not been washed in a few weeks, accompanied by the occasional attempt at what appeared to be dreadlocks, appeared at the front door of  wearing a grey furry bunny suit. I repeat, a grey furry bunny suit. Yes, with a tail and all. To say that I was speechless was an understatement, and to top it off I was extremely out of breath after lugging my carry on up the lovely 100 stairs, that I didn't exactly know what to do. Luckily, the bunny-lady wasted no time at all telling me that she believed I was at the wrong hostel and in fact, was most likely staying at the sister hostel just a "fifteen minute walk away". Hallelujah. I mean, it would have been nicer if she said I was staying at their sister beautiful four- star hotel, but I swear anything was going to be nicer, and cleaner, than what I had just walked into. I quickly apologized for the mistake and got out of there. As I closed the door, bunny-lady yelled out, "Well, I will probably see you tonight anyways!" UH....


More like twenty minutes later and I had arrived at the correct hostel which happened to be on the top floor of an elevator building (thank gd). However, before I made it upstairs, I first walked past the sex shop that was in the bottom of the building of where I was staying. By the time I got upstairs, I was just so thankful that a guy opened the door wearing normal cargo shorts and a normal t-shirt, and was not dressed up in any kind of furry animal costume, that I let out a huge sigh of relief and decided the bunk beds and whatever else came along with my hostel wasn't going to be that bad after all. At least not after seeing the first one I thought I was staying at.


Oh, and to my dismay, I did see the bunny-lady at a bar that night. No, I am not kidding. I noticed the strange dreadlocks, looked at her face and realized it was her-- sans the bunny suit.